By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN
(CNN) — Living within walking distance of the mountains of Bavaria, Molly Williams never misses an opportunity to go hiking.
She has hiked all over the Alpine landscapes around her home in southern Germany, in the pretty town of Allgäu near Munich, as well as the trails of the Dolomite mountains, over the border in northeastern Italy.
Today, she feels at home in this corner of the world. But 15 years ago, having never visited before, it was unknown to her. She’d grown up in Michigan and was living in Portland Oregon.
That didn’t stop her taking the leap to move here with her son, then aged eight.
“When I look back, I think I must have been crazy to take that leap,” Williams tells CNN. “But it really has proven to be one of the best decisions of my life.”
She now feels a sense of calm that she never experienced while living in the US. She’s married to a German and her son, now in his early 20s, is thriving. Williams works for a global industrial company.
“I feel like there’s a lot of noise in the United States,” she says. “And here, things just feel more real and grounded.”
But her move wasn’t an overnight success. Williams experienced problems settling in during her early days, but now feels she’s in the right place.
“I like being here,” she says. “I like the rhythm, and it smells like home to me.”
‘Best decision’
The seemingly sudden decision to move to Europe was actually many years in the making. She spent her early years in Germany, having been born there when her father was in the US military and stationed in the country and her mother was teaching there. The family returned to the United States when she was around three.
“In many ways, Germany has been both the beginning and the second chapter of my life, first as the child of Americans abroad, and later as an American rebuilding a life overseas with my own son,” Williams says.
Originally, she had been on track to spend her life in the United States, after going to college, building a successful career and starting a family.
Later, divorced and bringing up her child alone, Williams says she soon realized she wouldn’t be able to provide her son with the type of life that she wanted, so she started looking for “opportunities” outside of the US.
“I was a mid-level income professional in the United States,” she says. “And I feel I still couldn’t make it work the way I wanted to.”
Exhausted by the pressure of having to balance work, childcare, healthcare and finances, she felt unsupported as a single parent.
“I wasn’t feeling at home in the US,” she says. “I didn’t feel like there was the infrastructure to support being the type of parent I wanted to be.”
Researching potential relocation destinations, she liked the look of Germany’s minimum vacation policies and was intrigued by its education system — especially its embrace of nature and the outdoors, as well as its reputation for engineering and technology.
She felt that moving to the country could be a great opportunity for her son to become fluent in multiple languages.
Above all, she hoped Germany might be able to offer her the kind of lifestyle she’d hoped for.
Feeling emboldened, Williams, called a Germany-based company to enquire about potential opportunities and was offered a position.
Safety net
“They said, ‘Well, we’d actually like to move you to Munich.’ And I jumped at that opportunity… And three months later, I was relocating here.”
Williams arrived in Munich in 2012 with six suitcases, one filled with nearly 40 pounds of Lego bricks, and went on to move into an apartment in Glockenbachviertel, a vibrant Munich neighborhood.
The cost of relocating came to around 15,000 euros, which is roughly $17,451.
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