[Music] they say that the older you get you can never go home again especially if you travel as much as I do even though I was born in the Soviet Union and lived my first 5 years of life in Ukraine it is very clear to me now that if any place has ever truly felt like home it would have to be Canada I moved to Canada with my mother and stepfather when I was 5 years old and I grew up in a small town in rural Saskatchewan I loved living there as a kid because I
had so much space to roam around my parents weren't afraid for my safety and this was also the time before cell phones so having a vivid imagination was absolutely necessary to keep yourself entertained As I Grew Older and had some opportunities to travel I began to discover just how big and diverse our world really was I began to understand that staying longterm in my small town would not be the right choice for me because by that point that vivid imagination that I had developed in my youth was begging for more more excitement more opportunities new
people and new places and that's exactly what I got the last 15 years have been full of Adventures lots of changes in my career meeting thousands of new people from all walks of life and also seeing some pretty remote corners of the world with almost 50 countries traveled so far but what has stayed the same amidst all of this change was Canada I could always come home and feel like I was wrapped in a comfort blanket of stability while chaos was going on elsewhere in the world Canada felt like a breath of fresh air it
was never perfect but I would still say that most people I knew had a relatively high quality of life most people who had middleclass jobs were able to afford their own home have a couple of children and take a vacation once or twice a year even when I was working part-time as a waitress to make ends meet while pursuing my care creative Endeavors I don't really remember worrying that much about the cost of groceries or gas or finding a place to live I never had to wait that long to see my family doctor and finding
that new family doctor was also super easy almost anywhere I went in the country I felt relatively safe to walk the streets alone even at night when I lived in downtown Toronto so that is why it makes me extremely sad to see the state that Canada is in now Co was obviously a huge Turning Point not only for Canada but all around the world I was already running my channel full-time at that point so as soon as the travel restrictions for other countries lifted I left for long periods of time because trying to run a
business in Canada was extremely halfhazard and trying to survive on Serb wasn't nearly enough when I did come home I was extremely saddened by the poverty that began popping up all over the country that people were struggling to afford basic necess I ities and especially in the last few years that absolute Shacks of homes were selling for million dooll price tages visiting British Columbia after they decriminalized drug use in an attempt to curb overdoses was also an eye-opening experience I had been to Hasting Street over a decade ago and it was pretty bad then but
nothing could have prepared me for what it looked like now and the fact that all over the city people were openly doing hard drugs sadly I don't feel as safe as I used to in Canada especially in the big cities it makes me angry that our justice system has become so LAX with putting criminals Behind Bars especially with repeat offenders I don't have a problem with paying a reasonable amount of taxes if that money is genuinely going towards the bettering of Social Services and keeping a safe and clean public environment to be honest I don't
feel like Canadians money is being well spent especially over the past few years and as someone who has barely utilized any Social Services in the past 5 years I feel like I'm paying far more than I am receiving so it is for these and many other reasons that I have decided to see what other places might be a better fit for me at this point in time it's definitely not a goodbye forever but an opportunity to see if another place might feel more like the home that I hold in my heart surprise or or maybe
not so much of a surprise if you guys have watched me for quite some time and maybe picked up on some of my subtle hints that uh I have been considering moving abroad for quite a few years now I have basically been stealthily researching um all the different countries that I have visited in the last few years really trying to pinpoint if this is a place that I would want to move move to what is their immigration process what are the taxes like what is the lifestyle like would I enjoy my life there I have
been putting in a lot of thought research effort and money um I have been putting a lot of myself into this decision because it is not one that I make lightly as I said in the beginning of the video Canada has been my home for the past 28 29 years uh I'm 33 right now and uh moved here at like four or five years old so it has been the place that I have spent the majority of my life even though I grew up speaking Russian English is obviously my main language that I feel comfortable
in I am very much Canadian when it comes to the culture and just ways of being and of all the places that I have ever traveled to and that's quite a few now it has been the place where I feel most at home so that is why it is very bitter sweet for me to be making this decision because a part of me always did think that even if I have this YouTube channel as my main business and I travel abroad and and you know spend a good portion of the year um out of the
country this would still be my home this would be my home base this country still has the most amount of opportunities for me because it is so great I have to be abundantly clear like abundantly clear that uh I would not be where I am now I would not be in the privileged position I am now running this business being able to work from anywhere having an incredibly strong passport um if it wasn't for Canada if my stepdad hadn't brought me and my mom over from Ukraine I mean maybe in some alternate universe I could
