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Most people love traveling abroad and exploring other countries, but the thought of moving to another country can be very scary. However, there are plenty of reasons to move to another country!
If you are thinking of moving abroad, or have even the slightest interest of living abroad, you should do it!
There are so many reasons why you should move abroad and how it can make you a better person. But yes, it can be overwhelming to even think about, so let’s look at 9 reasons to move to another country in order to get you ready to move abroad!
1. Learn More About Yourself
While traveling does help you learn more about yourself, when you move to another country, you learn so much more about yourself than when you just travel.
You have to basically start a new life, new social circle, and find out where to shop in a brand new country. Oftentimes, this can be in a different language, which can make it even more difficult.
Some may be overwhelmed reading all that, but in having to do all of this in a foreign country, you really learn a lot about your survival skills, what you like to do, and how to spend time alone, especially if you’re traveling solo.
2. Become More Self-Reliant
In having to navigate a new city, apartment, jobs, and perhaps confusing bureaucracy, you will learn how to become self-reliant.
When you first arrive when moving abroad, chances are that you won’t know anyone. This means that you will only have yourself to rely on. You will need to find an apartment. You will need to find the store. You will need to find the government offices for your paperwork.
Sure, there are online groups of expats that will help, but ultimately, it’s on you.
Putting yourself in this situation will force you to become more self-reliant, which will help you through your time living abroad and throughout your life. It’s one of the top reasons to move to another country!
3. It Will Help Your Resume
One of the more tangible reasons to move to another country is that it will help your resume. By showing that you have experience working, studying, or even just living in a foreign country sets you apart from others.
Obviously, this all comes down to how you portray how valuable your experience of living abroad is in an interview. If you just say Yeah, I lived and partied in Barcelona for 2 years, you’re not getting hired. Sorry bro.
However, if you talk about how learning and adapting to a new culture has helped you work with a more diverse group of people and how you are able to adapt and be successful in unknown situations, you just might land the job.
This might be—and should be—completely obvious, but it’s not to everyone. If you are trying to work abroad and are using it as a career stepping stone, make the most of it because it really can boost your future career.
4. Learn a New Language
When you move to another country, there are plenty of places you can go to all over the world with many similarities and differences to your home country. However, one of the best thing about living abroad is being in a country that speaks a different language than your home language.
Yes, it might sound overwhelming, especially if you don’t know even know how to say Hi or Thank you in that language, but what better way to learn a language than to fully immerse yourself in it?
By living in a country that speaks a different language than your’s, you have a prime opportunity to learn it! It will take time to learn, and it won’t be easy. But you will come away with speaking a new language and you, your brain, and your resume will all be better off for it.
5. Learn About a New Culture
Aside from learning a new language, another reason to move to another country is to learn and live in a new culture!
By learning about a new culture, you learn that there are different ways to do the same thing. You broaden your horizons as well as the horizons of people you interact with. You are able to connect with people and see that there are multiple ways to do the same thing.
You may even come away from the experience of living abroad in a new culture thinking that, that culture actually does some things better than your own culture.
6. Become More Open-Minded
By moving to a new country and living in a new culture, you become more open-minded because you have to adapt and learn that the way you were brought up and the way you do things probably isn’t how others in your new country do things.
You have to be open to new ideas, new food, new ways of life, and new beliefs. By doing this, you are often forced out of your comfort zone, which leads to growing as a person.
Most people who never travel or live abroad are stuck in their little bubble of life and think what they know is the only way to live. If you live in another county, you will quickly learn that others live in much different ways than you and the world doesn’t crumble.
By immersing yourself in another culture, you will probably be outside of your comfort zone, but you will grow as an individual and become more open-minded. Growing and becoming a better person by being more open-minded makes this one of the best reasons to move to another country and is a lesson you can take with you the rest of your life.
7. Meet More Friends
If you move away from home, and specifically to another country, you will have to make new friends, so you have people to do things with.
We all have different comfort levels in meeting new friends. Extroverts might find it easy, while introverts might not. The best way to meet friends when you move to another country is to get involved in groups of people who like to do the same things as you.
Do you like to exercise? Join a gym or a fitness club. Do you like reading? How about a book club? Cooking? Sign up for a cooking class.
When you move to another country, you get the unique opportunity to really meet a bunch of new people and a chance to meet a ton of new friends. In meeting new people, you will also find that there are so many people out there in the world who are willing to help you out, even when they don’t know you that well!
When Mike moved to Spain, he met people through a running group that offered to help him with his landlord, offered recommendations, asked if he needed help with his government documents, and the list goes on. He didn’t even know them for a week at that point!
When you meet new people and they are really willing to go out of their way to help you, it really restores your faith in humanity.
Now, obviously most people are comfortable and love their friends at home, so meeting new people might not be their top reason to move to another county. However, it’s important to know that when you do move abroad, there are plenty of people who are willing to welcome you into their friend groups with open arms—which is also something to keep in mind when you’re living at home and you meet others who may be looking for friends.
8. Cheaper Cost of Living
Another, perhaps more practical, reason to move to another country is that whatever country you are moving to might have a much lower cost of living than your home country.
At home, you might feel like you are constantly working just to pay the bills and live an average life but don’t have much discretionary income to spend on things you want, like travel. In other countries, you might be able to make less at your job, but actually live a much higher quality life because the cost of living is lower.
Obviously, this entire reason for moving to another country is entirely dependent on where you’re moving from and to, as well as what your job is in both places. Where you are at in your life, such as having children or being in a relationship or not, might affect this too because you are now planning for more than just yourself.
Numbeo has a great Cost of Living Index by Country that is frequently updated, so you can find the perfect place to move abroad for you!
Before you move to another country, make sure to do all your research first because you won’t want to be in a place where you cannot afford to live.
9. It’s Like Traveling All The Time
Chances are that if you are even considering moving abroad, you probably love travel. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have made it to the 9th reason to move another country, or even be on this blog at all…
Well, you’re in luck because if you love traveling, living abroad is like you are traveling all the time!
When you live abroad, you are constantly experiencing new things: culture, food, language, people, etc. Each and every day brings with it new experiences that really feel like you are traveling all the time.
Yes, there will be ups and downs that come with moving to another country, but that happens no matter where you live. When you live abroad, you get the chance to learn new things about the culture and language where you are.
Learning about where we are and having an authentic travel experience is one of our favorite things about travel, and when you actually stay in one place longer (i.e. living abroad) you truly immerse yourself in the culture and in the people you are with. This is the best way to soak up, learn, and experience the true culture of a place.
While you can get parts of this during a weekend or week-long vacation, it’s just never the same as when you are actually living in a place for a longer period of time.
Basically, the moral of the story is that if you love travel, you will love living abroad. That is why we feel as though this is the number one reason to move to another country!
