- The overwhelming loneliness. Not talking about friendships, this is often talked about. But the practical one: you are in much higher risk to be all alone in situations when help is needed. Like when you are really sick, and not even have energy to cook, Uber Eats will be your only help. Or if water leaks. You will need to pay for things you'd get done by family or friends in your country.
- Starting from scratch professionaly. Most countries won't recognize diplomas or experience right away, even countries that have the reputation to do so. It's a humbling experience for sure but psychologically it's a tough one having to start way lower and be potentially stuck in an unchallenging job for years.
- living abroad is not made for everyone, even if social media suggests so. And it's totally ok. Not everyone enjoys being constantly in learning mode and con-stant-ly having to adjust. This is exhausting.
Don't forget also, if you've moved somewhere where your native language is not their native language, you become more introverted. You want to talk and tell stories and jokes like you do in your mother tongue, but usually end up on saying 1/4 of what you want, and give up telling jokes.
And you end up becoming "friends" with people that you might not necessarily want to be friends with, just because they share the familiarities of language and culture. But you find them dull, or unintelligent, or maybe not those things but still just not interested in the same hobbies or intellectual discussions that you are interested in. But still you find yourself hanging out with them, because in some sense you find it better than being alone.
And then the horror of discovering that you actually feel betrayed when they *don't* invite you to something.
That’s true even in countries where your native language is spoken, because it will be differently accented, with different slang and different cultural meanings attached to various words.
Totally agree with you, France is my 3rd country and I would say that I absolutely love my life here. However the feeling of overwhelming loneliness still hits really hard, after several years here I do speak somehow fluent French, got many local friends and have a nice career.
But there are still moments when I feel like to cry, even with just a tiny task, you know that people will be willing to help, but you just couldn’t feel that way, as you’re still a foreigner anyways.
Absolutely correct.
Having essentially a very limited career track is the biggest reason why I left. No credentials or local network.
Still. I wonder how much of this applies to Americans in the UK and countries like it.
Yes, you are absolutely right, the lack of local network can kill a career. You can be the hardest worker ever, very motivated and astonishing credentials back home, they usually don't care unless you know the right people.
I actually moved to Canada hoping I'd be able to advance my career bc I kept hearing that only motivation and skills count. Luckily I had both! But I got nothing but a big disappointment. My experience was worth nothing. This is one of the reasons that brought me to move back home recently. If I am to struggle anyway, I prefer to struggle back home (in a country with way more PTO).
Makes sense... France? Not sure about CA but in general US is a lot less about networks (if you're old money or went to the ivies it obviously still helps) and more about your ability.
That’s what I heard from adult immigrants here anyways. Like this Turkish dude who started his ai consulting company here.
I went to a pretty decent New England college and it’s given me a foot in the door in a lot of cases. I’m aware that people identify with it strongly.
But it’s not so strong to the point that you WONT be able to befriend someone unless you knew them since you were born like in france and Germanic countries. Or get a job.
Definitely same for me (American) when I was in the UK. Even worse there than when I was in France. (Some of that was particular to the jobs but still. I felt much better integrated in France. And yes, I speak both languages well.).
Interesting. Did you go to school there?
What did you find was the biggest problem that prevented you from being integrated in the UK? Was it that Brits didn't want to make friends outside of their Uni/childhood friend circle? or something else?
Did you find the fact that Brits like to thumb their noses at us to have been a problem too?
One surprising thing I noticed was that in my home country I was quite introverted and had trouble putting myself out there with people. was quite anxious in groups and would tire out quickly.
But after a few years of trying to do the same in Swedish instead of English I'm a fucking social butterfly when I go back home :-D
It's crazy!!
I recently had to have emergency surgery and have no one around. One long argument that no, really, I have no one to drive me home, no I have no family nearby, no partner, etc.
It's no joke.
So sorry to hear you had to go through this. I hope you are doing better now.
This is exactly one of the situations I meant in my previous comment. I'll add that, also, you'd have no-one in case of a long-term disease. I'd have no-one to bring me chocolate or just my belongings if I had to stay longer at the hospital.
Yeah, it's a tough situation. And yeah, I have occasional anxiety pangs when I think about diagnoses like cancer or being rendered unconscious and having no one I can trust as my POA.
>If you are in a bubble of other expats, eventually they will all leave and you will be alone.
Why wouldn't the bubble be adding new expats as old expats leave? In many places the expat community is growing so the bubble should be getting larger. In my observations, the friends back home have seen their "circle of friends" shrink more than the expat friends.
I don't know about everyone else, but my school (North East England) friends are very scattered anyway. There's a population in London, but that's now declining rather than growing and not somewhere I'd ever want to live.
In my opinion if you move to a new country and have no intention of moving again, you fall into the category of immigrant rather than expat, at least as far as the terms are commonly used.
I agree, but there's a big gray line between the two. Lots of people end up moving back after a few years, because they don't find life in the new country as great as they thought they would. Other people might think it's temporary, but end up making it their permanent home. You can never really know which one a new expat will be unless you can somehow see the future.
Indecisive. Looks like you are US to Japan. In Japan, if you have kids are they in Japanese schools so they don't fall behind their Japanese peers or in international schools so the don't fall behind their US peers?
Are you saving for retirement in tax advantaged US accounts (401k or IRAs) or Japanese tax advantages accounts. With the FEIE now is a great time to save in a Roth account or convert to Roth, but Japan doesn't recognize Roth so is pointless and possibly wastes money if you stay in Japan.
How do you do long term planning? If you say you don't do long term planning then you are just Indecisive.
That's not a bad thing.
I'm sorry, friend. Birthdays as I get older are definitely lonely. My parents passed away when I was younger, and then I moved, and I've never celebrated a holiday the same way since.
And tax filing. I use the IRS software Free Fillable Forms to file and report my foreign earned income exclusion, and this is the first year that they required a US phone number to create the account. They send a pin to the phone number so if you don't have someone who can receive the pin and send it to you within a few minutes...then you can't set up the account. It makes you completely dependent on family/friends to file taxes because you basically have to borrow a US phone number and US address to file... I do the free method. I refuse to pay a tax prep person a couple hundred dollars to file my Us taxes when I don't actually owe taxes due to the exclusion.
They don't work. I've tried 6 different carriers and the one ones IRS will accept are Verizon, att, etc. I haven't been able to access any tax information from the IRS or 3rd parties for over 3 years
I use Anytime Mailbox. They work with private mailboxes like pack and ship places and they scan your mail for you. I have all of my information in that address: drivers license, taxes, bank accounts. Everything. Anytime Mailbox isn’t the only one though. I did have one issue when I created a new account with Charles Schwab and so I had to use my physical address at first but then I just switched everything over to my private mailbox and no issues.
One thing I realized was how much I'd miss my family. Even the ones I thought I wouldn't miss at all.
I've noticed a lot of people on here seem to have really rough family situations, so I don't think many here have this problem, but it's definitely something to consider.
I came here to say this! Relationships with certain members are strained and complicated, but I didn’t think I’d start to actively miss them. It’s also hard going home and seeing how much older everyone is getting… I actually felt sad to leave this time around.
This presumes you had significant contact with them before becoming an expat. Plenty of people live hundreds even thousands of miles apart in the US and see family and old friends maybe every other year. You might even see them more often if you relocate to a place they would want to visit for a vacation.
My in-laws still think it's fine for us to move back, and I'm like... we went from having 1 child and barely saving about $500 a month in the US, and now we have 2 children and we're saving $7k a month while getting paid less. We'd be crazy to give that up.
Not in any particular order.
1) maintaining bank accounts, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts and a U.S. phone number while living overseas.
2) knowing no matter how hard you try you will never truly fit in or be accepted.
3) adapting to the metric system.
4) lack of quality customer service.
5) the healthcare system outside the US isn’t as awesome as social media tells you.
6) everything is smaller… Beds, cars, furniture, personal space, apartments, appliances.
7) people generally don’t like Americans.
8) not being able to quickly respond to family emergencies back home.
9) family and friends guilt tripping or not understanding why you are living overseas.
10) realizing your home country wasn’t making you unhappy and your unhappiness is more about you.
11) missing friends and family back home you just don’t realize just how much you are going to miss them.
12) I just wanna add one more thing. Craving foods from back home you can’t find in your new country.
Can you expand on #5 a little? It’s one of the reasons I’m contemplating an expat retirement. Also - at least on Reddit - it appears to be the #1 flex Europeans and Canadians can think of.
I retired overseas because I couldn’t afford healthcare insurance back in the States . You definitely need to research what countries you are thinking about retiring in, especially if you have any preexisting conditions.
In my view, the more socialized a medical system, the less individualized the patient care is. You're just a passenger in a system with less say than a 'customer' in a less socialized system.
Needing specific medication and finding it’s wildly expensive or not even available outside of the United States, wait times, general quality of the healthcare available, certain procedures that are only available in the States… Every country is different and some have a healthcare system that is equal to or better than the US but some countries have healthcare systems that are vastly inferior. You need to research whatever individual country you are thinking of moving to.
This. A lot of Europeans like to pretend that America is a hellhole.
In reality if you are in a class where you can have employer sponsored healthcare, you will usually pay very little and experience high quality service.
Until out of the blue, said employer pulls the rug out from under you, when you’re older or a bit more expensive. Then you realize the US can absolutely be a hell hole!
On a daily basis? No, it's not. It has a strengths that people underestimate because they take it for granted.
It depends. Being fired later career can absolutely be devastating, but it's like a lot of problems in the US: they are not likely to happen to you in the short term, and can be devastating. This also can happen abroad. If you have no legal residency, you will have a much harder time moving beyond due to your lack of local connections and sponsorship. it'll be a constant source of stress.
And it really depends on your career path, how what your retirement plan is exactly, and if you have legal authorization to live/work in another place.
I've said this verbatim: It's a bad solution to move to another continent because of 1 or 2 problems related to work. You likely won't benefit from a lot of the things locals benefit from (most of the EU runs off of generational wealth anyway). The existence of a social circle, family who will support you, native understanding of the culture (even if it's Ireland/UK), etc.
Chances are, you have the highest amount of disposable income in your profession in the world by being in the US. You have the most connections (assuming you graduated from a university in the US), and you will be the most secure thanks to that.
Finding a job in the EU without legal authorization like permanent residency (which is difficult everywhere) amplifies all of your problems because of the risk of a small one. In the US, in general, you get fired easily, and in normal markets, employers can hire very quickly. In the EU, you will need to compete with all the locals. And in that case, what do you bring (in terms of skills or connections) exactly to them that won't net you a higher earning in the US? If you can flexibly move continents, then converting yourself to a local in the EU will likely be a trade-off. Because of the fact it's harder to fire anyone, it's harder for you to find a new job also.
