On relocating to Switzerland, and it becoming home

The second part of a reflection on life abroad, this time with family, patience and perspective. Part 1 here.

We arrived in Basel in early September 2019, that golden, unhurried time between summer and autumn. The Rhine shimmered under soft light, trams glided past with quiet precision, and it all felt almost too perfect, like a postcard with the sound turned down. We were a family of three with another on the way, moving halfway across the world for a new job and a fresh start. It felt like a holiday at first.

Calm, then everything else

After Boston’s long winters and restless energy, Switzerland seemed almost implausibly calm. I had grown tired of the noise, the political shouting, the school shootings, the commutes that somehow drained an entire morning to travel two miles. America had stopped feeling like an adventure. It had become a negotiation. Switzerland, by contrast, felt composed, self-contained and wonderfully indifferent to the rest of the world’s chaos.

What surprised me most was how free it felt. Not in a slogan-heavy, declared way, but in a practical, everyday sense. Clear rules. Consistency. The assumption that adults can behave like adults, and that children are capable of growing into responsibility without being constantly managed, warned or wrapped in cotton wool. After years of living in a place where freedom was talked about endlessly, it felt oddly liberating to live somewhere that simply trusted people to get on with things.

And yet that sense of calm was deceptive. Five months later came the headlines about a strange virus out of China. What began as background noise soon became border closures, daily case numbers and the eerie stillness of lockdown. We were suddenly stuck in a landlocked country, with a baby due any week. Strangely, it became a blessing. Basel wrapped around us like a quiet fortress. The hospitals were steady, the streets silent, the rules clear. Our second child arrived into stillness.

Putting down different roots

This time around, being an expat was nothing like my first attempt. I wasn’t chasing reinvention or excitement. I wasn’t alone. The roots I was putting down now were practical: schools, neighbours, playgrounds, routines. When you move abroad with a family, the roots grow differently. You measure your success not by what you see but by how safe and curious your children feel. For both of mine, this is home. When we fly to visit family, that’s travel. Coming back to Switzerland is coming home.

The cultural adjustment was gentler too. Despite the mix of languages, Switzerland felt closer in spirit to the UK than the US ever had – reserved but courteous, quietly organised, mildly eccentric. And being so close to France was an unexpected comfort. I had always loved France growing up, and now it was practically a neighbour.

We’ve done our best to integrate, even if the Swiss can understandably be slow to open up to new arrivals who might not stay. Our children go to local schools, play for the local football club, and we throw ourselves into traditions like Fasnacht, that loud, surreal carnival of masks and drums that takes over Basel each spring. We stay put at weekends, we don’t dash back to our countries of origin every month, and we try to learn the rhythm of life here rather than importing our own. The reward is a sense of belonging that feels earned rather than assumed.

Finding balance and belonging

If I had one piece of advice for anyone moving abroad later in life, it would be to join in early. Make friends, learn enough of the language to joke badly, say yes to local invitations, and give it time. Belonging takes patience, and Switzerland rewards patience more than anywhere I’ve lived.

If the US years were about chasing a dream, the Swiss years have been about finding balance. There is no perfect place to live, no finish line where everything fits. But settling here, in a country where none of us had family, has shown me what community really means. We’ve thrived within the expat world that permeates Basel, even if I still prefer the word migrant as it sounds less peripheral. It feels more honest. I feel like we belong here now – not as visitors or dreamers, but as a family that has finally found its rhythm.