Business Insider is on the ground at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, and we want to take you along with us.

We’ll be updating our liveblog throughout the week with breaking news, insights from interviews and conversations, power-player sightings, and color from private events.

From global growth to AI, talent, and the future of work, Davos is where the year’s biggest ideas are debated, deals are struck, and the road map for the year ahead gets sketched out.

Follow along here for real-time updates from Davos.

At the USA House: Long lines, a church, and tomato soup

There was a long line to get past security on Monday at the USA House, the privately funded venue inside a historic church to showcase the United States at Davos.

Once inside the church, visitors were treated to a buffet featuring tomato soup, chicken salad sandwiches, and Greek salad.

There is a full programming schedule featuring luminaries such as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and venture capitalist David Sacks.

“I heard it was very hard to get into, so I’m glad I was able to get in,” said Amanda Estiverne, who works as a consultant to fintech companies.

This year’s Davos theme is “A Spirit of Dialogue,” and several attendees I spoke to said they appreciated the US having a robust presence here. But they questioned why organizers chose to take over a church.

“I’m not sure what message they are trying to send, said Estiverne. “I don’t know if there’s a religious aspect.”

“I’m always in favor of open and active diplomacy, but I’m not sure if a church is the right place,” said Nils Handler, who works at the University of Zurich. “It feels strange.”

(You’ll be) sorry for party rocking

Few people travel as much as management consultants, and Boston Consulting Group Global Chair Rich Lesser shared one travel hack he learned the hard way: Prioritize sleep. Even this week at Davos, which is famous for sleep-depriving its attendees with late-night events, he’s determined to get a very reasonable 7 hours every night.

“I start so early every morning that if I’m out to parties till 11 or 12 or 1, I’m just not as valuable for things that are really important, which is the chance to talk to clients,” he told me. “I just made a very conscious call after about two or three years of that that I would forgo the 10 p.m. and beyond cocktail events.”

We <3 swag

It wouldn’t be Davos without getting a bunch of branded stuff for free. I literally can’t afford to bring more stuff back (my checked bag was a pound overweight). But that didn’t stop me from grabbing this water bottle and beanie from PwC.

Meanwhile, the famous Davos blue beanie has yet to make an appearance.

Print is dead? Not at Davos

If fewer people are reading print newspapers, you wouldn’t know it from walking around Davos.

As you step off the train or out of a coffee shop, people are handing out free copies of Barron’s and the Financial Times. Inside hotels, there are stacks of magazines and broadsheets, including from outlets like Semafor that are normally online only.

Clearly, the influential and wealthy attendees of Davos make for an enticing demographic for media companies.

EY’s army of AI agents

Raj Sharma, EY’s global managing partner for growth and innovation, told me he wants to grow the number of AI agents at the firm from 10,000 to 100,000 by 2028.

That sounds like a lot, but Sharma said he’s developed a formula for the entire process.

“The first 100 was the hardest,” Sharma said. “The 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 wasn’t that bad.”

So what will this army of AI agents do? The majority will actually be client-facing. Sharma said EY’s mostly done with the internal work regarding AI agents. These days, it’s just about fine-tuning them.

The ultimate hack for peak Davos confidence? A Monday morning blow-out

Davos is a jam-packed week of back-to-back meetings, bumping into old colleagues, and clocking at least 20,000 steps a day.

My one hack for doing it with confidence is a blow-out at the start of the week; first thing Monday at 9 a.m.

My go-to salon in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, is Kopps Coiffure, a refuge for seasoned attendees.Read full story

Why do people drive?

The backup is a bit baffling to Business Insider’s Ben Bergman: “I love walking and taking the train here!”

30 minutes until Davos officially starts

As the sun sets in Switzerland, we’re now just 30 minutes from the start of the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. The conference starts at 6 p.m. local time with a concert from Grammy winner Jon Batiste, French violinist Renaud Capuçon, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

There’s one panel this evening, too, titled “Which 2050 do we want?”

The real action begins tomorrow.

No jackets needed on a sunny first day of Davos

I live in sunny Los Angeles, so I spent a lot of time readying my Davos wardrobe of heavy coats, sweaters, and scarves. It wasn’t needed, at least so far.

