In 2019, Chanel Rivers traveled to London. That ended up changing the entire trajectory of her life.
Born and raised in New York, Rivers, now 35, said she was fed up with the dating scene and worried about her safety in the Big Apple.
She books a trip to London with a friend and notices how comfortable it is to walk around the city, which no longer feels like New York.
“I remember walking through London and thinking, ‘This is where I’m meant to be.’ That was the feeling that hit me,” Rivers says. “I feel like I’m a lot less anxious in London, which is great.”
Immediately upon returning to New York, Rivers began thinking about how to move back to London permanently, but the coronavirus pandemic halted those plans completely. During the pandemic, Rivers met her current fiance, Martin, a Canadian architect who lived and worked in New York.
Rivers was born and raised in New York.
chanel rivers
After four-and-a-half years of dating, Rivers once again suggested to his fiance that they move to London. She admits that she had a lingering desire to move and no longer saw herself staying in New York long-term.
“I thought about Canada, I considered Vancouver, but it just wasn’t a big enough city for me. Coming from New York, I needed a big city, and London was always the plan in my mind,” she says.
Around the same time that Rivers was considering moving to London, her fiancé’s job offered her a position in its London office. It was “very serendipitous, but inevitable,” she says.
Since Martin was already a British citizen, Rivers only needed to apply for a partner visa, which was approved in March 2024.
Chanel is part of a small but growing trend of Americans moving to the UK According to the Guardian, more than 6,000 Americans applied to become British subjects or to live and work in the UK indefinitely between March 2024 and March 2025, the most since the Home Office began keeping records in 2004.
hello london
In October 2024, the couple moved into a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a private garden in west London, without ever meeting in person. Documents seen by CNBC Make It show that the rent was 2,400 pounds, or $3,159, when they first moved in, but has since increased to 2,515.20 pounds, or $3,311.
The apartment was unfurnished, a townhouse rather than a large building, and unlike modern apartments in New York City, there was no doorman. The couple did not ship the furniture because it was too expensive. On their first night in the apartment, they slept in sleeping bags on the floor and used their suitcases as a dining table.
“We wanted something with character. When we moved here, we told ourselves we wanted something different. We wanted something that felt very London, so that we could have a different living experience than we had in America,” Rivers says.
Rivers, his fiancé and their dog moved to London in October 2024.
chanel rivers
Rivers was able to keep her $120,000-a-year job in event planning and marketing until the end of 2024.
She then began looking for work in London. She says it helped her explore London while traveling for interviews and working at a local coffee shop. Rivers admitted that while she never felt homesick or regretted moving, she was still nervous about living in a new city.
She added: “I was scared because London is so big and I was a bit scared to go out on my own. I don’t know what happened to that brave girl in 2019, but everything feels so real now and I’m sure she was in shock.”
After 1 year and cost of living in London
Rivers and her fiancé have lived in London for a little over a year, but she says they’ve settled in well. Rivers found work as an event planner based in London. Rivers, who did not want to reveal her salary, said that although her salary was lower, she was happy with it and was spending less than when she lived in New York.
“I find that I’m spending less in general now, mainly because I’m not as social as I was in New York. In London, life is a little quieter, but in a good way,” she says. “I still make time to meet new friends and new people, but I go out less. And now that I’m earning less here, I’m more concerned about where my money goes.”
Rivers and her fiance also split their expenses evenly based on their income.
“My fiancé makes as much money as he makes in the U.S., so it’s like he’s carrying a team on his back now, which is great,” she added.
Rivers and her fiance moved into the apartment without ever seeing it in person.
chanel rivers
According to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, Rivers’ percentage of monthly living expenses is as follows:
Rent = £1,215 or $1,599 Mobile phone = £49.70 or $65 Internet/Wi-Fi = £20 or $26 Water = £59.78 or $79 Electricity = £121 or $159 Groceries = £300 or $395 Transport = £115 or $151 Amazon Prime = £8.99 or $12 Dollar Pet Insurance = £25.21 or $33 Apple TV = $12.99
Rivers said her biggest monthly expenses are rent, groceries and utilities. She commutes to the office three times a week and often buys lunch that day.
Since moving to London, Rivers said she and her fiance have also been able to take advantage of London’s location by taking local day trips by train and traveling to Ireland and Mallorca.
“It’s really nice to have easy access to travel. In America, we go on a trip once a year and that’s it. It’s great to be able to hop on a train and spend a night in Paris or hop on a plane and go to Spain,” she says. “Travel is also a big part of why we wanted to move.
Despite the time it took to resolve the issue, Rivers said she feels they made the right decision.
“I just feel like this is the right path and this is where I’m meant to be. Even the mundane things I’m doing here excite me,” she says. “I feel like I’m probably in the honeymoon phase, but I feel every day that I made the right choice. I can’t imagine myself living in America now because I know what it’s like to live a lifestyle outside of America.”
Rivers says he has no intention of returning to the United States.
chanel rivers
Rivers said returning to the U.S. probably isn’t in her options, but after living out her dream in London for a few more years, she may eventually consider moving to Canada.
“Canada wasn’t that exciting for where I am in life right now. I wanted somewhere a little more exciting, like New York, but I wanted something different. When I’m older and I want to go back and be closer to my family, I think Canada will be the place to move to,” she says.
Conversion from British Pound to US Dollar was performed on November 11, 2025 using the OANDA exchange rate of 0.76 GBP to 1 US Dollar. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.
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