Moving to Poland Long-term - Pros & Cons

hey guys welcome to my channel my name is Ed I'm an Australian who has been living in Poland for around 5 years now today I want to talk about the pros and cons of living in Poland and specifically in comparison to Australia cuz that's really all I have to compare with I think that if you're from the US or Canada any Western Country really and you're curious about you know what it's like to live in Poland or Eastern Europe in general then you'll find this video interesting especially if you're thinking of moving to Poland I know a lot of Americans now with Polish ancestria considering that now these are in no particular order just some things that really stand out to me but let's get started the first is the city life and the compactness of the city now Sydney Australia if you're from the US it's a little bit like Los Angeles maybe where it's very spread out and low-level City like there aren't a lot of tall buildings and it means that it takes a long time to get anywhere you can easily spend up to 2 hours to get to another point of the city which just doesn't happen here in Poland I live in kov which is the second busiest city in Poland I lived in Warsaw as well in the capital and I never really spent more than 30 minutes getting somewhere I don't have a car either I don't need a car because it's so easy to just jump on a tram and get somewhere and the tram also costs for LTE usually which is the equivalent of $1 to just about any point in the city but I guess this applies to almost any European city they're generally smaller and more Compact and easier to get around than American or Australian cities now Point number two is definitely something that will stand out to a lot of Australians and it's the ease of renting an apartment in Australia when you rent an apartment you have to jump through a bunch of Hoops you have to show how much income you earn you have to show that um you know you're financially stable maybe even your savings maybe even a note from your boss saying that you're a good employee they're not going to fire you and it's also very competitive in Australia for the same rental you might have 20 or 30 other people applying also and obviously the one with the best job the the most social standing is going to get that rental right so you can often get rejected from rentals and also it's all done through real estate agents in Australia here in Poland it's completely different there's a site called autodom which is used for listing rentals and most of the time actually maybe 50% of the time it's going to be the owner of the rental you give them a text you can meet up with them that day sign a small contract that they print our home it's like a typical templated contract that everybody uses and you can pretty much move in the next day never have I been asked to provide my financial documents or a reference from my boss you know when you meet them they casually ask what you do for a living there's definitely nothing like having to prove your finances which I think is quite an invasion of privacy in Australia so I really love and appreciate how easy it is to find a flat to rent here in Poland you don't need more than a week week come here rent an Airbnb for a week okay maybe 2 or 3 weeks if you're picky and then you'll find a rental quite easily okay number three for the pros of Poland is obviously that it's more affordable um I'm not sure if I even have to mention this it is a low cost of living country and at the same time it's a developed country um and I don't think it's going to be this way for a long time maybe in 10 years time it'll be just as expensive as any other Western Country but right now it costs three to four times cheaper than living in Sydney or London or any of those other cities and yes if you have a local job you're not going to be getting paid very well um but if you work in the IT industry here which is a big thing many people work in the IT industry here and they get Western wages or close to Western wages and they can live very well but yeah basically it is more affordable you can afford yourself an apartment which is right next to the park that I'm in I have a view of this park it's all green I don't have any buildings in front of me in front of my balcony and that's something that I wouldn't be able to afford back in Australia since we're talking about the park next point is beautiful nature Poland has this reputation for just being gray there's that Meme about the polish color scheme just Shades of Gray and yeah it's like that in the colder Seasons but as you can see right now it's April in the summertime and in Spring it's extremely green especially where I live in kov you might prefer this City compared to Warsaw because it's very close to the tatra mountains and when I moved to Poland I actually didn't know that Poland had mountains like serious real mountains that look like the Swiss Alps but they do and it's awesome it's just 2 hours drive from krakov or about 4 and 1/2 hours drive from Warsaw so if you like hiking then kov is definitely the city to be in in my experience Polish people are crazy about hiking they really love it the tatri mountains the city of zakan which is down there in the tat on the border of Slovakia uh gets very busy both in the summer for hiking and in the winter for skiing and that can be a nice place to stay as well by the way if you're a digital Nomad and you're watching this because you're looking for somewhere to live for 2 to 3 months zakapa is quite nice you can rent a Hut somewhere in the mountains hike every day internet is good yeah recommended all right next up this kind of related to the IT industry in the country the strong Tech influence but it's the government services and like Medical Services everything is so digitized I've heard stories about people in Germany still needing you know paper prescriptions from the doctor and things like that that's a thing of the past here when you go to the doctor either physically or through a online call you receive your prescription through an app and through email and through SMS and it's just got a little code that you give to the pharmacy and you get your prescription likewise when dealing with government so many things happen online and this means it's a little bit easier with the Polish language if that's something that you struggle with and last but not least one of the main pros of living in Poland is the Polish people um Polish people have maybe a stereotype a