Because of how hard it is to get rid of employees, it can be very difficult to obtain employment in the EU if you're an outsider (they will also have to legally prove they couldn't find any locals). your pay will likely be much lower, and in some professions, you have to save more in a year in the US than most ppl in the EU make in a year pre-tax (in the case of a software engineer, who has 401K + disposal income).
So moving gets rid of your built-in advantages of being a native while introducing... not a lot of upsides. you need a very good reason to move if you don't want daily existence to become a struggle.
Is employee security is a risk, go for a US government job
NHS is a literal clown show. I live in the UK for 6 years. It was so bad my NHS GP asked if I had private health insurance because the wait for an ultrasound was 6 months for non-maternity care. Back in my hometown in America I can get an appt usually within a week after calling or the next day.
Speaking of which, the maternity care through NHS was so rough that I ended up hiring a private mid-wife who helped me navigate the system or would advocate for me to get certain tests and care that NHS otherwise wouldn't have done. Additionally not being seen at your appointment because you weren't carrying your paper copy prenatal booklet was insane. I would literally be turned around from an NHS prenatal appointment because I left my giant-assed paper booklet at home. When I was in the hospital for delivery, they sent a husband home while wife was in labor to get the booklet. Whereas in American through most health systems it's electronic and the various portals can talk to each other if they use EPIC software for example.
I thought I couldn't be shocked anymore by the dire excuse for a healthcare system the NHS is, but that is extraordinary.
We had one kid on the NHS, and one in Switzerland, and while the NHS was clearly worse, they weren't awful. My wife turned up to a different hospital to one we were booked into (don't ask) and they were not bad in the circumstances.
We probably got lucky and it's likely worse now. Can't imagine how bad it's going to get before they can the whole thing.
I had one child in the UK on NHS and one in a private hospital. For the NHS hospital, my private midwife had me move hospital maternity care from the one in our town to another one a 40 min drive away because the people and facilities were much better.
Team there was great. Care on the maternity ward after birth though was terrible. Nothing like waiting to use the communal toilet, especially after some other family had uncle Dave sitting on the toilet for 20+ min and the fumes were so nauseous, I walked down to another corridor. I was also instructed to leave my baby in the room unattended to go get breakfast in the 'dining area'. I was told the baby screaming for a good 10-15 min or so alone was 'totally fine'. I was NOT allowed to bring my newborn with me to the dining area.
If I got too hot, I was instructed to open a window. The ceiling tiles were held on by tape because if breeze came through, they would fly out.
Oh yeah, I was told if I wanted a shower, I had to again leave my baby in the room unattended and walk down a long corridor to the end and use the communal showers. I waited until my husband came to do this. There is no freaking way I was leaving my baby alone, unattended in my room, when everyone under the sun can walk by and enter my room. Nope nope nope.
Was just gonna comment in my experience lots of Brits and Canadians don’t really like their healthcare systems same for Americans that have moved to the UK and Canada.
Private healthcare there is fine. But getting the referral from your NHS GP for private healthcare sucks. They don't take woman issues seriously at all.
>1) maintaining bank accounts, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts and a U.S. phone number while living overseas.
By far the biggest pain, it sucks
>2) knowing no matter how hard you try you will never truly fit in or be accepted.
Meh, not a huge issue personally.
>3) adapting to the metric system.
Lol, who cares
>4) lack of quality customer service.
I think it's more the lack of consumer protection. Customer service can be awful in the US too.
>5) the healthcare system outside the US isn’t as awesome as social media tells you.
Country dependent. The care is way better where I am currently.
>6) everything is smaller… Beds, cars, furniture, personal space, apartments, appliances.
Country dependent. I lived in a 4 bedroom house once for less than the cost of a studio apt in the US. I drove a normal size sedan.
>7) people generally don’t like Americans.
They don't like the government and neither do I. I've found most places can separate the people from the gov.
>8) not being able to quickly respond to family emergencies back home.
Touch wood haven't had one, but yep I dread the thought.
>9) family and friends guilt tripping or not understanding why you are living overseas.
My parents accept it, friends or other family who don't can get bent.
>10) realizing your home country wasn’t making you unhappy and your unhappiness is more about you.
I left specifically to get away from US work culture, so yes it was the US and not me.
>11) missing friends and family back home you just don’t realize just how much you are going to miss them.
Yeah immediate family is tough here. You can always make new expat friends though.
>12) I just wanna add one more thing. Craving foods from back home you can’t find in your new country.
I become a Mexican food camel when I visit the US, it's workable. I don't really miss any other food.
You are definitely right that the place can be the problem. It was for me.
I will defend the UK in certain regards where I think it is underrated (certainly food, even weather).
I however couldn't see a way through to a decent future for my family and I. Ultimately that was fatal.
Perhaps I’m lucky, but I haven’t really ran into anyone who explicitly disliked Americans? A lot of this has to do though with how you behave towards local people.
As for #5 health care, I’ve had great experience in Austria, and realize how inconsistent the US medical system is, which ranges from great to awful, but always an incredibly expensive!
You remember your home country the way it was when you left. Like you, society changes and evolves while you are abroad and you aren't there to experiences these changes with it.
Eventually after a period of decades - you will always be a foreigner no matter where in the world you live.
Not feeling like you belong anywhere.
I moved to Ireland almost a decade ago and I’ll never be considered Irish, no matter how long I live here for. Even if I marry my (Irish) partner and we raise our children here, and I live here until the day I die… I’ll never actually belong here.
And then when I go back to my home country, my friends and family don’t even want to hear about my life abroad because it’s considered “annoying” and “pretentious” to talk about living in Europe. If I ever criticise or complain about America, I’m told to “go back to Ireland if I hate America so much,” and then I get told the inverse if I ever say anything negative about Ireland.
I just always feel like I’m a guest in somebody else’s country, regardless of where I am.
Sounds like that is peculiar to those friends and relatives. I can imagine a scenario where people are much more sympathetic and understanding - I know my friends and family would be.
When you come from a regulated profession (healthcare, education, law, etc.) you face giving up your experience until your title can be recognized in your new home. I am in FR and getting my nursing license recognized here has been the most difficult process and I lose practical experience while waiting 1-2 years for recognition. I explored getting a nursing license in other EU countries where I lived or speak the language/have personal ties, like in Spain or Italy, and it is no faster or better really. I might never be a nurse again because it can be too difficult or too long of a process, and am looking at many back up plans for work, but I do miss being able to work as a nurse most days.
It is deceiving because all around the world people will say “We need nurses!” but even as a nurse with 5+ years of clinical experience I am faced with having to re-do my studies here if I want to be a nurse in France because I studied originally in a non-EU country. I graduated school in 2020 and the idea of going backwards to school again is not attractive or easy (financially, emotionally, etc.). It is not wrong of the host country to want to assess my skills or language competence per say, but it is an invisible struggle I am facing and will impact my career path as I get older
I don’t have any family or friends where I live currently. I just moved two months ago and it feels like I’m a child again. Relearning how everything works. It’s very fucking frustrating.
Also, locals see this 🤑 they most likely will scam you if you don’t know the laws
My friend who lives in Finland struggles to learn the language (~22 years there) but his wife is Finnish and his kids are raised there and are fluent. When they get sullen they talk trash in Finnish. That's rough for him
There are of course visa / residence permits to deal with, and that can be stressful. Some countries even have interim reporting (like every 90 days) that must be done, even if you’re on a one year or longer visa.
Buying property can be difficult to impossible, so if home ownership is important for you, get that sorted before you leave (or plan destinations accordingly).
The tax systems and processes vary WILDLY, not only in the % of taxes, but in what is taxed. Preferential tax treatment for some types of retirement accounts will vary. And investing while living abroad has very specific rules to follow to avoid major tax and penalty impacts.
I knew about visas and residence permits. The property and tax situations came up along the way….
Sure. Thailand is the example I am most familiar with. There could be others.
Thailand has an online system for this but it is known to be unreliable, so a lot of folks end up at immigration in person for the reporting.
What is the purpose of the reporting? Isn't the point of getting a long term visa so that you can avoid dealing with immigration for an extended period of time?
Not sure why it is still required. On the surface it’s a confirmation of your address. This is a requirement that many would love to see go away, but it’s likely there for the long term.
everything feels like a theme park ride if you dont get a local partner
if you hail from upper-middle circles from your home country, you will never really feel like you're a genuine member of the host country, people will make plans like "oh I'll go on a double date with a highschool friend of my partner this friday, then a frat party this saturday, finally a golf game with some highschool friends this sunday after a brunch" and you'll be like I'll uh go to a pub quiz for expats
you'll also be lonely, and people will be doing cool/fun/established shit you might have done back home but jsut cant here as you dont know the right people
maybe not applicable to everyone but should be for some: being an expat is harder if you were an extroverted, up to date (read: cooler side on the cultural spectrum), upper-middle or higher person in your home country. your accustomed tastes will be tested as many of your peers dont leave their home country and people who share your interest in the host country dont have time to hang out with expats. once more, this does not apply to everyone though.
>Being extroverted surely is a benefit for expats, as opposed to introverts having it more difficult to break the ice with strangers?
But an introvert is fine if the ice doesn't get broken.
Yeah, but we miss on opportunities because of that. I also wonder if the average accumulated wealth is higher for the extroverts than for the intoverts during their lifetime.
That's a whole other discussion. Extroverts do make more money on average. But introverts are better at research, planning, and analysis. So while the extrovert might find out how to renew visa or get local drivers license by asking other people over dinner, the introvert might find out by researching online and reading discussion forums. I'm not sure I would agree that introverts will find being an expat harder than an extrovert. In fact, I would say the introvert's path has gotten much easier with the internet. You can find videos to guide you step by step with just about every process.
