These TikTokers are inspiring youth from Vancouver and Toronto to move to Calgary

When Umar and Atefah Khan moved to Calgary from Toronto in May, they created the Tiktok account @toronto2calgary to document their journey.

It all started when they began posting about their three-day cross-country road trip to update friends and family back home.

The Khans say they didn't know where their TikTok account would take them — but now, with nearly 100,000 total likes on their videos, they're inspiring others to make the same journey.

"We saw in the comments that a lot of people got inspired to make the move too, and they're asking questions about it," said Umar.

Atefah and Umar decided to move to Calgary because of its housing market and closeness to nature. They've received mixed reactions about the move, but they say it's for their financial future.

"With the money we're saving over the months, we definitely could use that money to get away during the colder months."

Now, a few months after their move, the Khans say they're using TikTok to showcase the beauty of the city and its surrounding areas for viewers across the globe.

They aren't the only ones. Other new Calgarians have turned to the social media platform to share their experiences relocating to Calgary from bigger cities like Toronto and Vancouver, spurring conversations among youth about whether the city should be an option for their next big move.

CBC News reported earlier this year that more young Albertans are choosing to live outside of the province. But recent Statistics Canada data published in June shows that while 16,629 people left Alberta for other Canadian provinces in the first quarter of 2022, there were 21,980 people from other provinces who moved to Alberta in the same period.

That means Alberta has a net gain of 5,351 new residents from January to March of this year, compared with a net loss of 1,239 residents who left the province in all of 2021. This data, however, does not include the age ranges of those new Alberta residents.

The increase in people moving to Alberta from other provinces, including bigger metropolitan cities like Vancouver and Toronto, is something Mel Chow has witnessed herself.

She's a real estate agent who moved to Calgary from Toronto seven years ago and started posting about her moving experience on TikTok over the summer. Chow has also lived in Vancouver.

"There's no negative that I can think of in my time being here that would ever make me go back to one of the bigger cities," she said.

Chow says lately she's noticed a lot more people looking to buy properties in Calgary from other provinces.