We moved from California to Utah for the financial freedom to start our own business, but it wasn't as affordable as we thought. After 3 years, we're ready to move back home.

• Ian Hughes and Jai-Yu Fu moved from California to Utah in 2020 seeking new experiences and affordability.

• They settled in Salt Lake City because of Hughes' job and have since started their own business.

• The city isn't as affordable as they thought and the couple is moving back to California next month.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with couple Ian Hughes, 32, and Jai-yu Fu, 30, about their experiences moving from Santa Rosa, California, to Salt Lake City, Utah in July 2020. The couple is preparing to move back to the West Coast next month. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Ian: I'm born and raised in California and we met going to design school in San Francisco over 10 years ago. We just had our six-year wedding anniversary.

Jai-Yu: I was born and raised in Taipei City in Taiwan. I pretty much spent half my lifetime in Taiwan and then here in the States. So, I have this sort of expat narrative.

Before we moved to Utah, we were living in Santa Rosa, California. The rent at that time —

Ian: It was $2,300 plus utilities.

My background is in the outdoor industry; Jai-Yu's background is in architectural design. When I was right out of school, there were a lot more outdoor companies in the Bay Area, but they all started leaving to go to Denver or Salt Lake City. There's more of an outdoor vibe there, I guess. So I knew that was going on and anticipated wanting to leave to stay with that crowd.

Jai-Yu: We were just at the point in our life where we didn't feel like being tied down.

Ian: We were ready to try something new, too.

I got an offer with this job in Salt Lake City in March or April of 2020. We were excited.

Jai-Yu: At the same time, we had this dream that we really wanted to start our own business.

We were thinking: Can we go chase this dream? To chase that dream, it involves our own investments. We had to spend our own money to start our own company.

Ian: Part of the reason I wanted to work with this startup is I thought I could learn a lot and then apply it to our own business later on.

We also knew that it was a little less expensive to live in Salt Lake City, so we were kind of excited to be in a position to save a little more.

Jai-Yu: Well, that's what we thought.

Part of the reason we left Santa Rosa was because we got the impression that Salt Lake City was supposed to be more affordable.

But because there's so much domestic migration, it's definitely affecting Salt Lake City's density and the housing prices. So, the past three years that we've been here, the pricing we're seeing is relatively similar to what it was like in Santa Rosa.

The couple made the move in July 2020 — right in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic

Ian: It was definitely a strange time to move.

Jai-Yu: I didn't really like it because when we first arrived it was a ghost town. COVID was still going on and we couldn't really explore as much as we wished to, or meet people. There wasn't much social life. We were basically just working all the time.

Ian: Most of the people we've met have been through our jobs here. And for the most part, everybody's been really nice and friendly. We're not that great at making friends outside of work, but whenever we've interacted with strangers, everyone's usually pretty nice and respectful.

I think people here definitely assume that because we're from California, we're automatically more well-off.