have been living this same life or something better but uh I highly doubt it we were still middle class here in Canada you could say my dad's a farmer just being in this country you have so much more opportunity you are so much more privileged because of things like your passport and also the strength of our currency and just you know politically it has been a fairly stable country so with all of those things combined I consider myself an incredibly privileged person and a big portion of that privilege I attribute to being a Canadian citizen
so I'm not going to sit here and be like totally negative about Canada and say like this is why I'm leaving like this is terrible I hate that the government is doing that like of course those things play into it of course there are some things that I'm not happy about that uh has happened in Canada especially over the last few years but to be fully honest it is still an incredible country to live in it has so many opportunities and I would still my microphone fell over I would still prefer to live here than
most other places in the world so let's just get that out of the way that I still think Canada is incredible I think it's a great place to live I understand you know why so many immigrants want to move here and honestly I wish them the very best like like as an immigrant myself who has benefited from all the opportunities that are here in this country but you know at the same time I have paid my taxes I have paid my du so far um as all immigrants you know should so in no way am
I going to sit here and be ungrateful for that but on the other hand I also can't deny that there are a lot of things that I am not happy about uh with life in Canada and I think that will be its own video uh I'm actually planning on doing like the top 10 things that is great about living in Canada and 10 things that are not great about living in Canada in my personal opinion uh that I will do in the future so like obviously I have many many reasons that are far too vast
to get into in this video but you guys can probably guess some of them for this point in time speaking to just me and my personal circumstances this is obviously not a recommendation for other Canadians or for other immigrants who are thinking of moving to Canada like this actually might still be the absolute best place for you so you know to each their own but for me personally I have just researched and went over the numbers so many times times and all the different scenarios of what could potentially play out and it just makes so
much sense guys like the more I really looked into it it really makes so much sense for my business at this point in my life to at least try and move abroad cuz obviously I don't know if it's going to be successful I don't know how it's going to go I don't know if I will absolutely love my new life there who knows like maybe I will come back to Canada right away and be like I wish I would have never left this is really the place for me but I feel like being at the
age I am like this is a great time to at least try so I know you're all probably wondering like where is she going why hasn't she actually said which country she has chosen to move to and that is because I don't want to J it uh I do not have the paperwork and Visa just yet I was actually going to hold off on making this video until I had everything set in stone but it is just taking a bit of a longer time than I anticipated and I also realized that me going through the
process like sharing all of my insights that I have learned especially over the past 6 months with you guys all of the factors that I considered to becoming a non-resident and which places I contemplated living in I just thought that this could be a cool Series in and of itself I think I may as well start now and then once I actually have the Visa which should be I hope in the next couple of months then I will share with you guys the place that I chose but at the same time you know you you
never know how life could go something could happen and maybe I have to start all over again and choose another place cuz you know there isn't any guarantees so I don't want to jinx it I don't want to say I'm moving here until I actually am but in the process I will take you guys through the Journey that it has taken to get to this place my own personal opinion about you know whether life in Canada might be for you or not what kind of other places might be a good consideration if you're somebody who
has been thinking of moving abroad and how you would actually go about it cuz I don't think most people realize um just how much goes into moving your life abroad like it is not a decision that you can make overnight and just move at least not for most people and at least not you know they wouldn't have the proper paperwork uh if they did that so I think this will be such a great journey that I can take you guys on I hope you will find it interesting but of course if it's not your thing
like not to worry uh once I'm actually situated in my new place I will have so many new countries to explore for my regularly scheduled travel sort of content so don't you worry if this whole portion of my life isn't really of interest to you I will still have my regular sort of stuff coming up in the future but for those of you who are interested and I hope it will be the majority of you um in this big new chapter in my life I'm really excited to take you along for the process so thank
you guys so much for tuning in I hope you're excited for me I'm excited for me this is going to be just such a big change in my life and I think it is going to be for the best I said I don't know if it will be forever or for just a period but either way I feel like I am living my best life to even have this opportunity and to just see what happens you know it is all about the journey it's not about the destination it is about the journey so thank you
guys so much for your support I would love to know your thoughts in the comments and as always I'm sending you so much love and keep being your own kind of beauti beautiful bye guys [Music]
