We tried taking the expat route in 2021 during the pandemic. Our first attempt didn't really work for us. This video describes some of the issues that impacted our decisions at that time.

Taking the expat route is a major life change, with a wide range of impacts financial, lifestyle and personal. It may work great for you, or you may have some reactions similar to ours. Each person will have their own specific circumstances that will impact the suitability of an expat move to their life.

We did a scouting trip to see if it felt right. We had seen lots of people reporting positive experiences as expats, and were at a point in our lives where we no longer needed to live in our previous location, and had minimal responsibilities tying us to our home country. It was an amazing adventure, but in the end, the overall balance of pros and cons tilted to not making a full move.

The key to evaluating the suitability of an expat move is to obtain as much information and possible, on all sides of the issues, to determine the full range of issues you will confront, and assess the impact of these issues based on your specific circumstances and needs, to see if the expat route is right for you. Hopefully this video can contribute to a small part of that information, and can be useful in helping others considering this type of move.

In this video, we talk about these main issues:
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Housing
02:30 Systems are not transparent
03:34 Taxes and Immigration
05:43 Assimilation
06:49 It can be lonely
07:32 We came back home to reassess

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We have a few others in the works that will be out soon (when we can fit in working on them around our paying work).

ABOUT US: We are interested in exploring how slowing down your travel impacts your experience of the location and culture, as a slow traveler or part time expat, and can help you get in sync with the culture and gain a deeper experience. If you are new to the idea of slow travel, check out our recent video that explains the overall concept.

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‍‍More about us:‍‍

https://www.89daysaway.com/

And in case you were wondering, our channel title "89 Days Away" refers to the typical 90day visitor limit for staying in a country or area (such as the EU Schengen Zone) before having to become an official resident.

We try to maintain a lean, scaled back lifestyle in the US, and spend around 1/2 of our year living overseas as "slow travelers", within those time limits, to get the overall expat experience without having to become a full time resident of the foreign country.

Our channel started out talking about that lifestyle, but has morphed into other topics related to this stage of life that we find interesting.

We hope that you find the topics interesting as well.