If you have decided you want to move abroad- great! But wanting to move abroad and actually doing it are very different things. Before you make the leap you need to ask yourself the reasons why.

Everyday we meet tourists who come to St Kitts on vacation either as part of a cruise or on a yacht or whatever and they say the same things over and over. People gush about how wonderful it must be to live on tropical island and to live in paradise and then they start wondering out loud if they should move abroad too.

However, basing your decision to move abroad on a week long holiday or worse still a bit of Googling and some nice photos on Instagram is like getting married to someone you just met in a bar. You will only see the really good shiny parts and not the reality.

And yes, while we love where we live, and we love scrolling on Instagram looking at beautiful enviable travel destinations. The reality is that these carefully fashioned travel photos we see on TV and the internet make the idea of living abroad seem like a magical escape. But they are purely for entertainment purposes and don’t show the realities of living abroad.

Moving abroad is not all colourful cocktails and Instagram beaches. There is a lot of thought and hard work to put into the moving process, and if your reasons for moving abroad are not rock solid, then you may be no better off abroad than you are in your home country. These 7 questions should help you decide if moving abroad is the right thing for you.

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in another country?

This is not a case of will you survive without your morning Starbucks. This is more like how long you will take to make new friends or how often you keep in touch with family or what to do with your pets. Moving abroad has lots of advantages like learning a new language and experiencing new cultures or even earning a higher salary and furthering your career prospects.

Write down exactly what you want to gain by moving to a new country. This could be something simple like learning to speak Spanish or learning how to surf. Or it could be something deeper like improving your mental health or having a better work-life balance or saving more money. Whatever you consider the advantages to moving abroad make a list. This is your show after all go big or go home!

Next, consider all the disadvantages of living abroad, the real nitty gritty things that won’t be enjoyable and may be uncomfortable. Like missing special birthdays, weddings and family Christmases. Or learning to drive on the other side of the road and visiting your favourite restaurant. Make sure you know exactly what you will be giving up in exchange for your new expat life.

If you have more disadvantages than advantages, then you need to reconsider whether you should move abroad.

2. Are your goals for moving abroad realistic?

Once you have your list of advantages and disadvantages you should make a list of all the things you think moving abroad will accomplish. Your ‘new life goals’ if you like. Then go through those goals and work out if they align with your advantages and disadvantages and if they are realistic goals or not. For example:

If you are thinking of moving abroad because you want to travel more this may not necessarily align your situation in reality. Travelling really depends on your other commitments, such as your career and your responsibilities just like it does at home. It will however allow you to explore a new country in your down time so that could be considered a positive.

If you want to move abroad to gain cultural insights, then that is bound to happen wherever you move to. Unless you live in a bubble completely made up of expat friends from your home country, and never visit any local attractions, in which case you may as well stay at home.

If the reason is that you want a better work-life balance, then this again depends on your career. If you sign up to work for a company for 40 hours a week, then don’t expect to be clocking out at lunch time to spend afternoons on the beach.

Life as an expat is not always so different from life at home.

3. Are your reasons for wanting to move abroad an excuse to run away from reality or responsibilities?

This question is the most difficult to answer and involves a little soul searching. Looking back at your list of goals for moving abroad. Is there anything that’s pointing to a burning desire to escape and to start afresh? For example:

Have you got stuck in your career? Do you feel like you’re in a rut and living the same year over and over again? Or maybe you’re are on the verge of a breakup, whether that’s with a partner or even a friendship breakup that you want to run away from. Either way these are not good reasons to move abroad.

What about the thoughts you haven’t written on your list, the fantasy of quitting your job and driving straight to the airport and never coming back? These thoughts are all valid and it is normal to have them, but it is important that you recognise them and critique how they fit into your desire to move abroad and involve them in your decision making process. Moving abroad shouldn’t be considered lightly. It is a huge life decision not a spur of the moment thought and moving abroad is not a magical cure for your problems.

Human beings have a ‘grass is always greener’ mentality but when it comes to moving abroad that is definitely not the case and running away from your biggest problems will not work. If you are not happy at home, you will not be happy abroad. So give yourself time to evaluate if you are running away from something before asking yourself if you should move abroad.

