Expat Interview

Tell us a bit about yourself!

My name is Ruth McNeill, I’m a 45 year old Canadian woman married to an Italian man. Together we have three sons (aged 23, 21 and 7). We used to live in Germany – one of our sons is staying there, while the rest of our family moved to Italy.

Why did you decide to move from Germany to Italy?

I was originally living in Germany as I have a German mother, and I met my husband while he was working here. We then opened our own Italian restaurant here in Germany, but it was a lot of work! We then decided just to go with our hearts and move to Southern Italy, so we sold everything – the house, the restaurant, everything – and moved without jobs.

Wow! Have you since found jobs since moving overseas?

My husband found a job quite easily as he is Italian. I’m taking the opportunity to have a little break from work!

When did you start planning your move?

For us we always knew it was important for our children to be brought up in either mine or my husband’s homeland, which is why we decided we were moving to Sicily. So in a sense, it was on the cards for a while. Once we made a final decision, we started actually planning the move in September 2018.

What did your research before your move abroad?

Honestly, we just followed our hearts! When we were making our decision over which country to move to, we looked up what the taxes in Canada and Italy were, but we then just went with our gut and decided to go to Italy!

How did you choose your international moving company?

We first looked at our other options before hiring an international mover. We wanted to see if we could do it ourselves by asking people to help us, or renting a van, and so on. It didn’t seem to work out as an international move is actually quite complicated. So then we just started googling and came across websites that offered international moving services. We chose XMoveTrans in the end because their communication skills were excellent. When we contacted other moving companies, they would answer us initially if we had questions and then we would never hear from them again. XMoveTrans would answer all of my questions in the same day, their English was impeccable, they clearly cared about their customers. The service we got from Cristina was amazing and was the reason we went with them. We had such a good feeling from her, she would always answer my Whatsapp messages and gave me the feeling of reassurance.

What was included in your moving service?

We initially only booked the truck, but then we decided to book the loading service too. The service was great, they came exactly on time, nothing was broken. However, the loading service didn’t include packing, that we had to do ourselves.

What were things you didn’t realise you had to prepare before your move?

We didn’t take care of temporary accommodation as we thought the house was going to be finished and we already had so many other things to think about. We ended up booking that at the last minute and it was a disaster. Definitely avoid doing that!

What admin did you have to prepare?

My husband took care of all the documentation needed immediately before moving, but we don’t have everything sorted yet. As I’m married to an Italian I don’t have to worry about sorting out my visa, which is a big relief. Now as I’m taking time off work, I have time to look into things such as healthcare, education, but that is a nice luxury!

How was your moving day?

Moving day itself was totally stress-less, they came and did it in four hours and then the stuff was gone. I was very happy. The cost was high but it was so worth it. It was all the preparation before and after that was the most stressful, because of everything there was to sort out.

Do you have any advice or tips on moving to Italy?

Definitely book the loading service and make sure you are really sure of what you’re doing before you decide to move because it’s an earthquake on your soul. I would also recommend XMoveTrans, 120%!

Thanks Ruth! We hope you have a great time in your new home in Italy!

Disclaimer: the views shared on this blog belong only to the client. Sirelo is an independent platform and the expat testimonials provided are intended for informational purposes.

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