After 3 continents and 5 years living outside the U.S., here are my top tips for living abroad successfully. You’re creating your dream life from an idea into reality. Every step you will question if moving abroad is the right path for you. I hope these tips will help you stop second guessing yourself during your new adventure. The most successful slowmads have the right tools to solve problems on the fly and pivot as necessary. Don’t go into your moving overseas journey thinking you know everything just because you have read a million articles. Nothing replaces action. 🆘🇺🇸 #creatorsearchinsights
@nomadveronicaTranscript
If I can go back in time until myself five things before I moved abroad originally, here's what I would tell myself Number one, you don't know anyone in explanation. You don't have to explain why you're doing what you're doing You don't have to justify anything. You don't have to convince anyone of anything and the more time you spend Trying to explain yourself to people the less time you're going to have on planning your dream life If we haven't met yet, I'm Veronica and five years ago. I moved my family of four from the United States to live abroad We've lived in the Dominican Republic, Japan, and now Portugal I help families move from the United States to the countries of their choosing by matching your preferences With where will take you that's done through one-on-one exit planning and the link is in my bio number two would be to research less All the things that you could read possibly in the world will never replace Actually doing the thing you will never know if you're doing the right thing until you're actually doing it That's everything from paperwork to the neighborhood you choose to the school that you choose for your kids Every single decision you can analysis paralysis yourself to death or you can just do the thing and then realize if it was the right thing for you Once you've done it, you will not be able to know the exact right thing before you actually take action Number three would be to unplug from America faster stop watching the news When I originally moved it was during 2020 and that was COVID So I thought I needed to know what was going on I always had one eye kind of on the news to figure out what was happening and that did not Serve my mental health. I wish I would have just unplugged and let my body go on a healing journey of Being out of America because being in the United States is so much physical stress that you don't recognize until you're out of it If I had unplugged sooner. I would have released that stress and gone on my healing journey a lot sooner Number four would be to act like a tourist in wherever you choose to live sooner People who live in a really big tourist destination can probably relate to this But if you live somewhere that has tourist things you avoid them I grew up in Seattle and I never went to the space needle until I was an adult So when you live in a place I highly recommend straight out of the gate acting like a tourist Go to all the places that somebody from out of town would go to in that city Do not wait until friends and family come into town to go do those tourist things And number five would be to know that you are not stuck Just because you made a decision to move to a country does not mean that is etched in stone and it's a forever decision You can move to a new place We've lived on three different continents in the last five years I have no idea where my forever home is going to be You can choose a place and then choose another place Because this is not a decision that needs to be a forever decision It's a big decision, but it is not a forever decision So don't feel like if you are not choosing the perfect place forever that you've done something wrong You can choose places and then move on to new places and that is not a problem
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Getting your kids out of the U.S. is a matter of life and death at this point. There are many places you can move with remote income and bring your family with you. Other countries don’t have active shooter drills or kids getting pew pew’d at school. When you take your kids to a new country they can just be a kid again. There is a deep trauma that exists when you raise your kids in a country that does nothing to stop gun violence in schools. Now that my kids are out of the toxic American culture, it’s impossible to not see how scary it truly is. Keep your kids safe and find them a new country to call home. 🆘🇺🇸 #creatorsearchinsights
When Americans finally start considering the possibility of moving abroad, you tend to look for excuses as to why it’s a bad idea. Not knowing the language comes up a lot as a reason to never make an international move. In this day and age there are countless digital tools to assist with communication when you don’t speak a language. Plus, English communication around the world is extremely common. While I don’t want to encourage Americans to simply insist on never learning a new language, I do recognize that getting out of the U.S. quickly is of the utmost importance. While you are in the process of learning your new countries language, you should have no trouble getting by with English in these popular expat countries. I’ve personally been to six of the eleven countries listed in this video and had no trouble communicating. 🆘🇺🇸 #creatorsearchinsights
Your stuff holds a lot of weight and power over the trajectory of your life. People who waste their money on stuff have less money to spend on experiences. People who have excess possessions end up spending more money on housing to create space for the stuff. People turn down opportunities to hang out with friends because their homes are too messy with all their junk. The items you have and surround yourself with are a reflection of the life you’ve decided to create. Too many items can cause chaos, anxiety, and wastes time. But, the good news is that you can sell everything and start over. Instead of mindlessly accumulating things, you can strategically curate your life after a giant purge. Don’t think of getting rid of those items as a waste, think of it as a new direction to your life. Those items existed in the home of who you used to be, but they don’t belong in the life of who you are becoming. 🆘🇺🇸 #creatorsearchinsights