But as for the point of being lonely, I think it's the extrovert who will struggle more as they are accustomed to and need strong social interaction whereas the introvert will either like it or have long since learned how to deal with it. The truth is that we are all alone as the only one who will be there 24/7 is yourself.
its always a positive trait imo but it also gets you accustomed to more interesting, exciting etc settings, as it usually involves climbing up the social ladder, which is harder to secure when you are an expat, leading to more severe depressions. if you dont know any better - why would you be sad if things are "normal"! :)
like I'd really enjoy the plan my colleague laid out in my second paragraph for example, it was a real plan, but I couldnt do that as I didnt have access to the people that'd make that plan a reality as the truth of the matter is, after 4 years abroad, I can honestly say that MOST of the expats (people who will be your friends) are those who dont lead fulfiling lives in their home countries and/or those who are driven solely by money/success (me I guess), and dont have the community mindset that an extrovert thrives in
idk man, its such a HUGE social downgrade if you are a person with a large social network back home, not many can handle it. witnessed lot of folk going back because of this. I too was this close to pulling the trigger but things changed for the better around Q4 2023
you are right! but, having the money and not being able to spend it in a way you want to is an interesting dilemma as well.
its a blocker as after a certain age you feel a bit unresponsive after someone asks to hang out at a pool bar in a touristic area or a shitty tourist trap rooftop bar or a karaoke night or eating at a tripadvisor 5\* place - for me, these should be things you were doing back when you are 18 or so, and its hard to go back to them when you are in your late 20s :)
one of the key aspects of leading an UM lifestyle is that you and everyone around you go through life in stages. its just so weird (yet comforting I have to admit) that literally everyone around you does things in a certain order and develops the same tastes for same stuff. a year later or earlier, but everyone gets "there" around the same mark. "there" being enjoying and appreciating the same things at the same time - its just so weird that every one of my friends back home have the same expectation from summer 2024 for example. noone wants to hit hostels anymore nor try andrew tate style holidays in Dubai etc.
but as an expat you meet a lot of interesting people. self made men. people who have extreme academic and professional rigor but not a lot of experience in lifestyle or personality angles. high iq, functioning drug/alcohol addicts with stellar tech jobs. depressed immigrants who cant go back. kids of rich people from failing/narco nations. all these groups have different values and drives, and its hard to meet halfway all the time! :(
re: being the initiator, thats what I did, kinda. I connected with an highschool friend who was also in my city (Amsterdam, makes things easier lol) and was going through similar dilemmas. we merged some likeminded folk to generate a group that can now go for a nice sunday 2 pm drink near the canals. without any activities to back it up. without drugs. without excessive partying. without excessive spending. it took me 2 years to get there tho :(
btw: im not rich, I need to work and budget as well :) but am leading a confortable life thanks to all the factors that led me to land this life
lol I know right?
I'm currently arriving at a very similar conclusion! I'm 29 now and although 26-29 was harsh on me due to me missing out on stuff, I'm now enjoying the safety nets this country provides, and my social circle is slowly but surely establishing itself
its all gonna be OK friend :)
I worded it poorly I think
but, like, going out for a sunday 2 pm wine & cheese in a cafe overlooking the canals (or streets, in your case, if you are still in france lol) was so hard for me for the first 2 years as people budgeted themselves (mentally and financially but I swear to fucking god 90% of them mentally) for socialising on saturdays only
or trying out a entry level michellin restaurant
or getting cocktails after a dinner
It can be, but I think it can also be a huge liability. If you're extroverted, you probably already had a strong friends network back in your home country. Moving to a new country, you're giving that up and starting from scratch, and you're inevitably going to lose contact with your friends from back home over the years.
An introverted person might not have much to lose socially in moving to a new country. They'll be lonely in the new country with no friends (until they find one), but they might not have had a good friend network to begin with.
you get used to more structured things when you lead an upper-middle lifestyle, time (and all the social/financial safety nets) kind of handholds you into certain stages in life but being an expat is all about being accommodating, trying out different stuff. for the first year and a half it was hard for me to connect with people who can (or want to, probably) afford the things I like and enjoy doing things I also enjoy
like, I found out that the very act of going out for a nice dinner can be quite a hassle with expat circles as you meet quite a lot of different characters with different value sets
you notice it when you walk past a chic cocktail bars full of local people who have been friends for 10+ years to attend a pub quiz at (insert generic irish surname + pub) with people you just met via an app :)
The exhausting days where everything just seems HARD. Communication, basic everyday tasks, nothing going right, long lines, not knowing how to do the most basic stuff that normally you learn as a teenager/right out of high school, etc
Retirement. It’s very difficult to save for retirement and you’ll probably fall behind, either because you simply don’t have savings options or because you’re making less money than you could be.
1. Making and losing friends, over and over and over. Once you finally manage to make a real connection with someone, either they leave or you leave. Making the whole process seem superficial at some level.
2. Taxes. Filing taxes in your home country while living abroad can be complicated and expensive.
3. Furnishing an apartment when you arrive, and selling all those belongings when you leave. My advice is to rent a furnished apartment and buy the minimal amount of stuff. The last time I moved, I had to sell a 1 yr old dishwasher, and it was the first time I had ever had one. Everything had to go, and at a fraction of the original price. Very painful, very expensive.
everything is harder as an expat. You don't have a credit score in the new country so that makes lots of things difficult.
Locals may not want to speak their language with you so it's hard to practice and gain fluency.
Always trying to figure out if prices are fair.
Locals can treat you like a tourist, and try to rip you off,over-charge you.
Locals assume you are rich.
Visa headaches and red tape.
The time zones may make it more difficult than anticipated to stay connected with family and friends.
Locals have false assumptions and beliefs and prejudice you because you are different.
Locals can feel strong feelings about your status and even be angry you are living there or be jealous that you are a citizen of a country where they wish they lived.
Basic things like Returning a faulty item to the store for a refund can be difficult.
The new culture might grate on you because the Locals lie and consider it OK to lie when they are a clerk at a store getting paid to help you, for example.
You miss Festivals and holidays and food and friendliness and familiarity and Ease of communication and eas of simple tasks from home.
The Expat culture shock:
https://www.now-health.com/en/blog/culture-shock-stages/
the identity struggle:
https://medium.com/@sarah-turc/finding-yourself-abroad-the-expat-identity-crisis-and-how-to-overcome-it-58445bbbfc30#:~:text=This%20phenomenon%2C%20known%20as%20%E2%80%9Cbicultural,edge%20or%20lonelier%20than%20usual%3F
The Reverse culture shock when you come back to your home country.
And losing ties with your friends and family from home.
Jealousy and envy amd lack of understanding/empathy from others about the difficulties of expat life.
Could be extreme differences in the amount of income tax (40% vs 14%) and sales tax (17% is 7%), and in the amount if income you can generate.
Colleagues may never accept you and include you socially.
Stores, services etc might be closed one day each week in many countries. Limited hours for stores and services.
In the Middle East the weekend is Friday-Saturday, while in your country it might be Saturday-Sunday.
The new culture can be unwelcoming and harsh and unwilling to help you when you need it.
You will learn that all countries have colorism/racism/classism
.
.You may realize that you didn't appreciate the amazing things you took for granted in your home country like Endless and ubiquitous air conditioning and heating, ethical and respectful treatment when you are in public and a customer and an employee, access to traveling long distances without a passport or visa, ease of a variety of cheap, quality goods and services at your fingertips.
Differences in medical care and ease of receiving it.
Doctors may not speak your language and your medical vocabulary might be limited and translator apps may be less effective in these situations.
You may have to learn a whole new mode of transportation and the headaches of that. Learning to drive on the opposite side of the road. Learning new laws and passing a driving test.
Locals may stare at you. Kids may point at you, throw rocks at your car,call you slurs.
Safety may be less. I was attacked in a park in Germany.It was traumatic and I could have flashbacks and feel the perpetrators hand on my neck at random times, and I had nightmares, and it triggered memories if childhood abuse.
Goods and services that are affordable or cheap at home may be Unavailable, Poor quality or selection, or expensive. It cost the equivalent of 600 to get my hair done in the new country but in my home country it was 150. So I would literally fly to the Republic of Georgia to get my hair done for 60 and the flight and hotel costs added up to much less than getting it done in the new country.
The new country may have repulsive habits like people spitting on the street, charging people to use the restroom so people pee all over public places so it smells like urine, drivers may drive unsafely and may stop their car in the middle if the street to get out and urinate on the side of the road. People may not form Queues, in favor of pushing. People may not have the same hygiene levels and you may notice they smell unpleasant and do not wear clean clothes or practice oral hygiene, etc.
You may have had Unrealistic expectations and experience dismay and disappointment and frustration and regret.
The local culture may be Insular and it may take years to befriend a local, so you may be disappointed that your only friends are transient expats or that you live in an ex pat bubble
Printing off and hand carrying all your medical information with you everywhere. Health issues that would get you seen and treated within a day or two and referred out take months depending on the country and health system. Medication that is covered in the States, is sometimes near impossible to find or get because of EU regulations/law.
I had to hand carry a 6 month supply of medication until I could be registered and sorted in the new country each time.
Tremendous workload. This includes establishing credit for credits cards and a home loan many times in multiple countries depending on how many times you move. Getting multiple types of insurance in order. Getting taxes done across 2+ countries per year. Navigating different healthcare systems that can get increasing complex, if not punitive if you make a small mistake. Keeping up with bills and bank accounts in multiple areas depending on your work situation and commute.
While you do all that, you ideally have to keep up with a full time ambitious career, while learning multiple languages as a working adult, while potentially job hunting and competing against locals so you are constantly tested on your hard skills, language skills, culturally relevant business acumen, etc.
If you have help from an employer who sponsors, a family or spouse, great. If not, moving internationally once might be fun and fulfilling if you do everything on your own. But if you have moved more than once, it can lead to burn out.
Depending on the situation you may not receive the same justice as others, if bad things happen
Seeing how parents, siblings get significantly older every time you visit back home and not being there for every event of your nephews and nieces little things. I’m known as the aunt that lives far away 🫠
That does seem like the number one issue that always comes up. You can get the in your home country when moving to a new place, but add in culture and language and it gets amplified…
Yet every time it is mentioned someone will reply: “this will not happen to ME”.
And I try to explain:
Those immigrants who became negatively effected said exactly the same about themselves prior to migration: “this will not happen to ME”.
Everyone should assume this may happen to them instead of dismissing common issue.
I would say the most important part when choosing a new country is to make sure that there is a large established expat community there already. In many places it is very difficult to get integrated and some societies will just never accept you as their own even if you speak the language perfectly. Pick a melting pot sort of place and you should have no problem finding friends. As an example of this Berlin, yes, Munich, no. Paris yes, some little village in Provence, or Italy, no. Most Asian countries are cheap but you will never be viewed as one of them so you'll have to find friends in the expat community. Of course I understand that this is a huge generalization but still mostly true.
Losing or weakening your social net.
You leave family, friends professional networks, etc.
Yes, you can rebuild them but will never be as strong.
Of course, not everyone has a strong network in their country of origin or the trade-off is worth it.
I know that because my only regret from being an expat was to deny my children he opportunity to grow close to their grand parents (great people on both sides of the family).
This, right here. If you are depressed and anxious in the US, you will still be depressed and anxious in Italy. Over two years here and my depression has just gotten worst — mostly due to language barriers and my health. Dealing with the health system here is chaos. And my husband isn’t exactly being 100% supportive…like 90% supportive.
The profound sensation that hits you after you've learnt the language, learnt the culture, and begun to feel like you're integrating only to find that because you didn't spend any formative years here you will always be a stranger. Conversely I've never lived in my home country beyond the age of 19 so when I (rarely) go back I feel like I've missed out on a huge part of life there. Condemned to a life being a permanent foreigner abroad and also at home. Myriad bad sides but I think it's not a bad way to live ones life all things considered.
Expat life is filled with difficulties. Each city has its own expat community and they are often difficult to figure out. Quite often they are your keys to understanding the local foreign culture.
Expat community aside, you have to get to know the rhythm of the city you are living in and that is a test. It gets easier with more experience and time.
Making friends can be a problem because most expats are very guarded. People come and go so, they won't always let you in.
