Why European Cities Feel Better on Vacation Than in Real Life

Density, discomfort, and the culture shock no one talks about

I see a lot of vibe-chasing in move-abroad content.

Weather. Food. Cost of living. Walkability—usually treated as a catch-all.

Everything gets framed as a comparison—cheaper rent, more sun, fresher food—whatever it needs to be to support the story being told.

Most of this content answers a simple question: Will I like it there?

What it almost never asks is a harder one: Am I built for how this place actually functions day to day?

People are reassured at every step—by posts, videos, checklists, and commentary that frames the move itself as the hard part. That once you leave the United States, you’ve already made the right decision.

But it’s not that simple. There’s often a gap between how you feel about leaving your life in America and how your life will actually look and feel once you arrive somewhere else.

Nowhere is that gap more obvious than when Americans move from suburban, car-dependent environments into dense European cities.

Imagine a couple or family from the U.S.—even from somewhere that technically calls itself a city—visiting a large Spanish city on vacation. They love the energy, the food, the proximity. They feel alive in a way they don’t—and simply can’t—back home.

They share the familiar meme: the person back in the U.S., drinking coffee in a parking lot-adjacent Starbucks, captioned with something like “Europe vs. America.”

The meme resonates because it captures something real.

And sometimes, that feeling is enough to make people decide to move.

There’s nothing naïve or wrong about that. It’s rational—even healthy—to respond to places that feel more human.

Quick note: I don’t write relocation guides or reassurance content.

How It Works is about what actually changes when you move—psychologically, socially, structurally—without pretending there’s resolution or that it works the same way for everyone.

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Ever since landing in San Francisco in 1999, I knew I wanted to live in dense urban environments. Not occasionally. Not on vacation. As a default way of living the day-to-day.

Looking back, it’s not surprising that I eventually ended up in a dense European city. The signals were always pointing in this direction. Even if I didn’t fully articulate them at the time.

I wanted to move because European cities are more urban, denser, and—in many cases—actively hostile to the automobile. You almost never see it spelled out that way when people list the reasons they’re moving. The language is usually broader, even aspirational.

People move for an idea. A feeling. A sense that life might be easier or more alive somewhere else—without fully considering the specific conditions that shape daily life.

How often do you hear someone say they want to move because they want more density?

You don’t hear it. Even though density facilitates the features people claim to want: proximity, convenience, friction without logistics, life without constant planning.

And for people coming from suburban or car-dependent environments, that reality can be jarring once the novelty wears off.

What they experience feels like culture shock, but they can’t quite name its source. Instead of recognizing the built environment as the variable, the discomfort gets externalized—into frustration, resentment, or a vague sense that something isn’t working.

Some people walk into dense environments—with or without prior experience living in cities—and immediately settle. Not because it’s easy, but because it feels coherent. They stop wondering where they’re supposed to be. Their bodies make sense in the space.

This was me, 27 years ago, when I arrived in San Francisco.

Others resist—not because they hate convenience or walkability, but because something about the environment never quite feels right. The complaints tend to sound familiar: too noisy, too busy, too dirty, no privacy.

But those explanations don’t really hold up. These are often the same people who enjoy walking to the grocery store, sitting in cafés, and being surrounded by life—at least in small doses.

What they’re reacting to isn’t density itself. It’s the constant proximity. The absence of insulation. The fact that you’re never fully alone, even when you are. The reality that you’ve gone from a handful of neighbors you either love or hate to hundreds—often thousands—of largely indifferent ones within arm’s reach.

It’s the shift from an environment that feels almost empty to one that, for some people, registers as overstimulating.

Density taxes your senses. It requires attention, tolerance, and comfort with being seen—and it collects that tax every time you step out the door.

Jane Jacobs described this decades ago when she wrote about “sidewalk life”—the way dense cities allow for familiarity without obligation. You can recognize people, exist alongside them, and move through shared space without the pressure of intimacy or performance.

That kind of social structure doesn’t feel warm or cold. It just works.

But for many Americans, this indifference is the hardest part to stomach. In the suburbs, status is measured by the amount of empty space you can put between yourself and your neighbor. In a dense city, that buffer is gone. You’re sharing space with people who aren’t there to manage your emotions or validate your presence. One of their jobs is not to ensure you maintain your property value. To an ego-driven mind, that indifference can feel a lot like hostility.

