Perfect SMALL CITY for American Expats to Live in Europe (on a $2000 budget)

If you’re looking for a small city in a fully developed country that’s also affordable, this may be the perfect location!

We spent a month in Dijon, France to see if it we might want to live there, and it may be our new favorite place!

The cost of living is surprisingly low compared to the benefits and overall quality of life. And if you love wine and mustard as much as we do, you may never want to leave!

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welcome to djon France we’ve been here for a month and it may be our new favorite place today we’re exploring why this location may be the perfect place for American expats who want to live in France on a budget the is located about 90 minutes from Paris by high-speed train in the bergundy region it’s a small city with the population of about 164,000 people we are starting our day in Darcy Garden or jardon Dar we’re going to take you on the famous owl walk which starts right here at that square right by behind me also known in French of course as the r DEET and we’re going to share the factors that make the city so livable one of my favorite things about Deon is the walkability the sidewalks are really wide and flat we have walked all over the city and found it very easy to get around the public transportation is also nice they have this nice pedestrian area down here in the center of town and there’s a little free electric bus that runs right through the middle you can Hop On Hop off of that which is nice they also have a bus system here in town but if you don’t want to do that they have this awesome tram you can hear dinging in the background and here it comes right on Q we actually took uh an Uber out to the mall that’s kind of on the outskirts of town and it was kind of expensive it cost €20 just to go from the center of town here out into the BBS where the mall is located but the tram goes right there this tram right here behind me that you can see goes right there to that mall and it was only a a EUR 40 to come back each ticket so it was €280 for the two of us to come all the way back into the center of town the high-speed train station is also pretty close to here you could actually walk here it’s maybe 10 or 15 minute walk and that will take you all over France and we’re going to talk about that a little bit more when we talk about the day trips that you can take from dejon find the owl marker I did let’s follow it all right it goes through that Arch right there the Bri colors just like you like it yes that looks very relaxing it’s a lot quieter on the street I’m liking it said Iron Man is for sale can we have him I don’t think it’ll fit the [Music] suitcase yeah we lost the alow markers again they’re a little elusive they are especially when there’s a lot of people around it also so much to look at so I’m looking up and not down Dijon is a food and wine lovers paradise and of course it is famous for its mustard pardon me would you have any gray ppon but of course great Pon it even has wine the city is internationally known for its wine and its cuisine there are several Michelin star restaurants here that are a little bit out of our budget so if you can’t afford it like we can’t there’s a nice variety of other types of restaurants here as well including several Indian restaurants which really enjoyed can you reach it you need me to give you a boost I can reach it the his Legend is you supposed to rub the owl for good luck so JP you need to rub the owl too thewe all right here we go I can reach it Jack that’s not rough patting yes not he’s a nice [Music] owl the historic Center here in Dean is a UNESCO world heritage site and it is easy to see why the archit is just stunning there’s a lot of buildings from the medieval period including notredam it’s a famous Gothic Cathedral right here in the heart of town yeah it’s been really fun taking the owl walk and seeing all the different historical monuments and just learning more about the area and enjoying the stunning architecture and if you like museums there are a lot of museums around here too and most of them are free the ow walk that we’re doing right now actually walks you right by a lot of the historical landmarks in the city center here you can buy a map for €4 which would kind of wish we had done because we’ve lost the owl marker several times but we’re really enjoying our walk so far pardon me would you have any great poop but of course oh thank [Music] you we reached that fork in the road I see that but I think we want to go this way the main owl Trail takes an hour long 22 stops and then I read that there’s two different offshoots I’m assuming this is letter A that’s one of the offshoots one challenge you might have as an American living here is the language barrier it is real it’s a smaller City in the central part of France and you’re not going to find nearly as many English speakers as you do in the larger cities like Paris and Leon however we have found a lot of English speakers in the restaurants and service businesses the shops uh we bought a new hat and the lady in there spoke enough English for us to get by and with our bad French Amilia got her hair done at a really nice little hair place and we had a language exchange there her stylist spoke pretty good English and she helped us with our French while we were there so it was a really fun experience success I absolutely love my hair turns out the person who was doing my hair did speak some English and she helped me with my French it was such a fun and amazing experience highly recommend coming to pop hair if you guys pop art hair pop hair pop hair pop hair pop hair if you need to get your hair done they are wonderful people and they made us feel so welcome if you’re going to come here you want to start studying French right away so you’re prepared to read especially those signs that are not in English only in French this is one of the famous art museums of France and it has artists such as Monae and Picasso and of course a wide variety of others which I really want to go see however they are closed on Tuesday so JP we will be going back we are really impressed by how clean it is here that’s an important livability Factor you want clean sidewalks clean streets and clean air it’s got all three in abundance and we came here expecting France to be kind of dirty based on what we’ve seen online and the stereotypes of France but we have not experienced that at all in Paris or here in Dijon you can see throughout this video how clean everything is there are people out cleaning the streets all the time and because it is a smaller City and most of the vehicles and buses are electric and the tram is electric there’s not a lot of air pollution and it’s also even quieter because of all those electric engines what is that it’s a wishing well now I’m guessing it was a functional well based on the pulling system that they have rigged up wow up here they probably use that to wheel the bucket with water up from from the depths I can’t even see how far down this goes wow well it’s good thing it’s graded off soon nobody Falls in yeah a good idea when they’re looking over like you are trying to figure it out [Music] if you want to have a high quality of life one of the most important things is to have a lot of things to do to keep you busy and you’re going to find a lot of activities and shopping opportunities here in Dijon we’re in park what is IT Park Park de here in the center of town and there’s a lot of cafes that line this with some nice fountains out here