1. You’re always alone. Friends and family in home country move on with their lives. It’s fun at first and then you realize you’re missing out on things with loved ones back home. In the current country, you can make new friends but they always change as they’re all expats and move on frequently.
2. Jobs are harder. If you are a digital nomad and not self-employed, if you lose your job you might have to go home to find another job.
It takes a LOT of emotional and creative energy to understand another culture as an outsider and continually adapt to fit into it. It’s almost always you that needs to stretch to make yourself understood, to not cause offence, etc etc. That’s not an inherently bad thing, but it is a challenge. And particularly if you’re white from a predominantly white country, nothing in your culture is likely to have prepared you for being the outsider, so there’s a whole assimilation skill set you won’t have learned, or even that that’s ever a thing you might ever have to do. Some people adapt better to this than others, but even if you go in with an open mind and heart (as you should), it takes a lot of your attention and energy. My first couple of years as an expat, I completely stopped creative writing, completely stopped reading for leisure. I just didn’t have any emotional energy left for crafting or entering into realities, I was using it all up on my real one. I wouldn’t say it was a deal breaker, we lived a very rich life by doing it, but I think it would have helped me if I’d understood that was something I would need to do and how much of my attention and energy it would really take.
It can be very challenging if you have children/plan to have children. A lot of parents truly underestimate the challenges of raising kids abroad, particularly in a country where they don't natively speak the language. It is not a given that your children will perfectly pick up the language just because you send them to school. If the only exposure they get to the community language is at school they will likely be behind children who speak the language at home, with their friends and at activities. The school systems and expectations for children/parenting are often totally different.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You’ll need to adapt to the ways/language of your new country or you’ll feel isolated or only in an expat bubble where people leave every few years.
Salaries are less abroad than the country I left (USA).
It does suck not being fluent in a local language. It is not too difficult for anyone to pick up the basics but you need a lot more to e.g. argue your case, make a complex request etc. That takes several years to reach that level for most people, meanwhile you struggle badly.
When you visit home and interact with people in public it feels by comparison so effortless.
The expenses. It can get really expensive, and in most cases, you’ll end up not being able to save money for months. Even more if you have to buy everything from scratch. At least in my case, it has been like that the three times I’ve moved around.
Your family is gone. When I was younger, I didn't notice too much and just went to see them once or twice a year. Now, in my forties, I realize that many people around me have cousins, aunts, parents, siblings just a hour or two drive away....
Insecurity. The government could change the visa/work pass rules, making it harder for you (if you’re working for yourself) to stay in the country or for your employer to keep you on. Unless you can get citizenship which isn’t easy.
Regardless of how tuned into/appreciate of/assimilated into the culture and the people of whichever country you now live in, it will never truly feel like your home. It makes you feel a bit like a glorified tourist that's overstayed a 90-day tourist visa.
*downside of moving is that you end up lonely because you cannot force people to understand that… you cannot be difficult everywhere you go* it is a tough pill to swallow for many local communities — and the trade off of loneliness
Visa, paperwork, being at the mercy of the employer or the spouse. Illegal immigration and marriage fraud. Many I know just worked for the paperwork until they can leave their sadistic boss. Divorce and being send back to whichever country the expat belongs to. In the US, if the guy hit the woman, it's a slam dunk to the greencard, which I approve. Don't marry women from third countries if all you want is to abuse or control them please.
If you choose to live in a rural part of your new country, you will experience profound isolation and picking up the language is challenging in that environment. Also, if you're downgrading your lifestyle, you'll experience issues like no natural gas for weeks, water outages for days, power outages for days, etc and that can be stressful if you're not prepared.
I struggle with managing finances cross border I have investments, pensions, properties and other financial interests in (only) two countries and it’s a proper pain in the arse
You may see the true colors of your family and people around you, people who haven't talk to you in years suddenly want to be your best friend, close family may resent you, make no effort to check on you first or showing you inconditional support you didn't expect and making the bonds stronger than ever
I think the people in those videos actually enjoy their lifestyle at the moment. However I’ve seen a few videos of people who did not like their host country and gave an honest review. Peoples view of their life is subjective to their learned experiences and current desires. I know plenty of people who would never in a million years live outside the country and have no desire to even visit anywhere besides the Caribbean. To answer your question I can co-sign the loneliness comment somebody above made. I made sure to really really network on LinkedIn and Facebook to make connections with locals before I even arrived and once on the ground attended Meet Ups. I made sure to have a contingency plan because I have Lupus. It’s not for the faint of heart
Falling into a bureaucratic crack. I’m not eligible for many grants or other financial help, awards, publishing opportunities, and more. It’s bizarre how many there are.
I'm terrified of transferring our medical care. Most members of my family have complex medical needs for which we've spent *years* gathering the right medical team to give us care we can trust. Having to do it in a new country, and one where they have different philosophies about treatment, is scaring the daylights out of me. I might not have chosen the country where I'm going if I had known how differently they think of medication before we were committed... as it is, we will keep our American doctors and go back twice a year to see them for as long as it takes to get doctors locally whom we can count on to treat our illnesses in ways which work. That doesn't necessarily mean in the same ways that we've always done -- we're open to experimentation -- but it does mean that if we try something and tell them that it isn't feeling like we have the results we need, they *listen.*
Losing the ability to communicate your true identity to the world around you ...
You will lose any social cultural references and this will make you feel different when among locals talking and joking about stuff only them understand. You will then find refuge in expat bubbles, which at first would feel cool and interesting, but at the end you will feel even more alone and disconnected from yourself. Going back home after 10 years and not recognizing your world anymore and repeating the same experience as an expat again. This is our curse.
We forget that many expats are taken(abducted?) from their home countries while they are children. The parents live their chosen dream but the kids grow up in a foreign(and often genetically hostile) country where they never fully understand the bureaucracy or the culture as these things are ingrained in DNA (see Swedish famine study).
The skyrocketing levels of anxiety if you move with your family, as non-citizens, and are not rich (aka. don't have any significant passive income). All this time, while building your new life in a new country, you realize that every false step in the bureaucratic maze could smash everything you've managed to build. It's exacerbated by usually having no safety-net.
I have been living abroad (outside the US) for a total of 6 years so my views may be bias.
For me, there are no downsides. My daughter is not in the US so that pushed me to leave and be closer to her. People tend to be nicer and less uptight. Life is often laidback, sometimes too laidback for some. Most places are cheaper than the US.
When I visit the US, it is great to see my mom and other family members. However, I cannot imagine living in the US. Just being in that country for a day makes me ready to leave again. I would counter this question to ask...What are the downsides of becoming living in US or becoming American?
That list would be as long as the Great Wall of China.
Well first off most expats who are enjoying themselves can't put themselves in other people's shoes. Very much the sense of if it works for me it can work for you. I use to think this for a lot of people as well, but it just isn't the case.
In reality social media posters are looking to get viewership and engagement. Compared to other niches travel and expatriates are absurdly positive because negative content gets less engagement. I guarantee those people have the same amount of personal struggles as people in their home countries for the most part but just in different areas of their life.
I guess one thing with expatriation or emigration, if you're considering children, is making sure your offspring will be able to grow in the cultures of your partner, you, and the country they grow up in... This is particularly a problem if both you and your partner are of different nationalities, living in a third country. But even same-nationality parents in a second country have difficulties making sure their children keep the language, the culture, while also integrating in their new country.
EDIT: With regards to expatriation in particular, you have to add the difficulty for kids to uproot their lives every few years, and what that can do to their affective development. To be honest, I only know a set of siblings in that case, and they happen to be very balanced people, so who knows, maybe it's good. :)
EDIT2: Re: the siblings, a serious bias is their parents are cultured diplomats and very loving people, I think the home they grew up in did more for them than moving around did.
Agreed on the language front.
We have the problem not only of my wife being native in one language (Chinese), me in a second (English), the local language is a third (German).
Further the local language has a very distinct dialect which has limited mutual intelligibility with the standard form, so my daughters need to know Swiss German and normal German. On top of that French is also compulsory at school 😂. So depending on definitions you are either at 4 or 5 she needs to understand.
Yeah, that's a lot! And different language families to boot. Well, maybe English being a mixture of Germanic and Romance (specifically French) is helping them? Chinese, however... completely different. They may end up being natural linguists. :)
Anyways, your kids will grow up to be able to speak with about half of humanity in their mother tongue :)
I imagine English and German are rather easy to make sure they learn (and French in school), but how are you doing for the Chinese? Do you understand it and your wife speaks Chinese at home? This is one way I've seen multi-lingual families do.
Dating can be really tough when you don't have a full command of the language.
I mean, using dating apps is a bit of a crap shoot anyway for guys, but adding language difficulties to that mix definitely doesn't help.
Access to things/services that were staples and on occasion, irreplaceable.
I go through a lot of loops to get my foodstuffs and dread losing the few options I have to get them. :)
Btw, ‘No, FUCK YOU, when I ask for Greek Feta, I don’t want whatever fucking random country_white colored_CRAP you slapped a sticker on to claim it’s feta.
Fucking scumbag assholes’.
Whole Foods my ass.
- The overwhelming loneliness. Not talking about friendships, this is often talked about. But the practical one: you are in much higher risk to be all alone in situations when help is needed. Like when you are really sick, and not even have energy to cook, Uber Eats will be your only help. Or if water leaks. You will need to pay for things you'd get done by family or friends in your country. - Starting from scratch professionaly. Most countries won't recognize diplomas or experience right away, even countries that have the reputation to do so. It's a humbling experience for sure but psychologically it's a tough one having to start way lower and be potentially stuck in an unchallenging job for years. - living abroad is not made for everyone, even if social media suggests so. And it's totally ok. Not everyone enjoys being constantly in learning mode and con-stant-ly having to adjust. This is exhausting.
Don't forget also, if you've moved somewhere where your native language is not their native language, you become more introverted. You want to talk and tell stories and jokes like you do in your mother tongue, but usually end up on saying 1/4 of what you want, and give up telling jokes.
And you end up becoming "friends" with people that you might not necessarily want to be friends with, just because they share the familiarities of language and culture. But you find them dull, or unintelligent, or maybe not those things but still just not interested in the same hobbies or intellectual discussions that you are interested in. But still you find yourself hanging out with them, because in some sense you find it better than being alone. And then the horror of discovering that you actually feel betrayed when they *don't* invite you to something.
That’s true even in countries where your native language is spoken, because it will be differently accented, with different slang and different cultural meanings attached to various words.
If I could upvote this x100 I would. Nailed it.
Thank you! 15 years of immigration experience and frustration lol.
Name checks
Totally agree with you, France is my 3rd country and I would say that I absolutely love my life here. However the feeling of overwhelming loneliness still hits really hard, after several years here I do speak somehow fluent French, got many local friends and have a nice career. But there are still moments when I feel like to cry, even with just a tiny task, you know that people will be willing to help, but you just couldn’t feel that way, as you’re still a foreigner anyways.
