Why did you decide to leave Germany?

This is for those of you who used to live here, took the plunge and moved away from Germany, but still read the forum from outside Germany. What made you decide to leave? Did you leave of your own free will, or was it somehow forced upon you? How does your new 'Heimat', in your opinion, compare to Germany? Do you regret leaving?

I'm asking as someone who is kind of undecided about getting out of here. Sure, life is cool in many ways in Germany... but I've been here so long, not sure what life is like outside the good old BRD. What are your thoughts?

No matter where you go there is good and bad you just have to find it. I hate germany as well as love it. I have bailed twice on this ship and twice have come back. In reality I am never happy where I am at and always look to the horizon. We all have to find our own happiness some folks say. Others think Two may tow is correct over tah mah tow who knows. Thankfully in Deutsch it is Tomaten with a capital T.

My husband and I (both American) moved both to and from Munich entirely voluntarily. We moved to Munich because we thought it would be fun to live abroad for 2-3 years, learn German, travel, etc. Hubby's job with a multinational semiconductor company made it quite comfortable to move abroad and eventually return.

When we left, after 6 years (!), it was with mixed feelings, but it was just time to go. Many from our circle of ex-pat Munich friends were leaving. We had an 18-month-old daughter, whom we didn't particularly want to educate in Munich and who needed to get to know her American family.

Hubby's career prospects were never as good in Munich as in the US, and indeed his own job was in continual peril there due to constant layoffs. We didn't want to get laid off and stranded in Germany to make our own way back to the US.

We weren't doing as much travelling anymore, due to having a child. We wanted to buy a house and not just rent, but that would have been unaffordable in Bavaria. We wanted to get back to the higher salary levels available in the US.

I guess it just got to the point where it made more sense to leave than to stay.

I feel the same.

Me too!

We left Germany (after having been here for 8 years) because we needed a change and going back to an English speaking world seemed like the right thing to do. So 12 months ago we packed our bags and moved to Australia.

...we are now packing our bags again and moving back to Germany and have bought a house 5km from where we used to live.

...the grass is not always greener.

Our stay in Germany was always going to be a temporary thing, since we just moved there for grad school. That said, we were ready to go when the time came. Partly, though, our experience there was not as good as it might have been otherwise, since we has very little income as students and a lot of debt, and we lived in a tiny village outside of town with no car. We left Munich to move to the SF bay area, were there for a few years, and now we're in Australia looking for a house to buy. In all honesty, any of those places could have been home just as easily as any other. Home is definitely where you make it, but to a large degree it depends on the opportunities available to you. It's usually more the circumstances of your situation that will determine which place will make you happier and not the place itself.

because I didn't believe I could get a good job here -this being the single reason. otherwise liked everything.