The temperature here hit 35 degrees on Monday, but it felt much warmer with the sun beaming down.

It is forecast to stay sunny all week with no snow in the forecast until the end of the week.

One attendee I met on the ski lift said the warm weather could be a good omen for the year ahead. Or, it could be a worrying sign of climate change, which has been deemphasized at this year’s meeting.

Gulfstream’s $70 million new jet is on display

Some companies are making use of the world’s newest private jet, a luxurious Gulfstream that costs over $70 million.

Three Gulfstream G800 jets have landed near Davos today, flight-tracking data shows.

They are owned by Qualcomm, Visa, and Pfizer, according to data from JetSpy.

One of them touched down in Friedrichshafen, a German lakeside city just over the border with Switzerland and about 60 miles from Davos.

The other two landed in Basel, which is further away from the WEF host city. It hasn’t had much business jet activity today, so it’s not certain that those on board flew in for the annual meeting.

Nonetheless, it’s pretty rare to see a G800. Gulfstream delivered the first one just four months ago.

This airplane can fly at up to Mach 0.935, or 613 mph at its cruising altitude. And it’s big enough to have room for four living areas on board.

Passengers also shouldn’t feel as fatigued as flying commercial, because the G800’s cabin pressure makes it feel like the altitude is 2,480 feet. On the most modern airliners, the cabin altitude is more like 6,000 feet.

Gotta love the Ameron coat room. It’s free …. (Unlike the Belvedere.)

The coziest coats at Davos

Sarah Backhouse of the World Fifty Group sported a Frankie Shop coat, Saint Laurent sunglasses, and a Goyard bag

The Davos fashion diaries

As well as a place to talk shop, Davos is a place to be seen.

Nidhi Sinha, consulting firm BCG’s head of marketing and communications for North America, wore a North Face coat and L.L. Bean boots on day one.

Nidhi decided this year not to lug her laptop around, so she bought herself a white, quilted, weatherproof Tory Burch bag that fits her notebook.

KPMG employees quickly buy-in on AI

Getting employee buy-in on AI tools is top of mind for plenty of executives.

At KPMG, it only took one week for most of the company to hop on board one tool.

Tim Walsh, chair and CEO at KPMG US, told me 90% of staffers started using Google Gemini within two weeks of it being offered a few months ago.

One benefit, Walsh said, was that Gemini wasn’t employees’ first experience with an AI tool. The company had previously rolled out OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot at an enterprise level roughly two years ago and had seen strong employee feedback.

But Walsh said another big factor in getting high uptake was issuing workers a separate phone they could use to access AI tools freely.

That reduced friction compared to before, as the phones were loaded with all the approved tools employees could use in an environment KPMG was comfortable with, Walsh said.

No Elon Musk

One person we’re not likely to see at Davos is the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.

Musk is an infrequent attendee at the event and had a public spat with organizers ahead of the 2023 edition, when he described it as “boring af.”

Musk said at the time he’d turned down an invitation, but officials from the WEF said he hadn’t been invited since 2015.

The celebrities of AI are descending on Davos

Though AI isn’t the title theme of this year’s conference, it’s not like no one’s talking about it. A quick glance at the speakers highlighted on the WEF’s official website shows that AI is still very much top of mind.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Anthropic cofounder Dario Amodei, Palantir’s Alex Karp, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and Arthur Mensch, founder of Mistral, are all prominently displayed as attending.

‘A Spirit of Dialogue’

Every year, the World Economic Forum picks a theme. Last year, it was “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age,” and this year, it is “A Spirit of Dialogue.”

While Davos 2025 focused heavily on the rise of AI, in 2026 organizers want attendees to use it as a forum to broaden their perspectives and hope the conference will serve as an “impartial platform for exchange of views and ideas.”

At a time when President Donald Trump is at loggerheads with many other world leaders over Greenland, this year’s theme seems particularly apt.

Demonstrators have pulled out all the stops

Most Davos attendees without the luxury of a private jet will arrive at Zurich Airport, and those touching down on Monday will be reminded as they come in to land that not everyone welcomes the event.

Alongside protests in the town itself, activists on Monday unfurled a giant banner close to Zurich airport featuring the faces of Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, captioned: “Hey Davos billionaires: Shut up and pay your taxes.