4. Will I be ok without my friends and family?

Having a support network is a foundation on which most things in life are built. If you take that support away some things will crumble, and others will stay firm. Are you strong enough to manage the challenges of living abroad without your support network. Or do you need your mum or best friend on the other end of the phone 24/7? If your answer is the latter, then moving abroad may not be for you. You need to be aware that making friends abroad is not easy and it takes time to form strong bonds when you are starting from scratch.

We are fortunate now after living on St Kitts for over a year that we have a fantastic island family. We know we can rely on them to feed our cats when we go away, and to pick up emergency groceries or take us to the doctors when we are sick. But before you get to that stage you will need to think about how you would deal with emergencies that friends and family would normally help you with. Look for some alternatives that don’t involve having a nervous breakdown, especially if you are moving abroad alone.

5. What country do I want to move to?

Deciding what country to move to will depend on many things like job opportunities, visa restrictions, qualifications, salary and even what quality of life you are expecting. If you love the idea of remotely working in Thailand for example you will need to do a visa run every few months across the border to be able to stay in the country. This will be a dissimilar experience from a steady job offer in Australia where a work permit will be sponsored by your employer.

If you want to move to a new country to experience a different culture, then moving from the US to the UK or Australia won’t be much different. However, moving from the UK to teach English in Taiwan, China, Vietnam or South Korea will be a huge cultural change. Part of this will come back to your list of goals and advantages and disadvantages. When deciding where you want to move to pick a country that supports your vision for expat life.

6. Do I want to move to another country without visiting first?

When you do decide on a country you want to move to, you should visit before committing to moving there permanently. Because there is no better way to figure out if your dream location is a good fit than to spend some time getting to know the area. This can be a huge process depending on the country as you will want to check out the best areas to live and where the restaurants and supermarkets are. This may also change depending on where you make friends when you move.

But also, things like how much the rent costs and what to expect for your money. Also, what will your cost of living be compared to your salary. If the point of moving abroad is to save money for the future then you don’t want it eaten up with expensive rent and bills.

You may also need to check how good is the internet and can I watch my favourite tv shows? Somewhere like China has so many restrictions you may find it stifling.  You may also experience massive culture shock if you are moving somewhere completely different from your home country. This is something I would want to know before committing to stay for any length of time.

If you are truly committed to your dream of moving abroad but can’t afford the luxury of international travel or you can’t get the time off work to visit your potential new home then you should try and think outside the box to make it happen. If time off work is a problem, then consider taking a week or two of unpaid leave or asking for time off during quiet periods rather than peak times, like during school holidays.

You can try new ways to make your money go further too, like travel hacking by using credit card points and hotel rewards or airmiles. You could also travel in low season or shoulder season to make a trip more affordable. Or just taking a hard look at your outgoings and monthly expenses and cut out unnecessary spending each month are all great ways to save money and make your trip a reality.

7. Do I have a plan for moving abroad?

Once you have committed to a destination you will need to start planning the actual move. Set yourself a realistic timescale to sort out the details. When we moved to St Kitts we had 4 months from accepting the job offer to getting on the plane. As you know if you’ve read our previous posts, we were in the middle of a huge house extension at the time and we just jumped at the chance with an ‘it’s now or never’ mindset.

Looking back, we wished we had had longer to prepare because we ended up with a storage unit full of things that we didn’t have time to sort out. We would recommend at least 6 months to get yourself sorted if you have a house to think about. If you are renting and can just leave whenever 4 months should be enough time.

Sorting out things like visas and work permits will require a lot of communication with people in your new country. Many require health screenings and criminal record checks before you will be granted a temporary residence. So you will need to leave time to get these important documents together and sent to your contact in your new country or directly to the government if you are going it alone.

You will also need to sort out storing and packing all of your belongings. Our moving abroad checklist will help with things you need to organise beforehand. And our essential moving abroad packing list will help you decide what to take, what to leave behind and what you can get in your new country.

Final Reflections on Moving Abroad

Now you have made it to the end of the questions and faced the good, the bad, and the ugly of moving abroad, you should have a better idea of if you still really want to move abroad or not. If you do that’s fantastic go ahead and buy that one-way ticket to your dream destination.

If you’ve decided moving abroad is not for you then that’s ok too. Better to find out now than when you are 4000 miles from home and crying because you can’t figure out how to use a washing machine.

Just make sure to do some serious soul searching and reflecting before you make the life changing decision to become an expat.

If you still want to move abroad after reading this post let us know in the comments!

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