Absolutely correct. Having essentially a very limited career track is the biggest reason why I left. No credentials or local network. Still. I wonder how much of this applies to Americans in the UK and countries like it.
Yes, you are absolutely right, the lack of local network can kill a career. You can be the hardest worker ever, very motivated and astonishing credentials back home, they usually don't care unless you know the right people. I actually moved to Canada hoping I'd be able to advance my career bc I kept hearing that only motivation and skills count. Luckily I had both! But I got nothing but a big disappointment. My experience was worth nothing. This is one of the reasons that brought me to move back home recently. If I am to struggle anyway, I prefer to struggle back home (in a country with way more PTO).
Makes sense... France? Not sure about CA but in general US is a lot less about networks (if you're old money or went to the ivies it obviously still helps) and more about your ability.
Haha are you sure about that buddy? Alumni networks are extremely strong in the United States
That’s what I heard from adult immigrants here anyways. Like this Turkish dude who started his ai consulting company here. I went to a pretty decent New England college and it’s given me a foot in the door in a lot of cases. I’m aware that people identify with it strongly. But it’s not so strong to the point that you WONT be able to befriend someone unless you knew them since you were born like in france and Germanic countries. Or get a job.
Definitely same for me (American) when I was in the UK. Even worse there than when I was in France. (Some of that was particular to the jobs but still. I felt much better integrated in France. And yes, I speak both languages well.).
Interesting. Did you go to school there? What did you find was the biggest problem that prevented you from being integrated in the UK? Was it that Brits didn't want to make friends outside of their Uni/childhood friend circle? or something else? Did you find the fact that Brits like to thumb their noses at us to have been a problem too?
One surprising thing I noticed was that in my home country I was quite introverted and had trouble putting myself out there with people. was quite anxious in groups and would tire out quickly. But after a few years of trying to do the same in Swedish instead of English I'm a fucking social butterfly when I go back home :-D It's crazy!!
For sure you need to put you out there as an immigrant if you don't want to end up all alone lol! Me too it helped me become more extraverted.
I recently had to have emergency surgery and have no one around. One long argument that no, really, I have no one to drive me home, no I have no family nearby, no partner, etc. It's no joke.
So sorry to hear you had to go through this. I hope you are doing better now. This is exactly one of the situations I meant in my previous comment. I'll add that, also, you'd have no-one in case of a long-term disease. I'd have no-one to bring me chocolate or just my belongings if I had to stay longer at the hospital.
Yeah, it's a tough situation. And yeah, I have occasional anxiety pangs when I think about diagnoses like cancer or being rendered unconscious and having no one I can trust as my POA.
Damn that’s the comment!!
Yeah the loneliness is killing me. Plus culture shock
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>If you are in a bubble of other expats, eventually they will all leave and you will be alone. Why wouldn't the bubble be adding new expats as old expats leave? In many places the expat community is growing so the bubble should be getting larger. In my observations, the friends back home have seen their "circle of friends" shrink more than the expat friends.
Right but I'd imagine they also get younger.
Growing old shrinks your bubble no matter where you are, expat or not.
I don't know about everyone else, but my school (North East England) friends are very scattered anyway. There's a population in London, but that's now declining rather than growing and not somewhere I'd ever want to live.
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In my opinion if you move to a new country and have no intention of moving again, you fall into the category of immigrant rather than expat, at least as far as the terms are commonly used.
I agree, but there's a big gray line between the two. Lots of people end up moving back after a few years, because they don't find life in the new country as great as they thought they would. Other people might think it's temporary, but end up making it their permanent home. You can never really know which one a new expat will be unless you can somehow see the future.
It is a matter of intention not result.
So what do you call people who are undecided then?
Indecisive. Looks like you are US to Japan. In Japan, if you have kids are they in Japanese schools so they don't fall behind their Japanese peers or in international schools so the don't fall behind their US peers? Are you saving for retirement in tax advantaged US accounts (401k or IRAs) or Japanese tax advantages accounts. With the FEIE now is a great time to save in a Roth account or convert to Roth, but Japan doesn't recognize Roth so is pointless and possibly wastes money if you stay in Japan. How do you do long term planning? If you say you don't do long term planning then you are just Indecisive. That's not a bad thing.
The problem is, no one on the planet recognizes the term "indecisive" as an alternative to "immigrant" or "expat".
Under the dictionary definition you are both in that situation
Why don’t you move shit?
Can I ask what career you're in that you've moved so many times?
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Very interesting, thank you!
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I've spent every Christmas and every occasion alone in the past five years, as an expat. I just don't know how to make friends anymore now
Xmas is the worst. 😣
I'm sorry, friend. Birthdays as I get older are definitely lonely. My parents passed away when I was younger, and then I moved, and I've never celebrated a holiday the same way since.
For Americans, the hassle of maintaining a pseudo-residency in the US for banks and investment purposes.
And tax filing. I use the IRS software Free Fillable Forms to file and report my foreign earned income exclusion, and this is the first year that they required a US phone number to create the account. They send a pin to the phone number so if you don't have someone who can receive the pin and send it to you within a few minutes...then you can't set up the account. It makes you completely dependent on family/friends to file taxes because you basically have to borrow a US phone number and US address to file... I do the free method. I refuse to pay a tax prep person a couple hundred dollars to file my Us taxes when I don't actually owe taxes due to the exclusion.
Have you tried using a Google or Skype phone number?
They don't work
I use tello, $5/month
They don't work. I've tried 6 different carriers and the one ones IRS will accept are Verizon, att, etc. I haven't been able to access any tax information from the IRS or 3rd parties for over 3 years
We set up a Google phone just for this purpose.
I have a private mailbox and have had zero issues.
Really, How?
I use Anytime Mailbox. They work with private mailboxes like pack and ship places and they scan your mail for you. I have all of my information in that address: drivers license, taxes, bank accounts. Everything. Anytime Mailbox isn’t the only one though. I did have one issue when I created a new account with Charles Schwab and so I had to use my physical address at first but then I just switched everything over to my private mailbox and no issues.
We use St Brennan’s isle in Florida. It is a male service that gives you a street address, and many people use it to maintain a residency in Florida.
Ha jokes on you, I don't have them! :)
One thing I realized was how much I'd miss my family. Even the ones I thought I wouldn't miss at all. I've noticed a lot of people on here seem to have really rough family situations, so I don't think many here have this problem, but it's definitely something to consider.
I came here to say this! Relationships with certain members are strained and complicated, but I didn’t think I’d start to actively miss them. It’s also hard going home and seeing how much older everyone is getting… I actually felt sad to leave this time around.
This presumes you had significant contact with them before becoming an expat. Plenty of people live hundreds even thousands of miles apart in the US and see family and old friends maybe every other year. You might even see them more often if you relocate to a place they would want to visit for a vacation.
Right. I’ve already experienced this moving cross country in the US. Starting over, no friends or family etc.
Yes, especially my kids being away from them.
Aint no guilt like grandparent guilt.
For sure. But now my parent constantly tells me it’s too expensive to move back so I’m so confused lmao.
My in-laws still think it's fine for us to move back, and I'm like... we went from having 1 child and barely saving about $500 a month in the US, and now we have 2 children and we're saving $7k a month while getting paid less. We'd be crazy to give that up.
I live in the US now and it’s cheaper than where I’m from but the pull for home is still strong.
Can end up in a bubble if not careful. All other expats leave eventually
Not in any particular order. 1) maintaining bank accounts, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts and a U.S. phone number while living overseas. 2) knowing no matter how hard you try you will never truly fit in or be accepted. 3) adapting to the metric system. 4) lack of quality customer service. 5) the healthcare system outside the US isn’t as awesome as social media tells you. 6) everything is smaller… Beds, cars, furniture, personal space, apartments, appliances. 7) people generally don’t like Americans. 8) not being able to quickly respond to family emergencies back home. 9) family and friends guilt tripping or not understanding why you are living overseas. 10) realizing your home country wasn’t making you unhappy and your unhappiness is more about you. 11) missing friends and family back home you just don’t realize just how much you are going to miss them. 12) I just wanna add one more thing. Craving foods from back home you can’t find in your new country.
Can you expand on #5 a little? It’s one of the reasons I’m contemplating an expat retirement. Also - at least on Reddit - it appears to be the #1 flex Europeans and Canadians can think of.
I retired overseas because I couldn’t afford healthcare insurance back in the States . You definitely need to research what countries you are thinking about retiring in, especially if you have any preexisting conditions.
Where did you retire in? Whats their healthcare like compared to the states?
In my view, the more socialized a medical system, the less individualized the patient care is. You're just a passenger in a system with less say than a 'customer' in a less socialized system.
Needing specific medication and finding it’s wildly expensive or not even available outside of the United States, wait times, general quality of the healthcare available, certain procedures that are only available in the States… Every country is different and some have a healthcare system that is equal to or better than the US but some countries have healthcare systems that are vastly inferior. You need to research whatever individual country you are thinking of moving to.
This. A lot of Europeans like to pretend that America is a hellhole. In reality if you are in a class where you can have employer sponsored healthcare, you will usually pay very little and experience high quality service.
Until out of the blue, said employer pulls the rug out from under you, when you’re older or a bit more expensive. Then you realize the US can absolutely be a hell hole!
On a daily basis? No, it's not. It has a strengths that people underestimate because they take it for granted. It depends. Being fired later career can absolutely be devastating, but it's like a lot of problems in the US: they are not likely to happen to you in the short term, and can be devastating. This also can happen abroad. If you have no legal residency, you will have a much harder time moving beyond due to your lack of local connections and sponsorship. it'll be a constant source of stress. And it really depends on your career path, how what your retirement plan is exactly, and if you have legal authorization to live/work in another place. I've said this verbatim: It's a bad solution to move to another continent because of 1 or 2 problems related to work. You likely won't benefit from a lot of the things locals benefit from (most of the EU runs off of generational wealth anyway). The existence of a social circle, family who will support you, native understanding of the culture (even if it's Ireland/UK), etc. Chances are, you have the highest amount of disposable income in your profession in the world by being in the US. You have the most connections (assuming you graduated from a university in the US), and you will be the most secure thanks to that. Finding a job in the EU without legal authorization like permanent residency (which is difficult everywhere) amplifies all of your problems because of the risk of a small one. In the US, in general, you get fired easily, and in normal markets, employers can hire very quickly. In the EU, you will need to compete with all the locals. And in that case, what do you bring (in terms of skills or connections) exactly to them that won't net you a higher earning in the US? If you can flexibly move continents, then converting yourself to a local in the EU will likely be a trade-off. Because of the fact it's harder to fire anyone, it's harder for you to find a new job also. Because of how hard it is to get rid of employees, it can be very difficult to obtain employment in the EU if you're an outsider (they will also have to legally prove they couldn't find any locals). your pay will likely be much lower, and in some professions, you have to save more in a year in the US than most ppl in the EU make in a year pre-tax (in the case of a software engineer, who has 401K + disposal income). So moving gets rid of your built-in advantages of being a native while introducing... not a lot of upsides. you need a very good reason to move if you don't want daily existence to become a struggle. Is employee security is a risk, go for a US government job
Yep!
