I still remember the first time I decided to move abroad. I had just turned 19 years old, and had visited Southern Spain on my second solo trip. During my trip, the manager of the hostel I stayed at in Seville had offered me the opportunity to come and work there.
I decided to take the offer for a couple of months, and then took him up on it! And booked a one-way ticket from Copenhagen to Seville.
My first move abroad was more than a decade ago. But it wasn’t my last!
And I’m still here, still abroad, still occasionally googling how to fill in a form in a language that isn’t mine.
So when I write about living abroad, I’m not writing from a desk daydreaming about what it might be like to walk the streets of a foreign city like it was your hometown. I’m writing from the other side of it, with all the queues and the homesickness and the absolute magic included in living abroad!
This guide is my collection of real-life experiences from someone who has moved abroad from their home country and also moved between countries.
We’ll cover what living abroad actually means, the honest reality of expat life, and the practical nuts and bolts of moving abroad: visas, money, healthcare, and a lot more!
Jump around the sections however you like, and dip into my additional living abroad resources whenever you want to go deeper.
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Becci Abroad
My story of living abroad
I didn’t plan on living abroad for the majority of my adult life. It kind of just happened.
Shortly after finishing high school, I went to Spain and got a job at a local hostel. Not just a volunteer position but an actual Spanish job with a contract and money in my bank account.
I spent over a year in Southern Spain, followed by a brief 6 months back in Denmark. From 2014 onwards, I haven’t lived full-time in my home country.
First, I booked a one-way ticket to Havana (Cuba) and spent over 4 months in Cuba, studying Spanish.
During my undergraduate studies in Denmark, I lived in Sweden for two years. In 2016, as part of my degree, I went on an exchange semester in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
I was supposed to have stayed in Buenos Aires for 6 months, but ended up living in Buenos Aires for almost seven years.
In 2023, my Argentine husband and I sold everything we had in Buenos Aires except 3 suitcases and the transportation box for our dog, and moved to Barcelona.
For two and a half years, Barcelona was home for my husband and me, and our dog, Baloo. I got a job at a local company, met new friends, and explored many different parts of Barcelona.
In 2025, we decided to move from Barcelona to the Madrid area. There are many pros and cons of living in Barcelona, but in the end the cons weighed enough for us to make the move.
Living abroad in Buenos Aires
Living in Barcelona
Graduating from my Master’s Degree in Argentina
My Detailed Guides
Living Abroad Guides
Explore my detailed posts about living abroad in different countries to help you plan your move!
Living abroad simply means moving to a country other than the one you’re a citizen of and making it your home for an extended period.
So, moving abroad isn’t just a holiday. It is a long-term experience of living in a foreign country.
Living abroad covers everyone from a student doing a year in Lisbon to a retiree settling permanently in Mexico to, well, me: someone who left “for a year” and accidentally built an entire life somewhere else – multiple times!
I once read that you can be considered to have lived abroad in another country if you stayed for longer than the 3 months (or 90 days) that a normal tourist visa is valid.
Based on my own experience now after more than 10 years of living abroad, I don’t know if I exactly agree with this definition of living abroad. In my experience, 3 months isn’t enough to truly establish yourself and build a life in a new country.
Expat vs immigrant: what’s the difference?
When you start to look into the topic of moving abroad or living abroad, you’ll bump into a lot of labels: expat, immigrant, migrant, digital nomad, etc.
People can get surprisingly heated around the different terms, so here is a quick breakdown based on facts and dictionaries:
Expat versus immigrant
The textbook distinction between expat and immigrant comes down to intention.
An expat is short for expatriate, which comes from the Latin ex patria, meaning gone out from one’s country.
According to Cambridge Dictionary, an expat or expatriate is “someone who does not live in their own country”
The word expat is often used to refer to a professional, skilled worker moving abroad, and most times from a wealthy country. An expat can also be seen as someone living abroad temporarily, often planning to return home eventually.
On the other hand, an immigrant is someone who moves intending to settle permanently and put down roots in a foreign country.
The Oxford English Dictionary‘s official definition of an immigrant is “a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.”
But let’s be honest about the part the dictionaries skip: the words carry baggage. The difference frequently has more to do with nationality and perception than with how long anyone actually plans to stay.
I call myself an expat out of habit, but after this many years married into an Argentine family and rooted in Spain? I’m honestly closer to an immigrant, and I’ve made peace with that.
In my opinion, you shouldn’t lose sleep over which label you give yourself – or society gives you! Because at the end of the day, which word you use on Instagram doesn’t change anything about your visa, your taxes, or your daily life.
So, pick whichever feels honest to you and spend the time on what really matters when moving abroad: preparing your paperwork and getting your legal residency.
“A person who moves from one place to another, especially in order to find work or better living conditions.”
Living Abroad at a Glance
Why Do People Move Abroad?
People love to assume there’s one dramatic reason behind a move abroad.
Usually there are about five, and they’re tangled together.
Here are the ones I see again and again — including my own.
None of these is more “legitimate” than another. I moved for love and stayed for the life. That’s allowed.
Love and family
Following a partner across borders is one of the most common reasons when speaking about moving abroad.
Maybe you met a partner from another country and decided to go live with them in their country? Or maybe your partner got offered a job in another country, and you decided to move with them?
Love and family are very common reasons to move abroad!
Work and career
Getting a new job offer, being offered an international transfer in your current company, or simply looking to make a move to a country with more opportunity than in your home country, work and career is another very frequent reason for people moving abroad.
Sometimes you move because of a specific job, and sometimes it is to try and find a new job.
Cost of living
A salary or pension that feels tight at home might stretch longer elsewhere.
Moving abroad because of the cost of living is a huge driver for many people moving from the U.S. and Europe to parts of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and southern Europe.
