Whats the Lake Geneva-area expat experience like?
I’ve been in Geneva (35 miles from Lausanne) for nearly 3 years and overall have found settling in very easy. Quality of life is good (public transport and general services for example), but the cost of living is high, and I came from the UK so from the US will seem even higher. Zurich has a bit more of a city feel about it and is the place to go for shops, although I’ve never lived there. If nightlife is your thing then Zurich is better than Lausanne which in turn is better than Geneva. As for the general ex-pat scene, there is a lot of it in Geneva / Lausanne due to the international organisations and large companies based here, and it is definitely possible to live here without speaking French and, depending on where you work, without meeting any of the locals. But should you make the effort to move outside of the expat circles, it is a friendly place, although obviously speaking French helps. There is an English forum here which mi
Disclaimer: I am quite a bit biased….and I live in the Zürich area. Geneva, the city itself, is in a nutshell, stuffy and boring. No wonder since it is ruled by diplomats, bureaucrats, and bankers… However, for an English speaker it is probably easier to live in the Geneva area than other Swiss regions, though Switzerland in general is quite expat-friendly (bar the xenophobic far right, which you will rarely encounter in person). There are in fact many long time expat residents who barely speak a word of French, though that does limit them to their own little English speaking community. And the Lake Geneva area is a beautiful place – you have the lake, vineyards, mountains, historical towns, ruins, and more, plus a microclimate that makes it warmer than almost all other areas of the country, except for the south. (In light of global warming this may not necessarily be a good thing now.) You are not forced to live in a a specific canton as far as I know, but you may want to research
