This is correct. Unlike an EU citizen, a permanent resident is not entitled to live and work in another EU country without obtaining the documents for that country.

The only way I could see it possibly work is if you are married to an EU citizen. If you are married to an EU citizen you generally have the legal right to live and work in whatever country your EU spouse lives in. There are some exceptions, the biggest being if your spouse has never exercised his or her EU free movement rights. But I do not know if that would count under the definition of unrestricted right to live and work in the EU.

Really the best thing to do if you want to fly in Europe permanently is do some genealogy research as several of the EU countries will grant citizenship, or have an expedited naturalisation process, to descendants of their citizens. I had a grandparent born in Ireland and was able to register in the Foreign Births Register and claim Irish citizenship (I did not realise I was eligible until about a year after I moved to Europe, so I went through the application process for family reunification in the country where my wife was from - knowing ahead of time would have saved a lot of stress) . If you have a parent born in Ireland then Ireland already considers you a citizen and you can just apply for your passport. Germany has ways to pass down citizenship through generations and if you have some Jewish ancestors from Germany it becomes even easier in some cases. I have a friend who was able to claim Italian citizenship through his ancestry too. Spain and Portugal will grant residence and expedited naturalisation to certain descendants of their former citizens. Another friend from Brazil recently acquired Spanish citizenship this way (yes Spain, not Portugal). I believe Poland also has a way to acquire citizenship through ancestry as well. In most cases these are not quick, it can take over a year to get it done. It took about a year to be registered in the FBR in Ireland. The friend who got his Italian citizenship took almost three years to go through the process and had to visit the Italian consulate five times during those three years. My Brazilian friend worked on his Spanish citizenship for over a year and a half. So even if you have the ancestry, don't expect anything to happen overnight.

If you do not have any ancestry that helps, then marriage to an EU citizen can in most cases expedite the process. Research carefully though as some countries will grant citizenship to a spouse in as little as two years, while others will still make you wait the better part of a decade. Many countries require fluency in the national language too and in some cases that can be quite difficult. Switzerland (not EU but with virtually the same rights) will grant citizenship to a person married to a Swiss citizen even if they do not live in Switzerland as long as you have been married six years and your spouse still holds "close ties" to Switzerland.

Sorry to add more but here is one more piece of advice to consider if you really want to move outside the States. Consider the potential effect of FATCA. If you maintain an address and most/all of your accounts in the States then it may not be an issue. But if you move your entire live abroad with no plans to ever return, or even begin to open bank accounts overseas, then FATCA and the U.S. tax issues can begin to become a major issue. Do you research into that as well.

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