How to Hungary ebook

Chapter 1

Welcome to HOW TO HUNGARY: Budapest and Beyond – your trusted companion for navigating life, work, or even just a long stay in this vibrant, complex, and endlessly fascinating country.

When the first edition of this book came out in March 2025, I was deep in the middle of writing, researching, double-checking, and second-guessing myself. Not because I thought I was finished learning Hungary. Quite the opposite. I knew then, as I know now, that there is always more to learn here. But at the time, I genuinely believed this book would remain a small, self-contained side project. Useful, yes. Finite, defnitely.

That assumption did not age well.

In the year since, this book has quietly grown into something much larger. What started as a single guide has turned into an ongoing conversation, shaped daily by thousands of people navigating Hungary alongside me. Through articles, videos, newsletters, live events, and constant messages from readers, this project has become a shared space for questions, corrections, updates, and lived experience. Not an audience in the influencer sense, but a community of people comparing notes, flagging changes, and helping each other make sense of a country that refuses to sit still.

That growth has changed how I think about this book.

Let me introduce myself properly, in case you are new here. I’m Anikó. Abroad, my name often raises eyebrows. In Hungary, it barely earns a second glance. My roots here run deep, although our family’s journey has never been straightforward. My mother was born in a refugee camp on the Austrian border after the Second World War. At five years old, she crossed the Atlantic with her family, beginning a new life in Canada far from the country they had lost. My father grew up in Budapest during the city’s post-war rebuilding years, before leaving in the 1960s for Canada in search of opportunity and freedom. They met there, in a country neither had been born in but both would call home.

Hungary, however, never fully let go of us. It lived on in quieter ways: in food, in habits, in the language my parents switched to when they did not want us to understand. By 2021, in a twist that still feels improbable, we were all back. My parents. My sister and her husband. Andrew and me. Living under the same Hungarian sky again.

I was born and raised in Canada, far from the sunflower fields and thermal baths of my ancestors. My Hungarian extended to a handful of household phrases and strong opinions delivered at speed. I visited often, spending summers at Lake Balaton and winters wandering Budapest’s Christmas markets, but living here as a resident turned out to be something entirely different. Moving countries is not a postcard experience. It is a puzzle, and the pieces rarely arrive in the box you expect.

When my British husband, Andrew, and I moved here in 2017, we did so with optimism, questionable timing, and a small dog in a travel crate. Brexit loomed, paperwork multiplied, and my Hungarian citizenship by birthright turned out to be far less useful than expected when paired with minimal language skills. The early years were full of small, humbling lessons. I learned new words quickly, mostly related to offices, forms, and frustration. I learned that politeness is highly valued, pronunciation matters, and confidence does not substitute for comprehension. 

Over time, the surprises became less dramatic but never stopped entirely. Hungary is a country of layers. Old and new coexist without apology. You might step out of a high-tech office into a stairwell that has not changed in a century. You might debate politics on a bus with a stranger who later insists on recommending their cousin’s dentist. It is contradictory, practical, generous, stubborn, and endlessly specific.

Eight years in, I no longer expect to fully arrive. I am not quite Canadian anymore, but never fully Hungarian either. My language skills remain imperfect. My instincts have shifted. I have learned how things work here, while accepting that they can change without notice. This in-between state turns out to be common. Most people who cross borders for long enough end up here, stitching together identity from experience rather than paperwork. 

This book was born from that space between expectation and reality. Not as an instruction manual, but as context. Something to read alongside official information, not instead of it. Since the first edition, that context has expanded significantly. Readers flag policy changes. Experts weigh in when the details matter. Conversations continue long after a chapter ends. What you are holding now reflects not just my own experiences, but the collective knowledge of a growing network of professionals and residents who generously help keep this information accurate and current.

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