Natallia Slimani-Mercier

Moving abroad alone is a lot about adventure. Moving abroad as a family is more of a mix of adventure and adaptation. You may feel tempted to bring "home" with you as it feels familiar and safe. But recreating it in an entirely new setting may require so much effort, money, and personal inconvenience that many expat families find it not to be worth it. Instead, they focus on reinvention and find ways to make the most out of their new environment.

Moving abroad is not an economical undertaking. It takes up a lot of your resources, and money is right at the top of the list. Every relocation guide you'll read will emphasize the importance of financial planning. And a lot of expats you'll meet will tell you that despite all of that planning, they still ran into expenses they never expected to have.

When planning to study abroad, we often look into the costs and university rankings. Sometimes, we check a step further – how easy it is to get a job and stay for longer. But integration goes way beyond that. And it can really make or break your experience of studying abroad.

Work hard, become a professional, build your career step by step. This sounds like a standard low-risk plan for achieving your goals. But there is one variable here that some of us never have to consider — visas. And yet, for some people, it is their visa status that finally decides their career path.

Retiring abroad is often as scary as it is exciting. This is because it generally means you will be a beginner again. A lot of us have come to associate retiring with rest. You've done your part, you've earned your keep, and now you can just…do nothing. But relocating to a different country is often the opposite of that. It requires preparation, adaptation, learning a lot of new things… It's kind of like being young again. And that may just be reason enough to do it.

Most expats know the stages of culture shock by heart: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, and acceptance. For a lot of people, culture shock is not that shocking anymore. We've come to accept it, and we now know not to trust our feelings about a new destination until we get to the acceptance stage. But is culture shock the same across generations? When the information is not that limited, when translation apps and AI make communication much less awkward, when staying in touch with home is easier than ever, and when you can pre-watch your relocation on YouTube – does culture shock even really exist for Gen Z?

US News recently published a "Best Country for Raising Kids" ranking. And the results … may surprise you. It looks into something most expat parents ask themselves regularly: what is the best country to raise kids? Or rather, how much does the country really matter? So, do we finally have the answer?

Imagine that after months of frustrating job search, you finally get an offer that can change your life. Not only is it the perfect match for your skills and experience, but it is also coming from a different country. The pay is great, and relocation expenses are covered. You are excited, you are making arrangements to leave. And, most likely, you are not at all ready for one of the following scenarios.

Parenting is one of the most (if not THE most) life-changing experiences one can go through. But as much as this responsibility is shared, it is often the mothers who experience this change tenfold. And if you experience motherhood whilst working abroad, this transformation can feel even more profound. And for many expat women, motherhood in a foreign country marks a professional turning point.

Living abroad makes birthdays feel a bit strange sometimes, especially when you're far from family and close friends. One of my first birthdays alone abroad, I got myself a ticket to an empty hotel beach and spent the day sitting alone under the sun, wondering if that was the weirdest and saddest way to spend a birthday. But as I started writing this article, I've realized that doing randomly unconventional things for your birthday abroad is actually not that random, and quite common.

Starting at a new school used to be about standing in lines, printing folders of documents, and going on campus tours. Today, in many schools, the enrollment process looks very different. Lots of things can be done online – and sometimes the first time you and your child will step foot in the new school will be on the actual first day. For expats and their kids, this is a trend that works in their favor. Because now they can explore, apply, interview, tour, and even enroll in a school before they are even there. Here's how it works.

The biggest difference between moving counties and moving continents is the distance. Duh, you might think. But it's not only the physical distance itself. It's also how this distance feels. Moving from Spain to Germany is a big life change. But not quite as big as moving from Germany to Brazil. You are now a Transatlantic flight away from everything that you used to know as home. And even if the culture may not be that different, everything else probably is.

Working in an office can feel really isolating. True, you are surrounded by people. But everyone around you is busy, working on their projects and meeting their deadlines. Take this situation abroad, and you are adding in language barriers, cultural differences, workplace misunderstandings… Before you know it, you may find yourself turning to ChatGPT for social comfort, and liking it. But in this article, we want to explore why human connection in the workplace still matters, especially for expats. And why you absolutely should have a work buddy, and how to find one. 

There is so much more that goes into the choice of a university today than even a decade ago. International students especially have the whole world to choose from. And while before students were more focused on the theoretical benefits of a certain degree, today, with so many less traditional options for learning (online, via social media, private tutoring, etc.), there is a lot more a traditional institution has to offer, especially given the price of formal education. 

One thing we keep repeating throughout our study abroad articles is this: being an international student can be a great, and often life-changing experience. But what is stopping a lot of students from experiencing international study is often not something abstract like the fear of the unknown, but something very practical and tangible: the cost. Luckily, there are quite a few scholarships aimed specifically at international students.