A near-death experience inspired Dena McGaha to travel halfway around the world.
In 2011, when McGaha was 16, a deadly tornado ripped through her parents’ house in Harvest, Alabama, with her, her brother, mother and father inside. Magahar’s father, Ronnie, threw himself on his daughter to protect her from the wind and debris. He was killed while protecting Mecca from a storm.
The last Christmas her father was alive, he gave her a European travel guide. “I’ve always had a passion for traveling,” said McGaha, 30. “With this gift, I feel like all my dreams (of seeing the world) are supported and validated.”
As soon as Magahar turned 18, he began planning to go abroad.
“Traveling started as a coping mechanism to keep me excited about life and heal after going through such a horrific experience and losing my father,” McGaha said.
“It opened up my world and I wanted to experience everything that was out there. It also taught me that even after losing so much, I could build a new, beautiful life.”
After returning from the trip, McGaha moved to Whidbey Island, Washington, to live with her mother and found a job as a barista at a coffee shop.
“I felt like an imposter,” she recalls. “Everyone I knew was applying to grad school or getting job opportunities in big cities, and I just felt tired and lost…I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I knew I wanted to keep traveling.”
One of her friends suggested she consider a teaching career in Budapest, Hungary, because of the teacher shortage and visa processing times.
Within weeks of submitting her application, McGaha found a job teaching kindergarten English and moved to Budapest in 2017—a city she still calls home seven years later.
“I don’t think I’ll live here forever, but I don’t know why I left,” she said. “I still have a lot of love for this city.”
Traveling to Europe with $4,000 and a suitcase
McGaha spent $800 on his new life outside the United States—and that was just the cost of a one-way ticket.
“I think I took a suitcase with me,” she said. All told, she saved about $4,000 on the move.
Her teaching contract includes a furnished one-bedroom apartment in Budapest, with a monthly stipend to help pay rent and utility bills. The job pays approximately $7,800 per year.
McGaha said she didn’t face much of a language barrier in her new career in Budapest because many Hungarians speak English, and after working at the school for a year, she was already fluent in Hungarian.
“I learned a lot working with kindergarten children because the Hungarian the children spoke was very simple and repetitive,” explains Magaha.
She quickly made friends with other teachers, expats she met through Instagram, and employees at nearby businesses—from outdoor farmers markets to Budapest’s famous ruin bars.
For McGaha, the biggest challenge in moving to Budapest was being away from her family and friends in the United States and adapting to what she calls “coconut culture.”
“People from ‘peach culture’, such as Americans, tend to be gentler in appearance, friendly to strangers, and keen on chatting, but there is a pit in the middle. Some private parts of themselves are reserved for a few people. ,” she explained. “Hungarian culture is a bit like coconuts: they mostly keep to themselves and don’t socialize easily with strangers, but once you break out of their shell they become wonderful and loyal friends, and many will treat you like family.”
Shift from teaching to a distance-first career
Shortly after moving to Budapest, McGaha began a blog About her experience as an American expat and her favorite things to do around the city.
Little did she know that her favorite hobby would turn into a career.
Magahar was fired in March 2020 when Hungary closed schools to curb the spread of Covid-19.
She spends more time updating her blog and promoting her content on LinkedIn and Instagram. Local businesses in Budapest took notice and began contacting Magaha through her blog to help improve their own blogs and social media accounts.
Through these opportunities, “I was able to build more of my product portfolio, and an acquaintance who worked at Consumer51 contacted me via Instagram to help them build their international client list,” McGaha explains.
She now works as a freelance travel writer and part-time remote digital marketing strategist for Consumer51, a Philadelphia-based marketing agency.
McGaha usually works out of a one-room apartment in Budapest’s 5th district or a nearby co-working space.
Photo: Bence Bammer
Since moving to Budapest and losing her teaching job, Magaha has had to apply for several different visas.
When she first arrived in Hungary, she obtained a work visa to teach English. Between 2020 and 2024, she applied for and received two different short-term visas – a self-employed visa and an “other purpose visa” – each valid for approximately two years, consecutively.
In January 2024, the Hungarian government completely reformed the immigration system. It abolished the “other purpose visa”, the type of residence permit that McGaha was seeking to extend, but she was still eligible for it because she applied for it before it was cancelled.
If her application is approved, Magaha may be allowed to live in Hungary for at least another year.
She is still considering applying for permanent residence in Hungary but has not applied yet because she dreams of becoming a digital nomad, traveling and working in different countries.
“Living in Budapest makes me smile,” she said. “The only time I cry here is when I have to deal with immigration papers.”
Live comfortably for less than $40,000 a year
Last year, McGaha earned about $37,731 from her marketing work and freelancing, which she said was “more than enough” to cover her monthly expenses and save money for travel and dining out with friends.
In early 2020, she moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Budapest’s 5th district neighborhood, which she found on Ingatlan, a popular apartment-finding website. Her rent, which has remained unchanged since moving in, is about $560 a month.
After paying rent and utilities, McGaha said her goal is to spend no more than $150 a week.
“I’m grateful that living here gives me more options for spending and saving,” McGaha added. “For example, if I were living in Seattle on my current salary, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the financial independence or peace of mind that I do now.”
Here’s a breakdown of McGaha’s monthly expenses (as of May 2024):
Average monthly expenses in Makkah
Ilham Atayazar
food: $806
Rent and Utilities: $664
Insurance: $82
Telephone: $97
subscription: $189
transportation: $8
Business expenses: $25
Discretion: $400
Debt repayment: $1,089
All: $3,360
“In May, my expenses exceeded my income, and I think a lot of that was paying off credit card debt,” she said. “I’m also more free to go out to eat and hang out with friends…but I’ll be traveling less this summer and trying to be more mindful with my money.”
Building a new life abroad
McGaha said she rarely misses America.
Holding a conversation in Hungarian and navigating the country’s immigration system can be a headache at times, but “every morning I wake up here and I’m in awe that this is my life,” she said.
In the evenings, she bikes along the Danube, has a glass of wine with friends at an open-air bar in Budapest, or goes out to eat langos, a Hungarian fried flatbread that’s one of Europe’s most famous street snacks.
On the weekends, she heads to Margate Island for a picnic with friends, trying new bakeries around Budapest, or exploring some of the city’s cultural offerings, from late-night museum exhibitions to concerts at the Puskas Arena.
McGaha believes that such a life would make her 16-year-old self proud. “Would I move back to the United States again? If I could get the same level of comfort, peace and quality of life, then I’d be open to it,” she said. “But now, I love Hungary, I love Budapest and I’m happy to be here.”
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