A reminder: none of the trio is on the official list.

A surprise last-minute attendee

While the Davos guest list starts coming together months ahead of time, there’s always room for a few last-minute wildcards.

Frequent Trump adversary and long-rumored potential Democratic presidential candidate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced plans late last week to attend, setting up a clash between him and the president in the high mountains.

“Newsom’s arrival at Davos confirms his desire to be seen as the Democratic Party leader and go-to guy for world leaders wanting an alternative to President Trump,” Sally Susman, a longtime democratic fundraiser, told Business Insider over the weekend.

Newsom will use Davos as a platform to argue that Trump’s economic agenda has been a failure that other leaders should not be part of, a spokesperson for Newsom, Izzy Gardon, said.

Airport-style security protocols

As if to underline just how strict security arrangements are, I’ve just had a message from Business Insider’s Aki Ito, who is on the ground in Davos.

She described being made to empty her water bottle before going through an airport-style scanner to gain entry into a venue on the Promenade, Davos’ main street, and the heart of the action this week.

5,000 soldiers and antiaircraft guns

As one might imagine at a gathering of some of the most important people in global tech, finance, and politics, security is extraordinarily tight.

Around 5,000 personnel from the Swiss armed forces will be deployed each day of the conference, according to local media.

On top of that, airspace near Davos is tightly controlled during WEF week, including the deployment of antiaircraft weapons near the town.

Billionaires and CEOs are arriving by private jet

Flying commercial isn’t always the best option for Davos attendees, and many are arriving by private jet.

Marc Benioff’s Gulfstream G700 is one of the latest jets to touch down near the alpine resort.

The Salesforce CEO’s plane flew over 14 hours from Hawaii to Friedrichshafen, Germany, according to data from JetSpy. It touched down shortly after 11 a.m. local time on Monday

It’s perhaps the swankiest jet to arrive so far. The price tag for a G700 starts at $78 million.

Benioff is scheduled to speak tomorrow.

Two BlackRock-owned Gulfstream G650 jets have landed in Zurich, too, per JetSpy’s tracking data.

One of them arrived on Sunday morning, followed by the other about 25 hours later. They both came from New York’s Westchester County Airport.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is also the interim co-chair of the WEF. He’s due to speak tomorrow morning.

Corporate jets owned by Google, IBM, The Carlyle Group, and Eli Lilly have also landed in the region since Saturday, per JetSpy.

Airspace restrictions mean very few will land at the airport closest to Davos. Instead, most are arriving in Zurich, and some at Friedrichshafen. The German town is about 60 miles from Davos as the crow flies.

Fashion in the mountains

Just because it’s cold doesn’t mean you can’t look good.

Kayla Peterson, director of partnerships at AI Wellness, traveled to her first Davos from Los Angeles and was dressed to impress on Monday morning.

“I feel like when you look the part, doors will open,” she said, explaining why she was “stepping it up a notch.”

A costly coat check

Not much in Davos is cheap, including checking your coat. Business Insider editor in chief Jamie Heller spied the price of coat check at the five-star Grandhotel Belvédère, one of Davos’ hot meeting spots during WEF week, thanks to its proximity to the main convention center.

At $5 an item, it is one of the costlier cloakrooms we’ve seen, but don’t worry, you can pay with your Amex.

Where the world’s rich and powerful go, so do protesters

At any gathering of the so-called global elite, protests are pretty much inevitable, and Davos is no different.

Demonstrators gathered in the town on Sunday to oppose the event, and call for higher taxation on billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. While none of the trio are on the official guest list this year, Davos has long been a touchstone for protests against the superrich.

Some locals aren’t fans of the disruption the WEF causes, either. Business Insider’s Dan DeFrancesco spied several banners on a house close to the conference’s main USA House.

One reads “The WEF is eating up our living space,” while the others, well, you don’t need to be fluent in Swiss German to understand them.

IPO excitement in the Alps

Will the IPO window finally open up in 2026? There’s a lot of talk about some massive companies — SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic — making their public market debut this year.

Chris Taylor, NYSE’s chief development officer, told me it could be a “banner year for IPOs.”

Those AI and tech giants are unique in their size and name-brand recognition in a way most other private companies can’t relate to. But their decision to go public could serve as a stamp of approval for smaller companies to dive in as well.