reputation of being kind of cold unsmiling but in my experience that hasn't been the case at all I found po people to generally be very friendly uh well educated people articulate people of course that might be because I lived in the two major Capital Cities and if you go to the countryside it'll be quite different um but it's like that in every country isn't it and the level of English is very high I'd say anyone who's under 40 right now knows at least some English and it's not a problem to use English in cafes museums or anything especially if you're here temporarily now let's move on to the cons and some things that actually really bother me about living in Poland it's not so much a criticism of Poland itself it's more like living in Poland as a foreigner first of all I just spoke about the language and there is a high level of English but the lack of you know good polish skills can still be a major problem I actually speak Polish at least at an intermediate level um I'm probably around 8 2 or B1 level in Polish if you're familiar with those levels so I can communicate and I can get things done in government offices or when going to the doctor and things like that but let's say I want to go to a boxing class in a loud environment in a sports environment right I do not understand what the coach is saying like when he's yelling out instructions and things and especially a boxing coach um might not have the best pronunciation in Polish right he doesn't speak like a news reporter he speaks very much um in like a more rough tone and so it's a huge problem for me to go to any kind of group classes boxing kickboxing jiujitsu um all of those things I cannot understand the instructions that they're saying similarly when I go to the local market and there's lots of old people and Farmers it's like a Farmers Market selling things there honestly I don't understand what the hell they're saying even though my polish is quite good and I can watch movies and I can understand 95% of what is being said in a movie I can read news articles so like my at least my level of comprehension is Advanced I think but it doesn't mean that I can understand all Polish people in all social situations it's still a huge blocker for me I feel that I'm never going to be like a proper part of Polish Society because I don't think that my Polish language skill will ever get to really like True full native fluency I simply don't use it enough because I work from home and I feel like if I live here for the rest of my life I still won't really be able to get along with Polish people on the same level as another Polish person or understand group conversations especially when two Polish people speaking to each other oh it can be very difficult so that's something you should consider if you're thinking about moving here longterm you might be a bit restricted to being friends only with other English-speaking immigrants and that leads me to my next point it's that I kind of have a lack of friends here in Poland I'll admit I'm an introverted person but it's objectively kind of difficult to make friends here the reason is that the local Polish people already have their friends their friend group they they're not looking for new friends right which makes sense and it's the same situation in any country I think um and it's also yeah that language barrier they can speak English to you and that's that's a novelty for some time but it prevents you from becoming really close friends and you will likely be limited to just being friends with other immigrants another con that really affects me personally is the taxation system I have to admit I don't have the most traditional job if you just come here to work at an office job you probably won't have any problems at all I'm self-employed I'm a web developer and I do freelance projects basically and I also do some YouTube and own some money from that so it's not the easiest tax situation but it's not so much different from any kind of Trades person for example a plumber an electrician that comes to your house to fix something it should be the same and I my opinion is that in a country with a developed economy they should strive to make these sorts of things simple so that people can earn money without some crazy taxation obstacles right but here it's quite an obstacle first of all if you're a small business you need to have an accountant um it's very difficult to do things on your own without an accountant and I was able to do everything on my own in Australia secondly you have to pay taxes monthly right not once a year as in Australia but every month I have to calculate my taxes and pay my taxes and often taxes are due before the 10th of the next month right and on that date I I don't even know all my earnings from the previous month for example YouTube doesn't even tell you the earnings that quickly and also just a hassle I can't believe that I have to think about taxes every month and calculate all that stuff I would rather just do it at the end of the year once a year like in most countries so I really hope that they simplify the taxation system in Poland to make it easier for small businesses like Freelancers and finally this might be a minor point it's the air quality especially here in kov because because Poland is a country that is very industrial it produces a lot manufactures uh it has a lot of factories and things like that and also particularly here in kov there's a valley and that effect causes pollution to collect around krakov and kov is often one of the most badly polluted places in the world when it comes to air quality uh it's up there along with some Indian cities and this mostly happens in the winter here right now in summer it's perfectly fine uh very good air quality but in the winter especially when there's no wind it can get pretty bad and you can actually smell like this kind of smog this kind of like burnt smell in the air so yeah those are my pros and cons of Poland if there are any questions that you have please leave a comment and I'll try to address those in future videos please leave a like if you found it interesting subscribe and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Eduard Fastovski

Views: 27,226

Keywords: Poland, Poland travel, krakow, krakow expats, immigrating to poland, moving to poland, polish people, poland cost of living, poland nature, living abroad, digital nomad, travel, slow travel, expat, Australia

Id: tpS4AzsVe6Q

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024