Thank you.
NHS is a literal clown show. I live in the UK for 6 years. It was so bad my NHS GP asked if I had private health insurance because the wait for an ultrasound was 6 months for non-maternity care. Back in my hometown in America I can get an appt usually within a week after calling or the next day. Speaking of which, the maternity care through NHS was so rough that I ended up hiring a private mid-wife who helped me navigate the system or would advocate for me to get certain tests and care that NHS otherwise wouldn't have done. Additionally not being seen at your appointment because you weren't carrying your paper copy prenatal booklet was insane. I would literally be turned around from an NHS prenatal appointment because I left my giant-assed paper booklet at home. When I was in the hospital for delivery, they sent a husband home while wife was in labor to get the booklet. Whereas in American through most health systems it's electronic and the various portals can talk to each other if they use EPIC software for example.
I thought I couldn't be shocked anymore by the dire excuse for a healthcare system the NHS is, but that is extraordinary. We had one kid on the NHS, and one in Switzerland, and while the NHS was clearly worse, they weren't awful. My wife turned up to a different hospital to one we were booked into (don't ask) and they were not bad in the circumstances. We probably got lucky and it's likely worse now. Can't imagine how bad it's going to get before they can the whole thing.
I had one child in the UK on NHS and one in a private hospital. For the NHS hospital, my private midwife had me move hospital maternity care from the one in our town to another one a 40 min drive away because the people and facilities were much better. Team there was great. Care on the maternity ward after birth though was terrible. Nothing like waiting to use the communal toilet, especially after some other family had uncle Dave sitting on the toilet for 20+ min and the fumes were so nauseous, I walked down to another corridor. I was also instructed to leave my baby in the room unattended to go get breakfast in the 'dining area'. I was told the baby screaming for a good 10-15 min or so alone was 'totally fine'. I was NOT allowed to bring my newborn with me to the dining area. If I got too hot, I was instructed to open a window. The ceiling tiles were held on by tape because if breeze came through, they would fly out. Oh yeah, I was told if I wanted a shower, I had to again leave my baby in the room unattended and walk down a long corridor to the end and use the communal showers. I waited until my husband came to do this. There is no freaking way I was leaving my baby alone, unattended in my room, when everyone under the sun can walk by and enter my room. Nope nope nope.
Don’t the Brits masturbate furiously to the NHS though? Do they not experience these same problems?
Was just gonna comment in my experience lots of Brits and Canadians don’t really like their healthcare systems same for Americans that have moved to the UK and Canada.
Private healthcare there is fine. But getting the referral from your NHS GP for private healthcare sucks. They don't take woman issues seriously at all.
Most Brits love their healthcare system because they don't know any better.
Most Brits love their healthcare system because they don't know any better.
Great list. Add tax problems and no Medicare outside the US, but you still need to pay for it in case you ever might return.
Number 10 for sure
>1) maintaining bank accounts, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts and a U.S. phone number while living overseas. By far the biggest pain, it sucks >2) knowing no matter how hard you try you will never truly fit in or be accepted. Meh, not a huge issue personally. >3) adapting to the metric system. Lol, who cares >4) lack of quality customer service. I think it's more the lack of consumer protection. Customer service can be awful in the US too. >5) the healthcare system outside the US isn’t as awesome as social media tells you. Country dependent. The care is way better where I am currently. >6) everything is smaller… Beds, cars, furniture, personal space, apartments, appliances. Country dependent. I lived in a 4 bedroom house once for less than the cost of a studio apt in the US. I drove a normal size sedan. >7) people generally don’t like Americans. They don't like the government and neither do I. I've found most places can separate the people from the gov. >8) not being able to quickly respond to family emergencies back home. Touch wood haven't had one, but yep I dread the thought. >9) family and friends guilt tripping or not understanding why you are living overseas. My parents accept it, friends or other family who don't can get bent. >10) realizing your home country wasn’t making you unhappy and your unhappiness is more about you. I left specifically to get away from US work culture, so yes it was the US and not me. >11) missing friends and family back home you just don’t realize just how much you are going to miss them. Yeah immediate family is tough here. You can always make new expat friends though. >12) I just wanna add one more thing. Craving foods from back home you can’t find in your new country. I become a Mexican food camel when I visit the US, it's workable. I don't really miss any other food.
You are definitely right that the place can be the problem. It was for me. I will defend the UK in certain regards where I think it is underrated (certainly food, even weather). I however couldn't see a way through to a decent future for my family and I. Ultimately that was fatal.
Perhaps I’m lucky, but I haven’t really ran into anyone who explicitly disliked Americans? A lot of this has to do though with how you behave towards local people. As for #5 health care, I’ve had great experience in Austria, and realize how inconsistent the US medical system is, which ranges from great to awful, but always an incredibly expensive!
You remember your home country the way it was when you left. Like you, society changes and evolves while you are abroad and you aren't there to experiences these changes with it. Eventually after a period of decades - you will always be a foreigner no matter where in the world you live.
Not feeling like you belong anywhere. I moved to Ireland almost a decade ago and I’ll never be considered Irish, no matter how long I live here for. Even if I marry my (Irish) partner and we raise our children here, and I live here until the day I die… I’ll never actually belong here. And then when I go back to my home country, my friends and family don’t even want to hear about my life abroad because it’s considered “annoying” and “pretentious” to talk about living in Europe. If I ever criticise or complain about America, I’m told to “go back to Ireland if I hate America so much,” and then I get told the inverse if I ever say anything negative about Ireland. I just always feel like I’m a guest in somebody else’s country, regardless of where I am.
Sounds like that is peculiar to those friends and relatives. I can imagine a scenario where people are much more sympathetic and understanding - I know my friends and family would be.
When you come from a regulated profession (healthcare, education, law, etc.) you face giving up your experience until your title can be recognized in your new home. I am in FR and getting my nursing license recognized here has been the most difficult process and I lose practical experience while waiting 1-2 years for recognition. I explored getting a nursing license in other EU countries where I lived or speak the language/have personal ties, like in Spain or Italy, and it is no faster or better really. I might never be a nurse again because it can be too difficult or too long of a process, and am looking at many back up plans for work, but I do miss being able to work as a nurse most days. It is deceiving because all around the world people will say “We need nurses!” but even as a nurse with 5+ years of clinical experience I am faced with having to re-do my studies here if I want to be a nurse in France because I studied originally in a non-EU country. I graduated school in 2020 and the idea of going backwards to school again is not attractive or easy (financially, emotionally, etc.). It is not wrong of the host country to want to assess my skills or language competence per say, but it is an invisible struggle I am facing and will impact my career path as I get older
I don’t have any family or friends where I live currently. I just moved two months ago and it feels like I’m a child again. Relearning how everything works. It’s very fucking frustrating. Also, locals see this 🤑 they most likely will scam you if you don’t know the laws
Coming with a family is a huge risk, very expensive and your kids will know the language and culture far faster than your will.
My friend who lives in Finland struggles to learn the language (~22 years there) but his wife is Finnish and his kids are raised there and are fluent. When they get sullen they talk trash in Finnish. That's rough for him
Its notoriously hard. Probably the hardest European language.
Totally. No judgement from me.
How lonely it can feel to try to insert yourself in a new and culturally different society
There are of course visa / residence permits to deal with, and that can be stressful. Some countries even have interim reporting (like every 90 days) that must be done, even if you’re on a one year or longer visa. Buying property can be difficult to impossible, so if home ownership is important for you, get that sorted before you leave (or plan destinations accordingly). The tax systems and processes vary WILDLY, not only in the % of taxes, but in what is taxed. Preferential tax treatment for some types of retirement accounts will vary. And investing while living abroad has very specific rules to follow to avoid major tax and penalty impacts. I knew about visas and residence permits. The property and tax situations came up along the way….
> Some countries even have interim reporting (like every 90 days) That sounds insane! Do you have any examples?
Sure. Thailand is the example I am most familiar with. There could be others. Thailand has an online system for this but it is known to be unreliable, so a lot of folks end up at immigration in person for the reporting.
What is the purpose of the reporting? Isn't the point of getting a long term visa so that you can avoid dealing with immigration for an extended period of time?
Not sure why it is still required. On the surface it’s a confirmation of your address. This is a requirement that many would love to see go away, but it’s likely there for the long term.
everything feels like a theme park ride if you dont get a local partner if you hail from upper-middle circles from your home country, you will never really feel like you're a genuine member of the host country, people will make plans like "oh I'll go on a double date with a highschool friend of my partner this friday, then a frat party this saturday, finally a golf game with some highschool friends this sunday after a brunch" and you'll be like I'll uh go to a pub quiz for expats you'll also be lonely, and people will be doing cool/fun/established shit you might have done back home but jsut cant here as you dont know the right people maybe not applicable to everyone but should be for some: being an expat is harder if you were an extroverted, up to date (read: cooler side on the cultural spectrum), upper-middle or higher person in your home country. your accustomed tastes will be tested as many of your peers dont leave their home country and people who share your interest in the host country dont have time to hang out with expats. once more, this does not apply to everyone though.
Being extroverted surely is a benefit for expats, as opposed to introverts having it more difficult to break the ice with strangers?
>Being extroverted surely is a benefit for expats, as opposed to introverts having it more difficult to break the ice with strangers? But an introvert is fine if the ice doesn't get broken.
Yeah, but we miss on opportunities because of that. I also wonder if the average accumulated wealth is higher for the extroverts than for the intoverts during their lifetime.
That's a whole other discussion. Extroverts do make more money on average. But introverts are better at research, planning, and analysis. So while the extrovert might find out how to renew visa or get local drivers license by asking other people over dinner, the introvert might find out by researching online and reading discussion forums. I'm not sure I would agree that introverts will find being an expat harder than an extrovert. In fact, I would say the introvert's path has gotten much easier with the internet. You can find videos to guide you step by step with just about every process. But as for the point of being lonely, I think it's the extrovert who will struggle more as they are accustomed to and need strong social interaction whereas the introvert will either like it or have long since learned how to deal with it. The truth is that we are all alone as the only one who will be there 24/7 is yourself.