“Having a mindset change is really important,” Taylor told me, and those larger companies will give the public markets a stamp of approval, he added.

So which ones will IPO this year? Taylor declined to speculate on that — I asked — but he did say he could see a domino effect among the big players once one makes the leap.

Mark your calendars for 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday

By far the most anticipated event of this year’s World Economic Forum is a “special address” from President Donald Trump at 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

While there’s no official confirmation of what Trump plans to talk about, it’s likely that the ongoing saga of his desire to make Greenland part of the US will feature heavily.

Over the weekend, Trump said that from February 1, he would impose an additional 10% tariff on Denmark, which controls Greenland, as well as Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland, unless they agree to a deal to hand over Greenland to the United States.

European leaders have been unequivocal in their opposition to Trump’s plan, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday morning giving a nationwide address to condemn the new tariffs and defend Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland.

While Greenland seems most likely, Trump’s speech may focus on something completely different, with rumors swirling in the rarified air of the Swiss Alps that he could make a major announcement during the speech.

“All we are hearing is that it’s going to be BIG BIG BIG and to clear our schedules,” veteran journalist Steve Clemons wrote in his “Washington Note” newsletter late on Sunday.

Spotlight on big names in business, tech, and politics

Davos kicks off in earnest this evening at around 6 p.m. local time (midday ET), with a curtain-raising concert from Grammy winner Jon Batiste, French violinist Renaud Capuçon, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Then on Tuesday, the real action starts.

Big names from across the worlds of business, tech, and politics have been arriving in the Swiss ski town over the weekend, with more pouring in on Monday.

Figures like Bill Gates, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, and Jensen Huang, the CEO of AI darling Nvidia, head the bill on the business side.

Political bigwigs attending include French President Emmanuel Macron, Argentina’s Javier Milei, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and, of course, President Donald Trump.

Yes, you can ski here too

Davos might turn into the center of the business world for a week, but it’s still a ski town at its core.

I got to check out the slopes on Sunday. And after a 10-year hiatus from snowboarding, I came out mostly unscathed. (To be honest, that’s the real victory.)

Still, there was some business to be done as Cloudflare was holding an event. The tech company actually has a relationship with the US Ski & Snowboard.

It’s not just your typical corporate sponsorship, though. Some US Ski Team athletes who attended the event discussed the importance of teaming up with tech companies. The innovation they provide can help them during training, like understanding how to better hit a certain line on the mountain to shave fractions of a second off their runs.

Getting to Davos is half the battle

For a conference full of so many powerful people, it sure ain’t easy to get to.

Davos doesn’t have an airport, which means some extra commuting (even for billionaires).

The nearest airport for private planes is St. Moritz, but that’s still nearly a two-hour drive. (Although there are always helicopters.) For the rest of us, Zurich Airport is a little over two hours by car or three hours by train.

Here’s how I managed the trip this year:

Sunday morning: the calm before the storm

• Katie Ledecky typically trains for 4 hours a day, split into a morning and afternoon session.
• She fuels her routine with veggie omelets, fresh fruit, and protein-packed dinners.
• Based in Florida, Ledecky cooks most of her meals at home to make training simpler.

For being the most decorated female swimmer in Olympic history, Katie Ledecky’s philosophy around nutrition is surprisingly relaxed.

For one, she doesn’t strictly track her daily protein intake. “Over the years, I’ve kind of learned what I need because it does sometimes change, if I’m doing well or if I don’t feel like I’m doing well,” Ledecky, 28, told Business Insider.

Since graduating from Stanford in 2020, her class-free schedule also gives her more time to rest and cook her own meals between her two blocks of daily training sessions. To keep things simple, she eats mostly the same breakfasts every day and usually has leftovers from the previous night’s dinner for lunch.

“I just focus on things that I can prep easily,” Ledecky said. “My morning is pretty much set. I don’t even have to think about it very much.”

Ledecky shared what she typically eats in a day to fuel for and recover from long training sessions.

A quick snack before a 2-hour morning training

Ledecky typically wakes up at 5:00 a.m. for her first practice of the day, a 6 to 8 a.m. block involving swimming and strength training.

