Moving On (When already abroad)

Moving abroad in the first place can be an adventure. The prospect of discovering a new country and culture, over a long period of time as opposed to a two week summer holiday, can be daunting as well as exciting.

Whether the experience is a positive one or not, many people find themselves relocating to another foreign country at the end of their first posting, rather than returning home.

In either case, the lessons learnt from the first posting can be used to make the time spent in the second (and subsequent) countries better than the previous one.

Every country is different, but preparation prior to the move can go a long way towards making the various stages of arrival process, settling in period and continuing residency progress more smoothly.

Once you know you want move on (or have been told you are moving), and if you have a choice of destinations, research can help you narrow down and finally select the most suitable place for you to go to. Initiating your planning as early as possible also helps you make sure that you have as much of the process planned and organized as possible, which will help mitigate the impact of any problems that do arise.

If you have no choice over where you are going, researching the destination will help you plan so as to make the move as successful as possible.

Prior to the start of your research into possible destinations, think back to the time of your last move and try to remember everything you wished you had known about before, during and after the transition.

Even if the move went well, think through all the processes and consider what will be different in your upcoming move and what areas may cause problems this time.

Once you have considered what questions you want answered, you can direct your research to find the information you need.

A good place to start your research is online guidebooks such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. Backpacker guidebooks are often the best source of country-specific information on health, safety, food and infrastructure for expats, as they are aimed at travelers who generally do not shelter themselves in 4 star hotels for a two-week vacation.

Following this stage of the research, the next step is to try and find information on living in a country.

The growth of the Internet has made this much easier, as there are numerous websites that provide information specifically on this subject. Some of them are solely information databases, but others have chat rooms and bulletin boards where visitors can ask questions, share information and meet (in a virtual sense) someone living in the country they are planning to move to.