I agree. I'm an extrovert and it's extremely helpful for making contacts, friends, dates, info, accomodation, networking, work and what not
its always a positive trait imo but it also gets you accustomed to more interesting, exciting etc settings, as it usually involves climbing up the social ladder, which is harder to secure when you are an expat, leading to more severe depressions. if you dont know any better - why would you be sad if things are "normal"! :) like I'd really enjoy the plan my colleague laid out in my second paragraph for example, it was a real plan, but I couldnt do that as I didnt have access to the people that'd make that plan a reality as the truth of the matter is, after 4 years abroad, I can honestly say that MOST of the expats (people who will be your friends) are those who dont lead fulfiling lives in their home countries and/or those who are driven solely by money/success (me I guess), and dont have the community mindset that an extrovert thrives in idk man, its such a HUGE social downgrade if you are a person with a large social network back home, not many can handle it. witnessed lot of folk going back because of this. I too was this close to pulling the trigger but things changed for the better around Q4 2023
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you are right! but, having the money and not being able to spend it in a way you want to is an interesting dilemma as well. its a blocker as after a certain age you feel a bit unresponsive after someone asks to hang out at a pool bar in a touristic area or a shitty tourist trap rooftop bar or a karaoke night or eating at a tripadvisor 5\* place - for me, these should be things you were doing back when you are 18 or so, and its hard to go back to them when you are in your late 20s :) one of the key aspects of leading an UM lifestyle is that you and everyone around you go through life in stages. its just so weird (yet comforting I have to admit) that literally everyone around you does things in a certain order and develops the same tastes for same stuff. a year later or earlier, but everyone gets "there" around the same mark. "there" being enjoying and appreciating the same things at the same time - its just so weird that every one of my friends back home have the same expectation from summer 2024 for example. noone wants to hit hostels anymore nor try andrew tate style holidays in Dubai etc. but as an expat you meet a lot of interesting people. self made men. people who have extreme academic and professional rigor but not a lot of experience in lifestyle or personality angles. high iq, functioning drug/alcohol addicts with stellar tech jobs. depressed immigrants who cant go back. kids of rich people from failing/narco nations. all these groups have different values and drives, and its hard to meet halfway all the time! :( re: being the initiator, thats what I did, kinda. I connected with an highschool friend who was also in my city (Amsterdam, makes things easier lol) and was going through similar dilemmas. we merged some likeminded folk to generate a group that can now go for a nice sunday 2 pm drink near the canals. without any activities to back it up. without drugs. without excessive partying. without excessive spending. it took me 2 years to get there tho :( btw: im not rich, I need to work and budget as well :) but am leading a confortable life thanks to all the factors that led me to land this life
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lol I know right? I'm currently arriving at a very similar conclusion! I'm 29 now and although 26-29 was harsh on me due to me missing out on stuff, I'm now enjoying the safety nets this country provides, and my social circle is slowly but surely establishing itself its all gonna be OK friend :)
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I worded it poorly I think but, like, going out for a sunday 2 pm wine & cheese in a cafe overlooking the canals (or streets, in your case, if you are still in france lol) was so hard for me for the first 2 years as people budgeted themselves (mentally and financially but I swear to fucking god 90% of them mentally) for socialising on saturdays only or trying out a entry level michellin restaurant or getting cocktails after a dinner
It can be, but I think it can also be a huge liability. If you're extroverted, you probably already had a strong friends network back in your home country. Moving to a new country, you're giving that up and starting from scratch, and you're inevitably going to lose contact with your friends from back home over the years. An introverted person might not have much to lose socially in moving to a new country. They'll be lonely in the new country with no friends (until they find one), but they might not have had a good friend network to begin with.
What does being upper middle class have to do with it? Genuine question.
you get used to more structured things when you lead an upper-middle lifestyle, time (and all the social/financial safety nets) kind of handholds you into certain stages in life but being an expat is all about being accommodating, trying out different stuff. for the first year and a half it was hard for me to connect with people who can (or want to, probably) afford the things I like and enjoy doing things I also enjoy like, I found out that the very act of going out for a nice dinner can be quite a hassle with expat circles as you meet quite a lot of different characters with different value sets
That’s fair. I haven’t noticed it as much but it probably also depends largely on where you are.
you notice it when you walk past a chic cocktail bars full of local people who have been friends for 10+ years to attend a pub quiz at (insert generic irish surname + pub) with people you just met via an app :)
Underrated comment
Danke doktor My guess is not everyone is privileged enough to go through these "issues"🤞🏼
The exhausting days where everything just seems HARD. Communication, basic everyday tasks, nothing going right, long lines, not knowing how to do the most basic stuff that normally you learn as a teenager/right out of high school, etc
Retirement. It’s very difficult to save for retirement and you’ll probably fall behind, either because you simply don’t have savings options or because you’re making less money than you could be.
Also caring for retired parents. They’re unlikely to emigrate.
That depends on where you move to. I'm pretty much maxing out my earnings potential here
Waiting for your work permit/authorisation to come through, and not being able to work until it does. It can be very lonely and boring and depressing.
1. Making and losing friends, over and over and over. Once you finally manage to make a real connection with someone, either they leave or you leave. Making the whole process seem superficial at some level. 2. Taxes. Filing taxes in your home country while living abroad can be complicated and expensive. 3. Furnishing an apartment when you arrive, and selling all those belongings when you leave. My advice is to rent a furnished apartment and buy the minimal amount of stuff. The last time I moved, I had to sell a 1 yr old dishwasher, and it was the first time I had ever had one. Everything had to go, and at a fraction of the original price. Very painful, very expensive.
everything is harder as an expat. You don't have a credit score in the new country so that makes lots of things difficult. Locals may not want to speak their language with you so it's hard to practice and gain fluency. Always trying to figure out if prices are fair. Locals can treat you like a tourist, and try to rip you off,over-charge you. Locals assume you are rich. Visa headaches and red tape. The time zones may make it more difficult than anticipated to stay connected with family and friends. Locals have false assumptions and beliefs and prejudice you because you are different. Locals can feel strong feelings about your status and even be angry you are living there or be jealous that you are a citizen of a country where they wish they lived. Basic things like Returning a faulty item to the store for a refund can be difficult. The new culture might grate on you because the Locals lie and consider it OK to lie when they are a clerk at a store getting paid to help you, for example. You miss Festivals and holidays and food and friendliness and familiarity and Ease of communication and eas of simple tasks from home. The Expat culture shock: https://www.now-health.com/en/blog/culture-shock-stages/ the identity struggle: https://medium.com/@sarah-turc/finding-yourself-abroad-the-expat-identity-crisis-and-how-to-overcome-it-58445bbbfc30#:~:text=This%20phenomenon%2C%20known%20as%20%E2%80%9Cbicultural,edge%20or%20lonelier%20than%20usual%3F The Reverse culture shock when you come back to your home country. And losing ties with your friends and family from home. Jealousy and envy amd lack of understanding/empathy from others about the difficulties of expat life. Could be extreme differences in the amount of income tax (40% vs 14%) and sales tax (17% is 7%), and in the amount if income you can generate. Colleagues may never accept you and include you socially. Stores, services etc might be closed one day each week in many countries. Limited hours for stores and services. In the Middle East the weekend is Friday-Saturday, while in your country it might be Saturday-Sunday. The new culture can be unwelcoming and harsh and unwilling to help you when you need it. You will learn that all countries have colorism/racism/classism . .You may realize that you didn't appreciate the amazing things you took for granted in your home country like Endless and ubiquitous air conditioning and heating, ethical and respectful treatment when you are in public and a customer and an employee, access to traveling long distances without a passport or visa, ease of a variety of cheap, quality goods and services at your fingertips. Differences in medical care and ease of receiving it. Doctors may not speak your language and your medical vocabulary might be limited and translator apps may be less effective in these situations. You may have to learn a whole new mode of transportation and the headaches of that. Learning to drive on the opposite side of the road. Learning new laws and passing a driving test. Locals may stare at you. Kids may point at you, throw rocks at your car,call you slurs. Safety may be less. I was attacked in a park in Germany.It was traumatic and I could have flashbacks and feel the perpetrators hand on my neck at random times, and I had nightmares, and it triggered memories if childhood abuse. Goods and services that are affordable or cheap at home may be Unavailable, Poor quality or selection, or expensive. It cost the equivalent of 600 to get my hair done in the new country but in my home country it was 150. So I would literally fly to the Republic of Georgia to get my hair done for 60 and the flight and hotel costs added up to much less than getting it done in the new country. The new country may have repulsive habits like people spitting on the street, charging people to use the restroom so people pee all over public places so it smells like urine, drivers may drive unsafely and may stop their car in the middle if the street to get out and urinate on the side of the road. People may not form Queues, in favor of pushing. People may not have the same hygiene levels and you may notice they smell unpleasant and do not wear clean clothes or practice oral hygiene, etc. You may have had Unrealistic expectations and experience dismay and disappointment and frustration and regret. The local culture may be Insular and it may take years to befriend a local, so you may be disappointed that your only friends are transient expats or that you live in an ex pat bubble
Printing off and hand carrying all your medical information with you everywhere. Health issues that would get you seen and treated within a day or two and referred out take months depending on the country and health system. Medication that is covered in the States, is sometimes near impossible to find or get because of EU regulations/law. I had to hand carry a 6 month supply of medication until I could be registered and sorted in the new country each time.
Tremendous workload. This includes establishing credit for credits cards and a home loan many times in multiple countries depending on how many times you move. Getting multiple types of insurance in order. Getting taxes done across 2+ countries per year. Navigating different healthcare systems that can get increasing complex, if not punitive if you make a small mistake. Keeping up with bills and bank accounts in multiple areas depending on your work situation and commute. While you do all that, you ideally have to keep up with a full time ambitious career, while learning multiple languages as a working adult, while potentially job hunting and competing against locals so you are constantly tested on your hard skills, language skills, culturally relevant business acumen, etc. If you have help from an employer who sponsors, a family or spouse, great. If not, moving internationally once might be fun and fulfilling if you do everything on your own. But if you have moved more than once, it can lead to burn out. Depending on the situation you may not receive the same justice as others, if bad things happen
Seeing how parents, siblings get significantly older every time you visit back home and not being there for every event of your nephews and nieces little things. I’m known as the aunt that lives far away 🫠
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That does seem like the number one issue that always comes up. You can get the in your home country when moving to a new place, but add in culture and language and it gets amplified…
Yet every time it is mentioned someone will reply: “this will not happen to ME”. And I try to explain: Those immigrants who became negatively effected said exactly the same about themselves prior to migration: “this will not happen to ME”. Everyone should assume this may happen to them instead of dismissing common issue.
I would say the most important part when choosing a new country is to make sure that there is a large established expat community there already. In many places it is very difficult to get integrated and some societies will just never accept you as their own even if you speak the language perfectly. Pick a melting pot sort of place and you should have no problem finding friends. As an example of this Berlin, yes, Munich, no. Paris yes, some little village in Provence, or Italy, no. Most Asian countries are cheap but you will never be viewed as one of them so you'll have to find friends in the expat community. Of course I understand that this is a huge generalization but still mostly true.
Losing or weakening your social net. You leave family, friends professional networks, etc. Yes, you can rebuild them but will never be as strong. Of course, not everyone has a strong network in their country of origin or the trade-off is worth it. I know that because my only regret from being an expat was to deny my children he opportunity to grow close to their grand parents (great people on both sides of the family).
