This American woman traveled to the Czech Republic eight years ago and decided to stay for good

By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN

(CNN) — In 2018, Amanda Meyer Barkley left her home in Louisiana for what was meant to be a short vacation in Prague. She planned to stay for a few weeks, then return to the United States before moving on to China for a teaching job.

Nearly a decade later, she is still in the Czech capital — now in her 30s, married, and raising two young children.

Prague, a destination often called the City of a Hundred Spires, has become home.

Barkley and her husband spend their summers with their children in parks like Letná, Stromovka and Riegrovy Sady, or at the National Agriculture Museum, a short walk from their apartment. The city’s many dětské koutky — children’s play corners tucked into cafés and public spaces — make everyday life with young kids feel manageable, even easy.

“It really is just the most beautiful city with so much history…” Barkley says.

“Between the beauty of the architecture. The city itself, all of the parks and outdoor spaces… It’s clean. It’s safe. It’s just a really incredible place to live. I feel really lucky to live here.”

Eight years ago, Barkley could not have imagined this life. When she arrived in Prague in January 2018, she was in the middle of preparing to relocate to China for work. She had enrolled in an in-person teaching-English-as-a-foreign-language course in the Czech capital after learning she needed certification to secure the position in Asia.

Life-changing trip

But she was so enthralled with the city that she didn’t get on her return flight the following month.

Prague was not new to her. She had first visited in 2015 while traveling through Europe and admired the city’s famous sights — Prague Castle, Old Town Square — but felt more drawn to Berlin. “I could live in Germany,” she remembered thinking.

Back in the United States, she worked as a teacher and continued to travel, including a year in Australia. When a teaching opportunity in China came up, Prague seemed like a practical stop — a place to get certified and then move on.

It was a move that would change the whole course of her life.

She arrived in the city with just a backpack and the intention of focusing on her month-long course. But things started to unravel when she learned that, because she already had a teaching degree, the China job didn’t require the extra qualification.

Initially she felt frustrated and upset at wasting money on the airfare to Prague and on accommodation for a month. Yet she soon found herself enjoying the city, “hanging out with all these cool people.”

Pivotal moment

“So I just kind of pivoted and said, ‘What would it take for me to stay here now.’”

A few weeks later, Barkley sent an email withdrawing from the role in China. Then came the hard part: finding a job and a place to live in a city that she never intended calling home.

She took on many part-time jobs teaching and bartending before securing full-time work later that year. Starting a new life halfway around the world also meant she needed to buy new clothes so she “could wear something other than the six shirts” she’d originally brought along with her.

Things weren’t easy at first. Because the move to Prague wasn’t planned, she says, she wasn’t prepared for lean months. Needing to travel to her multiple jobs, but short of money, she lived frugally, sometimes relying on a diet of eggs and potatoes to keep costs down.

“That was definitely my toughest period, financially,” she says.

But socially, life was opening up. She formed a close-knit group of friends, many of whom she met through the teaching course. One of them was Blake, another American.

“We were just friends for a long time,” she explains. “But about three and a half years later, we said, ‘Maybe we’re not just friends.”

They married in 2022. Their two children, now aged one and two, were both born in the Czech Republic. Barkley currently has an employee card, which is a long-term residence permit, valid for up to two years, for non-European Union nationals staying in the country for over 90 days for work.

Over the years, the couple have discussed returning to the United States. For now, they’ve chosen to stay, deciding it’s the best place to be for their family.

They live in a two-bedroom apartment in Holešovice, a laid-back neighborhood north of the river, and appreciate how easily they can travel across Europe. Road trips through Austria, Germany and Italy have become part of family life.

“These opportunities and experiences that would be a lot more difficult to give them if we lived in a different part of the world geographically,” Barkley says.

Living in Prague has required cultural adjustment. Barkley, who chronicles her life in the city on her Instagram account @mandameybar, says she learned quickly to drop her “American smile.” Czech people “do not do that at all,” she says. There’s just “blank stares.”

“Now I’m very used to it, but I’m from the American South where everyone smiles and everyone talks to you,” she says, adding that she has to remind herself to smile at people when she visits the United States.

“I would say Czech people in general, are much more reserved than people in a lot of other parts of the Western world,” she adds, emphasizing that she has found them to be “genuinely so warm, kind and generous,” even if that warmth takes time to reveal itself.

Cultural adjustment

She has made some Czech friends, but says most of the couple’s friends are fellow foreigners, a reality Barkley partly puts down to the language barrier and partly down to the fact that she works primarily in English-speaking environments. She has taken Czech lessons “on and off” and says she “can definitely get by,” though bureaucratic tasks remain challenging.

One of the most meaningful differences, she says, has been the country’s approach to family life.

Mothers in the Czech Republic are legally entitled to 28 weeks of paid maternity leave and can take up to three years with their employer’s consent. Barkley has been on maternity leave since 2023 and plans to return to teaching in late 2026.

“It’s been pretty incredible to stay home with the kids…” she says. “To have the option to stay home with them for a little while… When I moved here, I was single. I was in my 20s, I wasn’t even thinking about that at all.

“So just the fact that I ended up in this place that’s kind of given us this opportunity to be there for so much of their young life, it’s really great.”

She also describes a different pace of life — less driven by what she calls American “hustle culture.”

“I’m sure there are people that feel that way,” she says of her adopted country. “But I feel like the focus is more on people and families and enjoying life.”

Barkley says “everything is a little more minimalist,” in the Czech Republic, and this “kind of spills over into a lot of different areas of life.”

Parenting, too, feels different. She notes a more hands-off approach, with greater independence given to children and a higher level of trust — including children traveling alone on public transport at young ages. As a teacher, she has also noticed what she sees as greater respect for educators.

Although she loves living in Prague, Barkley still feels the pull of the United States, getting stronger as time goes on.

“Being so far away from family was hard before, but it’s a different level of hard once you have kids,” she says. “And they’re growing up and changing so fast.”

After a recent Christmas visit, watching her children with their grandparents and cousins stirred doubts. But she suspects they will fade with the return of warm weather. “I’m never leaving Prague, because this place is amazing,” she imagines herself saying.

Sometimes, she still wonders what would have happened had she boarded that flight to China.

“It’s crazy how much life can change,” she says. “And I don’t think I would have lasted long in China, to be honest… Maybe I would have ended up here eventually.”

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