we’ve come down here several times just to sit and enjoy the people watching and the the birds and have a glass of wine this is a a nice place to just come hang out there are also a lot of parks around the area so you can go hiking and cycling there’s even a big park where you can go boating and go for a swim at the swim Beach but if shopping is your thing which I like to do some shopping there is plenty of that here for you as well there’s a whole pedestrian area with some chain and some local boutique stores it’s not there’s not as much shopping as there is going to be in Paris of course but there is a mall that’s not too far away from here that had some of the major brands however if you’re looking for some specialty items you may be happy to hear that you can actually order from Amazon like we had to do because we lost something pretty critical is that it yeah says it’s got your name on it well that’s good Amon delivery in Europe that’s exciting yeah all right get out of here be I’ll try the yeah try the windshield the thing that we lost is it the same size looks small I hope this thing works it works oh thank goodness yay oh my gosh another Indian restaurant you know but they’re closed again from 2: to 7:00 right there 2: to 7 p.m. well I guess they got to prepare all the curries for the evening meals another benefit to living in Dijon is the train system which will take you to so so many places you can take a lot of really nice day trips you can go back to Paris which only takes 90 minutes on that highp speed rail there’s a train that will take you all the way to strawberg you can go to Leon and those you can get there in under 2 hours or you can do what we’re going to do and take the train to Bone are you ready to go to Bone I’m very excited yes although we’re not pronouncing it in the true French way which I have not figured out how to do yet Boon Boon that was good JP if you want to live in a place and Healthcare is probably at the top of your list and you’re lucky if you want to come to France because it’s known for having great Healthcare it has both a public and a private system they’re extremely affordable the public system is free once you’re qualified to go on it and you can do that as a resident and here in Dijon they have lots of Hospitals and Clinics to choose from and the cost of appointments for the private system is super affordable you’re not even going to have to worry about how much it costs pardon me would you have any gray poop but of course gray Pon One of life’s finer Pleasures one of the reasons we chose Dijon is because the housing is so much more affordable our Airbnb we’re staying in now is almost half of what we were paying in Paris their prices are more similar to Montenegro Although our place is smaller it’s still not as cheap as Albania but it is Affordable for the long-term rentals the average cost is about $150 to $2 a square foot which comes out to be $500 to $1,000 a month and it really depends on where you’re looking and if you want furnished or unfurnished we saw condos for sale from €80,000 to €120,000 which is also extremely affordable we have come full circle we are back where we started and there is our last owl we’re back home after a long walk around the Loop in Dijon that we’re going to wrap up by talking about cost of living something that everybody cares about the nice thing is that you’ve got the reduced housing costs and you’ve got the fact that you don’t need to have a car here because you can take advantage of the awesome public transportation which is also going to lower your cost of living if you like to eat out a lot that is more expensive here we found that we were spending anywhere from like 12 to $18 per dish when we go out to eat if you go outside the tourist areas it is a bit more affordable but dining out it’s still pretty expensive here grocery shopping is Affordable and we actually ended up cooking a lot of our own meals because we could also find a really nice variety there are several grocery stores here there’s a couple different organic and Specialty markets here so we found all sorts of stuff that we just love and there’s also of course the main Mar Mercato it’s not Marcado in French I don’t know what the word is but you can go to that covered indoor market however we thought the prices were a little bit higher in there compared to the vendors that go and set up around the outside so you can definitely save a little bit more money by shopping there the main grocery stores are car for and casino there any others I’m forgetting about fron Prix FR fron Prix is here as well those are the ones you’re going to want to search for on your Google Maps to find the grocery stores they’re pretty nice the the ones in town here are smaller but the Ki 4 that was out in the mall was the biggest grocery store we’ve seen in a really long time it was more like a super Walmart or a Super Target back in the US yeah that store was massive and I was really surprised to see that so if you wanted to stock up you could just take the tram out there and take it back that would be perfect I think overall a single person could live here on $1,500 to $2,000 a month pretty comfortably if you get a small place for around that $500 a month Mark maybe even 700 I think that you could live here really comfortably on 2,000 a month as a single maybe 3500 a month is a couple I agree there it’s definitely it’s definitely a lot more affordable because as long as you don’t go crazy with the eating out and a lot of the other activities here are free so you still have stuff to do there are a couple downsides of living in Dijon that aren’t really related to cost of living though and one of them is the fact that there there are not a lot of expats here so if you’re looking to join a community and plug in with other English speaker English speaking expats you may find that to be a bit of a challenge we did meet a couple but not nearly as many as we thought most of them seem to be tourists the the ex the foreign English speakers that that we see here so you definitely are going to want to learn French to settle in and get some friends going on another downside that we’re kind of surprised about is how cloudy it is here and we were reading online some of the blogs saying it’s very cloudy in the spring and the fall we’re here in late spring and it’s still in the 60s most days here we were kind of expecting it to be a bit warmer than that and we hadn’t seen the sun in like nine days so we’re this the first day that we’ve had blue sky so we hurried up and got out and film today because we’re afraid we might not have it again before we leave yeah and everybody else was out there too it was crowded today y it hasn’t been nearly this crowded but I think everybody was out chasing the sun today yeah and of course you’re in France and you’re going to get more tourism here but it’s not as heavily touristed as Paris and some of the other major places yeah I think if you’re looking for an affordable place to live and you’re you’re set on moving to France and why not this country is amazing we are so impressed with it we both think that dejon is a really good option for you yeah we felt so at home here that we kind of really got into a routine and realized we actually needed to start working on our next trip and we needed to get this video done yeah the time got away from us and we’re like oh my God we got to leave yeah it is extremely comfortable here all right guys thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed our tour of djon we’ll see you on our next video AWA AWA [Music]