By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN
(CNN) — In 2018, Amanda Meyer Barkley left her home in Louisiana for what was meant to be a short vacation in Prague. She planned to stay for a few weeks, then return to the United States before moving on to China for a teaching job.
Nearly a decade later, she is still in the Czech capital — now in her 30s, married, and raising two young children.
Prague, a destination often called the City of a Hundred Spires, has become home.
Barkley and her husband spend their summers with their children in parks like Letná, Stromovka and Riegrovy Sady, or at the National Agriculture Museum, a short walk from their apartment. The city’s many dětské koutky — children’s play corners tucked into cafés and public spaces — make everyday life with young kids feel manageable, even easy.
“It really is just the most beautiful city with so much history…” Barkley says.
“Between the beauty of the architecture. The city itself, all of the parks and outdoor spaces… It’s clean. It’s safe. It’s just a really incredible place to live. I feel really lucky to live here.”
Eight years ago, Barkley could not have imagined this life. When she arrived in Prague in January 2018, she was in the middle of preparing to relocate to China for work. She had enrolled in an in-person teaching-English-as-a-foreign-language course in the Czech capital after learning she needed certification to secure the position in Asia.
Life-changing trip
But she was so enthralled with the city that she didn’t get on her return flight the following month.
Prague was not new to her. She had first visited in 2015 while traveling through Europe and admired the city’s famous sights — Prague Castle, Old Town Square — but felt more drawn to Berlin. “I could live in Germany,” she remembered thinking.
Back in the United States, she worked as a teacher and continued to travel, including a year in Australia. When a teaching opportunity in China came up, Prague seemed like a practical stop — a place to get certified and then move on.
It was a move that would change the whole course of her life.
She arrived in the city with just a backpack and the intention of focusing on her month-long course. But things started to unravel when she learned that, because she already had a teaching degree, the China job didn’t require the extra qualification.
Initially she felt frustrated and upset at wasting money on the airfare to Prague and on accommodation for a month. Yet she soon found herself enjoying the city, “hanging out with all these cool people.”
Pivotal moment
“So I just kind of pivoted and said, ‘What would it take for me to stay here now.’”
A few weeks later, Barkley sent an email withdrawing from the role in China. Then came the hard part: finding a job and a place to live in a city that she never intended calling home.
She took on many part-time jobs teaching and bartending before securing full-time work later that year. Starting a new life halfway around the world also meant she needed to buy new clothes so she “could wear something other than the six shirts” she’d originally brought along with her.
Things weren’t easy at first. Because the move to Prague wasn’t planned, she says, she wasn’t prepared for lean months. Needing to travel to her multiple jobs, but short of money, she lived frugally, sometimes relying on a diet of eggs and potatoes to keep costs down.
“That was definitely my toughest period, financially,” she says.
But socially, life was opening up. She formed a close-knit group of friends, many of whom she met through the teaching course. One of them was Blake, another American.
“We were just friends for a long time,” she explains. “But about three and a half years later, we said, ‘Maybe we’re not just friends.”