Before she heads out, she eats “something quick and not anything too heavy,” usually an oatmeal packet and a banana. The carbohydrates from both provide an energy boost.

Her breakfast always involves eggs

Right after practice, Ledecky usually has a Core Power protein shake, for whom she’s a brand ambassador for, to tide her over until she gets home for breakfast.

“I try to get a full meal in within an hour of when I finish practice,” she said, as the body is best optimized for nutrient intake after a hard workout. “That was something I learned from a young age.”

Breakfast is usually two eggs, scrambled or cooked in an omelet. Ledecky, who is partnered with the egg brand Eggland’s Best, said she grew up eating Eggland’s eggs in particular since she was a kid, continuing to include them as a staple of her diet as an adult.

She loves making a vegetable omelet because of how easy it is to add extra fiber-rich ingredients like spinach, arugula, or tomatoes. She usually tops with cheese like mozzarella or cheddar.

She always adds a side of toast and fruit. “So I’m kind of getting a good balance there of protein and carbs and everything that I need,” she said.

Fueling for another 2 hours of training

Ledecky has a late lunch or larger snack before her second practice of the day, another two-hour training block in the afternoon.

“Usually, that’s leftovers from dinner the night before, or a salad, or some chicken,” she said.

Throughout the day, she also likes to snack on berries, which offer fiber and extra nutrients.

“I love blueberries, raspberries, strawberries,” she said. “I always feel good when I’m having a mix of fruit throughout the day as well in between all my meals.”

She makes a protein-packed dinner

After practice, Ledecky makes dinner — her most involved meal-prep of the day. She focuses on protein-rich meals, which help with building muscle and recovery.

“That’s kind of when I mix up a little bit more,” she said. “Might be steak, might be chicken, might be a hamburger, might be pasta.”

On occasion, she treats herself to ice cream and pastries

Ledecky has a few favorite desserts in rotation.

She keeps frozen yogurt and ice cream in her freezer whenever she wants a scoop at night. Sometimes, she goes to her favorite bakery in Florida for a pastry.

“I treat myself every now and then,” she said. “It just kind of depends on what I’m craving.”

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said US control of Greenland is a strategic move to avoid conflict.
• Trump said Saturday he would impose tariffs on Denmark and Europe until they hand over Greenland.
• European Union leaders condemned the new tariffs on Sunday, calling them economic blackmail.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says President Donald Trump is serious about annexing Greenland.

Trump amped up the rhetoric on Saturday, announcing on Truth Social that the United States would impose new tariffs on Denmark, which controls Greenland, and other European countries unless they hand Greenland over.

Speaking to Kristen Welker on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Bessent said Trump’s push to take over Greenland was not an empty land grab but a strategy to prevent future conflict.

“The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency,” Bessent said. “It is a strategic decision by the president. This is a geopolitical decision, and he’s able to use the economic might of the US to avoid a hot war, so why wouldn’t we do that?”

Greenland is strategically located in the Arctic, acting as a buffer between North America and Russia. It is also home to minerals important to the manufacturing of future technologies.

Trump has recently said that at least part of his reasoning for wanting to annex Greenland is so it can house his Golden Dome missile defense project.

“The president is trying to avoid a conflict,” Bessent said.

That project remains in early planning stages, however, and Denmark has never said it wouldn’t allow Golden Dome infrastructure on its territory. The United States already has a military base in Greenland.

The spectre that the United States — recently emboldened by its surprise raid on Venezuela that netted its leader, Nicolás Maduro, allowing it to move to open the country’s oil industry — could force Europe’s hand by targeting its economy or even take Greenland by force, has rankled US allies across the Atlantic.

European Union leaders held an emergency meeting on Sunday, during which they called Trump’s tariff threat economic blackmail.

“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the eight EU nations targeted by Trump said in a joint statement released on Sunday.

• I parented my kids differently from how I was raised.
• I chose open conversations over fear and punishment.
• Being called a loose parent was worth it for our relationship.

Growing up, the grandparents who raised me were a generation removed from me, and because of it, I never felt like I could go to them with real issues or problems.

I hid the deep and dark stuff because children were to be seen and not heard. We did not talk about the big things like sex or drugs. Instead, the warnings were direct and often frightening. They went something like this, “Do not do drugs or you’ll die.” The pregnancy mantra was similar: “Do not have sex or you’ll get pregnant.”

