The version of this question nobody asks: would you move to a country whose name you can't pronounce, that doesn't speak English, where you have no connections lined up and no job waiting, and where the food smells unfamiliar in the airport? Everyone says "of course I'd move abroad" while picturing Lisbon or Berlin or Lyon. The real immigrant experience is usually Oklahoma City, not Florence.

The romance of moving abroad belongs almost entirely to people in rich countries moving sideways. Actual mass migration runs from poor to rich, and from poor to rich the texture is a janitorial shift, three roommates, and studying for a credential the destination country won't recognize anyway. So when I hear "yes, in a heartbeat" I want to ask: from where to where? Because the answer changes the whole question. A software engineer in San Francisco fantasizing about Porto is doing tourism with extra steps. Someone in Lahore or Tegucigalpa weighing a move to Toronto is making a different decision entirely - one that involves leaving the irreplaceable for the survivable.

[regression-test 2026-05-19 quizzical-leaping-creek]