As Kate Leight drives past the mountains, streams and rivers near her home in southwestern Germany, she says the landscape still captures her attention. She jokes, “I’m probably the only soccer mom from America who loves away games.”
Leight is looking forward to driving from Ulm, where he lives, to Munich for his teenage son’s soccer commitments. “It’s really hard to be in a bad mood when you’re driving through this beautiful scenery,” she says.
“It’s great to see the Swiss Alps, see a stream or river nearby, and hear the sound of water flowing,” Reid, an Atlanta native, told CNN Travel.
A year and a half after moving from the United States to Germany with her son Bodhi, Leight said the move has gone “much better than anyone could have imagined” and that they are both thriving.
Living close to nature, such as the Danube River and the Bavarian Alps, has changed her daily life. She is always on the go, hiking, biking along the Danube, going on a spa trip, or going “castle hunting” with her son.
“This is probably the biggest landslide win since being here,” she says, praising a lifestyle she feels focuses on quality over quantity.
“My physical health, my mental health… Being able to do physical activity so easily and immediately has completely saved me.”
The decision to move started with an opportunity for my son. An accomplished soccer player, Boddy was encouraged to try out for several German clubs and had received offers.
Ms. Leight was a frequent visitor to Germany, and although her daughter was born there during her marriage to a German national, she had no intention of returning permanently. However, her son’s ambition changed her mind.
She told him she was going to wait until her older sister Conley went to college. “I didn’t want him to live alone with a host family, so I decided to go with him,” she says.
A few weeks after their daughter graduated in 2024, Leight and Bodhi left the United States for Germany.
They started in an Airbnb in the historic city of Ulm, based between Munich and Stuttgart, where Bodhi joined the local team. “I literally had two suitcases,” Reid said. “We didn’t have any friends. We didn’t have family. We didn’t have anything. We were ready, we were ready. Now let’s make this happen.”
Reid says she quickly realized she had a lot to learn. One of her first challenges was education. Bodhi, who has dual citizenship, was unable to enroll in a German high school because she “didn’t have enough foreign language experience.”
He eventually enrolled in an international school, which Reid says was a turning point. She also quickly bonded with other expat parents.
“We all left our home countries to come here,” she says. Reid added that their emotional support helped him get through the difficult times.
As Raidt settled in, she developed an appreciation for life in Germany outside of working remotely for a U.S.-based company.
She loves the fact that “people meet up for coffee all the time,” as opposed to the United States, where “everyone rushes through the Starbucks drive-through.”
“There’s only one city out of all the cities in America that really has a distinct culture, and that’s New Orleans,” she says. “So Germany reminds us of that.”
But there are drawbacks, she admits. She dislikes the amount of cigarettes she smokes and feels that some aspects of daily life are too rigid, too “black and white”.
Additionally, the “constant stress of going to government offices and waiting in line” makes it extremely difficult to operate the bureaucracy.
“Getting a driver’s license in Germany is like passing the bar exam or getting a medical license,” she says.
Securing a family reunification visa that would allow the family to join relatives legally residing in Germany was “long and difficult” and required them to purchase German health insurance, which costs about $1,300 a month.
She said some people in Germany “simply don’t like immigrants” and give her special treatment because of her American accent.
Still, she says her overall experience with the Germans was positive. She has made “great friends,” especially the parents of her son’s soccer team.
“None of them really speak English,” Reid said. “But it forced us to improve our German and our midfield game.”
Although Leit was able to communicate in German from previous visits, she needed to improve her skills to deal with basic events such as rental agreements, doctor’s appointments, and handling official documents. She is currently taking a four-hour daily language course with the goal of passing the fluency test required for citizenship.
“Some days I think, ‘This is literally going to send me to the grave,'” she says. “But at the same time, it gets me out of bed.”
If you’re thinking of moving abroad, Reid advises choosing a place where you already speak the language.
“I quickly learned that if you’re going to live somewhere, it’s better to be good at the language than at conversational level,” she says. “Or it’s really hard.”
Reit feels that prices are high in Germany, especially utility bills, and points out that “everything has become a little smaller,” including cars and houses. But the change, she says, has clarified what is needed.
When she returned to the United States for an extended stay in the spring, she definitely noticed a difference. Reverting to old habits like driving everywhere and sitting at a desk all day left her “overwhelmed with emotion and stress.”
“I was experiencing the same stress in my life, but it doesn’t affect me much since I moved back here,” she says. “I think it’s because I’ve always been moving my body and getting more exercise. It’s kept me very sane.”
Raidt recently revived his old passion. Twenty years after she turned her back on music, she is recording an album.
“At 54 years old and after 20 years of no music, I’m bringing back music with a vengeance!” she says.
Leight didn’t miss Atlanta much, but she said she longed for “mom friends” and wanted to eat American fast food like Chick-fil-A.
She returns to the United States as often as possible to visit Conley, who is playing college tennis in Nebraska. Meanwhile, Brody seems to be growing well, which is a huge relief for Leight.
“Even if I like it very much here, if he’s miserable, we have to get out of here,” she says. “Because this is all for him. So the biggest win-win is that he’s doing extremely well…and it’s been a huge kind of lifestyle upgrade for me.”
The couple currently live in a three-bedroom townhouse on the “mountain side” of Ulm and plan to stay in Germany for “at least another two years” until Boddy graduates from high school.
Leight said selling his Atlanta home felt like the final chapter of his life in the U.S. and that he had “no interest in going back.”
She is unlikely to stay in Ulm if her son leaves, but she is open to remaining in Europe.
“Maybe I’ll go to Austria,” she says. “Maybe I’ll go to Switzerland. Maybe I’ll go to Spain…I don’t know. But I want to keep exploring Europe. I’d like to stay here.”