Alongside the lack of communication was a heavy dose of fear and threats. I suppose their own parents passed down less-than-stellar communication skills and used threats in an effort to protect.

I was terrified of my grandparents

I remember coming home after having a few drinks at a high school party. “You can do this one step at a time. Say hello and walk (in a straight line) to your room,” I whispered to myself as I climbed the steep front steps leading to our second-floor apartment. There was no getting caught, or I would die, or at least endure endless punishments preventing me from going to said parties until I was an adult capable of making my own decisions.

Not only did I not know how to talk to my grandparents, but I was also terrified of them.

Sometimes, this lack of communication led to unwise decisions. I didn’t feel like I had an adult I could call if I’d done something I wasn’t supposed to do. If I did something foolish, I was on my own. It wasn’t safe, and I’d watched more than one friend get seriously injured (either physically or mentally) when they made a typical teen choice and felt they didn’t have an adult they could trust to help them.

I wanted my kids to trust me

With my own kids, I wanted to keep the lines of communication open, which became especially important as my children navigated middle school and high school. These years of adolescence included poor decision-making and a desperate struggle between being a kid and trying to grow up.

I talked openly with them about drugs, sex, and drinking. No subject was off limits. They knew they could tell me anything. Keeping our communication open and honest showed them a level of trust that other parents found difficult to understand. I often had my kids’ friends telling me things they couldn’t say to their parents. I tried to listen without judgment. I knew it was a fine line between discipline and acceptance. I also knew no matter what, keeping my kids safe was my first and most important job as a parent.

As my second set of kids head into the muddy waters of middle school and high school, these discussions are again at the forefront. “If you drink, I’ll be more upset if you get in a car with someone who’s been drinking or if you decide to drive than I will because of the drinking,” I recently told my high school daughter. Realistically, while I don’t openly condone underage drinking, I know it is, more often than not, a part of the teen years. “Call me,” I said, “and I’ll come get you.

I try to stay open-minded

While there were many things I did not accept, I also did my best to remain open-minded. It was sometimes difficult to parent this way. My kids did and continue to do things I often don’t agree with. I looked at these as teaching opportunities, rather than seeing them as moments to punish. Viewing things this way has helped me foster and maintain very close relationships with my kids. It is something others have commented on, including a social worker I visited with my son. “No matter what is going on,” she said, “you two seem to have a really tight and open relationship.” It remains one of the best compliments I’ve received as a parent.

There was another side to those comments, though. Parenthood is often filled with judgment and criticism. When my son dropped out of school, and my teens struggled with typical teen things like drinking, drug use, and sex, I remember hearing a neighbor refer to me as a loosey goosey parent. The neighbor in question didn’t understand my relationship with my kids. They didn’t share my parenting philosophy. Really, they didn’t have to. While the comment initially bothered me, I knew I was parenting in the only way I could. I parented in a way that I wasn’t parented, but wished that I had been.

As my two oldest kids hit adulthood and my youngest two become teenagers, I’m not sorry for being loosey goosey. I would do it the same way all over again. In fact, I am. I have no regrets. I hope the neighbor who judged me feels the same way when their kids go through the tough teen years.

• After living in New York and Berlin, I moved to a small French village to escape chaotic city life.
• I struggled to feel at home without city conveniences like food delivery and public transportation.
• Two years later, we moved to Lyon, which felt like a perfect compromise.

Growing up in a remote California suburb, I spent most of my childhood counting down the days until I could leave for a big city.

When the time came to move to New York for college, I was prepared to say goodbye to country living for good. I spent six years in New York, and then another four in Berlin.

Although I loved my experiences in both cities, I was exhausted. Years of apartment hopping, navigating dirty subways, and dealing with nonstop hustle left me craving a reprieve — and wondering why I’d been so quick to swear off a quainter life in the country.

So, when my husband proposed that we move to a little village near his family in France, I surprised myself by agreeing to give it a try.

This was in 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions were making it challenging to live in Berlin, and we were both desperate for the benefits that such a relocation could offer — like more square footage, a yard, and, most importantly, proximity to our loved ones and their support.