Suburbs, in contrast to sidewalk life, often force the opposite choice: either perform closeness or accept isolation. There’s very little middle ground.

I notice this most clearly when I’m in single-use, car-dependent places. In typical suburban environments, I start to feel unsettled—low-level depressed, unsure what to do with my body. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but everything requires a decision, a plan, a car.

Nature does something different. When I’m camping or hiking, the world becomes smaller in a good way. My senses recalibrate. I love it—for a few days.

Then I need the city again.

Not for stimulation, but because it’s the most logical environment for how I live. On foot, with everything close by, very little friction. You go to a store, they don’t have what you need, you ask where to find it, and you’re usually walking there five minutes later. That happens to me all the time where I live.

It’s not romantic. It’s just efficient.

But not everyone sees or experiences it that way.

As much as I love cities, I have to flip the mental script about how other people encounter them. If you’re used to suburban living—and have been acculturated to think it’s the default or “successful” way to live—adjusting to true city life could take time. Sometimes a lot of time. Sometimes longer than people expect or are willing to admit.

You might like having a few things within walking distance and still feel unsettled by the psycho-emotional and environmental shift you didn’t anticipate.

When people move abroad, we tend to focus on the obvious stressors: unfamiliarity, loss of competence, the absence of constant validation. Those alone are enough to destabilize anyone.

Most of us recognize the feeling. You’re in an unfamiliar situation. You don’t know—or feel like you don’t know—what you’re doing. Anxiety spikes. Your body tightens. You lose your train of thought. Abilities that once felt automatic suddenly feel out of reach.

At that uncomfortable crossroads, people respond differently.

Some shrink.

Some soften.

Some adapt.

And some go into full defensive posture—loud, frustrated, aggrieved, convinced the problem is external rather than internal.

It’s a panic response to unfamiliarity.

The more I watch this play out, the more convinced I am that density often acts as a mediating variable. It doesn’t create the discomfort, but it intensifies it—compressing unfamiliarity, proximity, and loss of control into a single, inescapable experience.

The reality is that finding a place charming—or feeling an initial spike in quality of life—only scratches the surface. Admiration isn’t the same thing as understanding how a place actually works, or how it will affect your nervous system over time.

I was reminded of that years ago while cycling in Marin County. I stopped to ask a woman for directions, and she told me to ride another ten minutes until I reached “civilization.” What she meant was the next town—the next cluster of stores, sidewalks, people. It wasn’t meant critically. It was just descriptive.

That word sticks with me, because it captures something Americans often take for granted: that civilization is something you drive to, not something you live inside.

Dense cities reverse that assumption. Many Americans experience urban places the way tourists do—something to visit, admire, and then retreat from. You can even see this logic replicated, awkwardly, in suburban developments and theme-park versions of “town centers” that gesture toward density without actually committing to it.

These places treat density as a managed commodity—something you pay to park at, walk through in a safe loop, and then leave behind. What this commodification fails to respect is that real density isn't a product; it's an unmanaged environment. In a city like Valencia, density isn't a 'vibe' you buy for the afternoon; it’s the structural reality of how you get your bread, move your body, and exist in the world.

Problems tend to surface when people mistake the initial feeling on vacation, in a city—whether excitement or discomfort—for the whole experience, without reckoning with what high-density living actually will ask of them over time.

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Moving abroad isn’t an accomplishment. It’s a context change.

Dense cities reveal how comfortable you are living with constant proximity, limited insulation, and shared space. For some people, that exposure feels grounding. For others, it’s exhausting.

What matters isn’t which reaction you have—it’s whether you recognize what you’re reacting to.

If this piece resonated, it’s probably because you’re not looking for checklists, hacks, or certainty theater.

I write How It Works for people who want to understand how places function—and how that changes us—without turning it into advice or aspiration.

A quick note on what’s next

Speaking of density, this spring, my wife and I will be spending a month in Paris.

Not as a move, and not as a project. Valencia is home. Paris will be a temporary change in context.

I’m interested in what shifts—and what doesn’t—when you drop into a different system without pretending you belong to it: language, density, neutrality, friction. Especially after having grown attached to Valencia. At heart, I’m a creature of the routines I’ve established here.

Some of those observations will show up free. The deeper ones will go to paid subscribers, alongside the rest of How It Works.

No guides. No lists. No look at what we ate. Just field notes from inside the process.