Around half a million people leave the UK to live abroad each year. A survey by the British Council showed 72 per cent of 18- to 30-year-olds would consider living and working overseas, with cold weather, the high cost of living, extortionate childcare, a lack of work-life balance and even poor romantic prospects among their motivations for leaving the country. The i Paper’s Expat Files follows Brits who have taken the leap and settled elsewhere, detailing the ups and downs of their journeys.
Emma Bird, 49, from Dorset, moved to Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy, in her twenties. Here she shares the many health benefits of living on the island, and why she is never lonely.
I moved to Sardinia on a whim I have never entirely been able to explain. In December 2002, I flew to the island to spend New Year’s Eve with my Sardinian boyfriend Mario. I was immediately lured in by the salty air, the soft winter sunlight and the islanders’ easy friendliness. I grew up on the Dorset coast before moving to Liverpool and then Milan for work. But as much as I loved living in Italy’s chic fashion capital, I desperately missed the sea.
Even so, it came as a surprise to both of us when I muttered the words “Let’s move to Sardinia”, in between bouts of vomiting into the steel toilet in our cabin on the rough overnight crossing back to the mainland.