The reservations I had about residing in the country were still nagging me, but I figured things would be different this time. I was older, wiser, and doing it in beautiful France, of all places.

I wish I had listened to my gut, though, because all my old qualms with country living ended up rearing their ugly heads — and we ended up leaving after two years.

Without a driver’s license, I felt isolated by the lack of public transit

I never needed a driver’s license when I lived in cities, but that all changed when we moved to the French village. There, we simply couldn’t get around without a car — but we sure tried.

I knew going in that my public transportation options would be more limited than they were in a city, but I didn’t expect to be as isolated as we were.

When we first arrived, it took us over a month to work up the funds to buy a car. In the meantime, we attempted one very hilly bike ride, but had to call it quits before we’d even made it halfway to our destination.

Walking was no better — it took hours to get to the nearest shops, and sometimes they wouldn’t even be open when we finally arrived.

Even after we obtained a vehicle, I couldn’t navigate on my own without my husband, since he was the only one with a license.

He was always willing to drive me around, but I was frustrated by my newfound lack of independence. I considered getting a license of my own, but the cost of driving school was out of our budget at the time, so it really seemed like there was no way out of the situation I’d gotten myself into.

I wasn’t prepared for the demands of caring for a house after years of apartment dwelling

Apartment life certainly has its drawbacks, but extra square footage comes with pitfalls, too.

We loved that our rental home gave us the newfound ability to stretch out and make noise without bothering each other. The downside, though, was that it was up to us to care for and maintain all that extra space.

It wasn’t just the house, either — it was also our responsibility to tend to the adjoining garden, barn, and the attached horse stables. It was a full-time job’s worth of work, and I started to miss the days when I could clean my whole apartment in just an afternoon.

Living without any takeout options was harder than I expected

Normally, I’m a proponent of cooking as much of my own food as possible, but I at least like to have the option of ordering in or eating out — especially on days full of chores and work.

Unfortunately, getting to the closest takeout restaurant took an hour round-trip, and delivery applications like Uber Eats didn’t service our small village.

What’s more, our dining options were severely limited compared to what we’d had in Berlin. I realized that I missed trying different cuisines and checking out new restaurants, and even when cooking,

I didn’t have access to the same wide variety of ingredients that I’d had in the city. One example was sesame oil — if I wanted to use this pantry staple in a recipe, I’d have to go to a big city to find it.

Connecting with neighbors wasn’t easy

Our village was extremely small — as of 2020, the population was under 400 — and many of the people I met were much older.

Needless to say, our rhythms and beliefs didn’t always match up. We often had debates over everything from politics to local initiatives — like what to do with all the feral cats — and it wasn’t always easy to argue my point in my then-limited French.

Since most folks in Berlin are fluent in English, I’d never been up against such a language barrier before. All that and more made it challenging to form true connections and further contributed to my feelings of isolation.

That said, there were things I missed about country life once I left

Despite all my frustrations, there were a few great things about living in the French countryside.

For starters, it really is beautiful, and being there allowed me to grow my own fruit and vegetables, forage wild blackberries in the forest, and perfect my French with the folks in town who were willing and patient enough to help me out.

After two years, we ended up moving to Lyon, the nearest city, because it offered the best of both worlds. At only 84 miles away, we’d have proximity to my husband’s family and access to nature, plus all the advantages of living in a major city.

I’ll always remember the beautiful memories from my time in the village — but I’ll also always prefer to reminisce about them from an apartment in a city.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
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After a bruising pullback from pandemic-era highs, tech hiring is settling into a more sustainable phase, according to a new study on top jobs from Indeed.

Postings for tech roles are down 36% from early 2020, but job listings for some specialized technical occupations are still higher than pre-pandemic levels — a sign of recalibration, not collapse.

Data scientists and solution architects continue to command six-figure salaries and these roles often offer remote flexibility. Indeed’s list of top jobs also highlights accessible on-ramps for career switchers, with roles such as ServiceNow developer and full-stack developer that emphasize skills and real-world experience over formal credentials.

Notably, trade jobs are rising alongside tech. Electricians, HVAC technicians, and electrical foremen are increasingly in demand, a trend likely fueled by large-scale AI data center construction.

As AI reshapes white-collar work, specialized tech roles and skilled trades are emerging as durable, future-proof career paths.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.