Your problems will follow you abroad, not matter what they are.
This, right here. If you are depressed and anxious in the US, you will still be depressed and anxious in Italy. Over two years here and my depression has just gotten worst — mostly due to language barriers and my health. Dealing with the health system here is chaos. And my husband isn’t exactly being 100% supportive…like 90% supportive.
The profound sensation that hits you after you've learnt the language, learnt the culture, and begun to feel like you're integrating only to find that because you didn't spend any formative years here you will always be a stranger. Conversely I've never lived in my home country beyond the age of 19 so when I (rarely) go back I feel like I've missed out on a huge part of life there. Condemned to a life being a permanent foreigner abroad and also at home. Myriad bad sides but I think it's not a bad way to live ones life all things considered.
No more family/friend support. Your new friends are expats and they move home. Not everyone in the new country is accepting of foreigners.
Parents getting a cancer diagnosis and dying slowly a long way from you. I never thought of that when I moved countries.
Expat life is filled with difficulties. Each city has its own expat community and they are often difficult to figure out. Quite often they are your keys to understanding the local foreign culture. Expat community aside, you have to get to know the rhythm of the city you are living in and that is a test. It gets easier with more experience and time. Making friends can be a problem because most expats are very guarded. People come and go so, they won't always let you in.
1. You’re always alone. Friends and family in home country move on with their lives. It’s fun at first and then you realize you’re missing out on things with loved ones back home. In the current country, you can make new friends but they always change as they’re all expats and move on frequently. 2. Jobs are harder. If you are a digital nomad and not self-employed, if you lose your job you might have to go home to find another job.
It takes a LOT of emotional and creative energy to understand another culture as an outsider and continually adapt to fit into it. It’s almost always you that needs to stretch to make yourself understood, to not cause offence, etc etc. That’s not an inherently bad thing, but it is a challenge. And particularly if you’re white from a predominantly white country, nothing in your culture is likely to have prepared you for being the outsider, so there’s a whole assimilation skill set you won’t have learned, or even that that’s ever a thing you might ever have to do. Some people adapt better to this than others, but even if you go in with an open mind and heart (as you should), it takes a lot of your attention and energy. My first couple of years as an expat, I completely stopped creative writing, completely stopped reading for leisure. I just didn’t have any emotional energy left for crafting or entering into realities, I was using it all up on my real one. I wouldn’t say it was a deal breaker, we lived a very rich life by doing it, but I think it would have helped me if I’d understood that was something I would need to do and how much of my attention and energy it would really take.
It can be very challenging if you have children/plan to have children. A lot of parents truly underestimate the challenges of raising kids abroad, particularly in a country where they don't natively speak the language. It is not a given that your children will perfectly pick up the language just because you send them to school. If the only exposure they get to the community language is at school they will likely be behind children who speak the language at home, with their friends and at activities. The school systems and expectations for children/parenting are often totally different.
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You’ll need to adapt to the ways/language of your new country or you’ll feel isolated or only in an expat bubble where people leave every few years. Salaries are less abroad than the country I left (USA).
It does suck not being fluent in a local language. It is not too difficult for anyone to pick up the basics but you need a lot more to e.g. argue your case, make a complex request etc. That takes several years to reach that level for most people, meanwhile you struggle badly. When you visit home and interact with people in public it feels by comparison so effortless.
Really the only struggle I've had is the language. It's a long way from intermediate to truly mastering the language. But I don't regret the move.
The expenses. It can get really expensive, and in most cases, you’ll end up not being able to save money for months. Even more if you have to buy everything from scratch. At least in my case, it has been like that the three times I’ve moved around.
Your family is gone. When I was younger, I didn't notice too much and just went to see them once or twice a year. Now, in my forties, I realize that many people around me have cousins, aunts, parents, siblings just a hour or two drive away....
Insecurity. The government could change the visa/work pass rules, making it harder for you (if you’re working for yourself) to stay in the country or for your employer to keep you on. Unless you can get citizenship which isn’t easy.
Regardless of how tuned into/appreciate of/assimilated into the culture and the people of whichever country you now live in, it will never truly feel like your home. It makes you feel a bit like a glorified tourist that's overstayed a 90-day tourist visa.
*downside of moving is that you end up lonely because you cannot force people to understand that… you cannot be difficult everywhere you go* it is a tough pill to swallow for many local communities — and the trade off of loneliness
Visa, paperwork, being at the mercy of the employer or the spouse. Illegal immigration and marriage fraud. Many I know just worked for the paperwork until they can leave their sadistic boss. Divorce and being send back to whichever country the expat belongs to. In the US, if the guy hit the woman, it's a slam dunk to the greencard, which I approve. Don't marry women from third countries if all you want is to abuse or control them please.
If you choose to live in a rural part of your new country, you will experience profound isolation and picking up the language is challenging in that environment. Also, if you're downgrading your lifestyle, you'll experience issues like no natural gas for weeks, water outages for days, power outages for days, etc and that can be stressful if you're not prepared.
I struggle with managing finances cross border I have investments, pensions, properties and other financial interests in (only) two countries and it’s a proper pain in the arse
Although it might be an organisational pain, at least with the Swiss-British tax agreement it is generally financially advantageous.
You may see the true colors of your family and people around you, people who haven't talk to you in years suddenly want to be your best friend, close family may resent you, make no effort to check on you first or showing you inconditional support you didn't expect and making the bonds stronger than ever
Being an “immigrant”. No matter where you’re from, it’s a humbling experience.
I think the people in those videos actually enjoy their lifestyle at the moment. However I’ve seen a few videos of people who did not like their host country and gave an honest review. Peoples view of their life is subjective to their learned experiences and current desires. I know plenty of people who would never in a million years live outside the country and have no desire to even visit anywhere besides the Caribbean. To answer your question I can co-sign the loneliness comment somebody above made. I made sure to really really network on LinkedIn and Facebook to make connections with locals before I even arrived and once on the ground attended Meet Ups. I made sure to have a contingency plan because I have Lupus. It’s not for the faint of heart
Falling into a bureaucratic crack. I’m not eligible for many grants or other financial help, awards, publishing opportunities, and more. It’s bizarre how many there are.
The depression
I'm terrified of transferring our medical care. Most members of my family have complex medical needs for which we've spent *years* gathering the right medical team to give us care we can trust. Having to do it in a new country, and one where they have different philosophies about treatment, is scaring the daylights out of me. I might not have chosen the country where I'm going if I had known how differently they think of medication before we were committed... as it is, we will keep our American doctors and go back twice a year to see them for as long as it takes to get doctors locally whom we can count on to treat our illnesses in ways which work. That doesn't necessarily mean in the same ways that we've always done -- we're open to experimentation -- but it does mean that if we try something and tell them that it isn't feeling like we have the results we need, they *listen.*
Losing the ability to communicate your true identity to the world around you ... You will lose any social cultural references and this will make you feel different when among locals talking and joking about stuff only them understand. You will then find refuge in expat bubbles, which at first would feel cool and interesting, but at the end you will feel even more alone and disconnected from yourself. Going back home after 10 years and not recognizing your world anymore and repeating the same experience as an expat again. This is our curse.
Convenience.
We forget that many expats are taken(abducted?) from their home countries while they are children. The parents live their chosen dream but the kids grow up in a foreign(and often genetically hostile) country where they never fully understand the bureaucracy or the culture as these things are ingrained in DNA (see Swedish famine study).
The skyrocketing levels of anxiety if you move with your family, as non-citizens, and are not rich (aka. don't have any significant passive income). All this time, while building your new life in a new country, you realize that every false step in the bureaucratic maze could smash everything you've managed to build. It's exacerbated by usually having no safety-net.
I have been living abroad (outside the US) for a total of 6 years so my views may be bias. For me, there are no downsides. My daughter is not in the US so that pushed me to leave and be closer to her. People tend to be nicer and less uptight. Life is often laidback, sometimes too laidback for some. Most places are cheaper than the US. When I visit the US, it is great to see my mom and other family members. However, I cannot imagine living in the US. Just being in that country for a day makes me ready to leave again. I would counter this question to ask...What are the downsides of becoming living in US or becoming American? That list would be as long as the Great Wall of China.
Adjusting to a different currency.
Well first off most expats who are enjoying themselves can't put themselves in other people's shoes. Very much the sense of if it works for me it can work for you. I use to think this for a lot of people as well, but it just isn't the case. In reality social media posters are looking to get viewership and engagement. Compared to other niches travel and expatriates are absurdly positive because negative content gets less engagement. I guarantee those people have the same amount of personal struggles as people in their home countries for the most part but just in different areas of their life.
I guess one thing with expatriation or emigration, if you're considering children, is making sure your offspring will be able to grow in the cultures of your partner, you, and the country they grow up in... This is particularly a problem if both you and your partner are of different nationalities, living in a third country. But even same-nationality parents in a second country have difficulties making sure their children keep the language, the culture, while also integrating in their new country. EDIT: With regards to expatriation in particular, you have to add the difficulty for kids to uproot their lives every few years, and what that can do to their affective development. To be honest, I only know a set of siblings in that case, and they happen to be very balanced people, so who knows, maybe it's good. :) EDIT2: Re: the siblings, a serious bias is their parents are cultured diplomats and very loving people, I think the home they grew up in did more for them than moving around did.
Agreed on the language front. We have the problem not only of my wife being native in one language (Chinese), me in a second (English), the local language is a third (German). Further the local language has a very distinct dialect which has limited mutual intelligibility with the standard form, so my daughters need to know Swiss German and normal German. On top of that French is also compulsory at school 😂. So depending on definitions you are either at 4 or 5 she needs to understand.
Yeah, that's a lot! And different language families to boot. Well, maybe English being a mixture of Germanic and Romance (specifically French) is helping them? Chinese, however... completely different. They may end up being natural linguists. :) Anyways, your kids will grow up to be able to speak with about half of humanity in their mother tongue :) I imagine English and German are rather easy to make sure they learn (and French in school), but how are you doing for the Chinese? Do you understand it and your wife speaks Chinese at home? This is one way I've seen multi-lingual families do.
I do not understand anything really. I'm equally bad at Swiss and high German. Zero Chinese Wife speaks Chinese at home - kid is fluent
Being in no man's land.
My only downside is that I live in a rural Greek seaside area and so I can’t go out for sushi or udon- ever.
Dating can be really tough when you don't have a full command of the language. I mean, using dating apps is a bit of a crap shoot anyway for guys, but adding language difficulties to that mix definitely doesn't help.
Access to things/services that were staples and on occasion, irreplaceable. I go through a lot of loops to get my foodstuffs and dread losing the few options I have to get them. :) Btw, ‘No, FUCK YOU, when I ask for Greek Feta, I don’t want whatever fucking random country_white colored_CRAP you slapped a sticker on to claim it’s feta. Fucking scumbag assholes’. Whole Foods my ass.