Study
Studying a degree in a foreign country is a great way to experience living abroad while learning something new.
Studying in a foreign country might also increase your chances of finding a job in that country afterward.
Lifestyle and adventure
A change of lifestyle or the search for more adventure in your everyday life might be another reason for moving abroad.
The desire to find out who you are somewhere that doesn’t already have an opinion about you is a valid reason for moving abroad.
Before you go
The Honest Reality of Expat Life
Living abroad is one of the best decisions I ever made. There’s a challenge and a richness to building a daily life in another country and getting under the skin of their culture that a two-week holiday simply can’t touch. However, life abroad is also harder than any Instagram reel can show, and pretending otherwise does nobody any favours. In this section, I want to try and show you some of the honest realities of expat life.
The Benefits of Living Abroad
There are many benefits to living abroad: new food, a new language, and new friendships with people you’d never have met otherwise.
Living abroad pushes your boundaries and lets you find a version of yourself that’s braver and more independent than the one who got on the plane.
Here are some of the benefits of living abroad that I have found to be the most important:
Building your independence and self-esteem: In my opinion, one of the most important benefits of living abroad is that you learn to stand on your own legs and become extremely independent. When you have to deal with finding an apartment in a foreign language, going to the immigration office on your own, or simply doing the groceries in a foreign language in a foreign country, it pushes you outside your comfort zone in ways you cannot imagine.
Learning a new language: This is a classic when it comes to highlighting the benefits of moving abroad, but in my opinion, learning a new language is a really rewarding experience. A country’s language isn’t just a way to communicate; it is also a representation of the country’s culture and traditions. Learning Spanish in Argentina and Spanish slang in Cuba really helped me to get under the skin of both countries. So, when moving abroad, I strongly recommend that you make the effort of learning the language of your new country.
Adapting to a new culture: Moving abroad teaches you (and sometimes forces you) to learn about a new culture and a different way of life than you’re used to. I’m not going to lie, it can be super challenging, but it is also very rewarding.
Meeting new people: One of the beautiful things about living abroad is that you will meet people that you would properly never have met if you had stayed at home. Some of them might just be acquaintances, while others will become long-term friends. When my husband and I moved from Argentina to Spain, my old Spanish flatmate from when I lived in Granada 10 years ago (and whom I still have on Instagram) helped us figure out the best websites for looking for a flat in Barcelona.
The Disadvantages of Living Abroad
Social media normally only shows you the rooftop sunsets and late-night dinners as the experience of living abroad. They don’t usually show the hours spent waiting in a never-ending queue at the immigration office or the afternoon spent crying in a government office because your ID has yet again been sent to the wrong address (been there!).
Both experiences are real. But if you go in expecting only the sunsets, the office days will floor you.
Living abroad is hard work, and some days it can feel very much uphill. The difficulty isn’t the big dramatic stuff. It’s the small, grinding things you didn’t see coming or weren’t expecting.
Here are some of the disadvantages of living abroad:
The “in-between” feeling: This one’s real, and it is a permanent-ish feeling when living abroad. After years away, you start to feel like you don’t fully belong in your new country, but you don’t quite fit back home either. You become a person of two places and entirely neither. I’ve made peace with it, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t ache sometimes.
Bureaucracy: Moving abroad involves so much paperwork! So many queues. So many trips to an office that closes ten minutes before you reach the front. This might, of course, differ slightly from country to country, and I have chosen some of the more challenging countries in the world when it comes to bureaucracy (hello Spain and Argentina, we are looking at you!). But even from international friends living in Denmark, I know that Denmark isn’t a walk in the park when you first arrive as an immigrant. So, prepare yourself with far more patience than you think you’ll need!
The language wall. Even now with decent Spanish, I have days where I feel like my brain and mouth aren’t collaborating on my Spanish! Moving from Argentina to Spain definitely didn’t help! The Spanish in Argentina is so fundamentally different in so many ways that moving to Spain wasn’t as easy as I had expected. It’s isolating in a way that’s hard to describe until you’ve lived it.
Homesickness that ambushes you. Not on the obvious days. On a random Tuesday when you can’t find the one ingredient from home, or you miss a friend’s wedding, or you realise the seasons are wrong.
Step-by-step guide
How to Move Abroad: A Realistic Roadmap
Moving abroad is absolutely doable (I’ve done it several times now), but it rewards planning.
Most people underestimate the timeline. As a rough rule, give yourself six to twelve months from the moment you decide on “yes, we’re doing this” to you actually sit on the plane on your way to settle down in a new country. If you have kids or pets involved in the moving abroad experience, you might need a little bit more time to get everything sorted.
Here’s the order I’d tackle things in.
Residencies & Long-term visa
This is the longest, slowest, and most important piece to get sorted when moving abroad is your residency or long-term visa in your new country.
Your options depend entirely on your nationality and the country you are moving to. In some countries, you can arrive on a tourist visa and change to a long-term visa once you have arrived (this has been my case in Spain, Argentina, and Sweden).
However, be aware that not all countries accept this route, and will require that you have your long-term visa or residency sorted before arriving if you intend to stay long-term. Some long-stay visas take six months or more to process, so do not leave this to the end.
The usual options for long-term visas or residencies are:
Student visa: Intended for students who are planning on doing either an exchange semester or a full degree abroad. I got a student visa in Argentina for the first 5 years I lived in Buenos Aires, and actually I also got a student visa when studying Spanish for five months in Cuba.
Family/partner visa: Intended for family reunification of nationals of a country with their foreign partners or children. The rules for the long-term family visas change a lot from country to country, but generally this type of long/term visa or residency is among the most popular and easiest to get.
Residency-by-income visa (digital nomad and “non-lucrative” visas): Intended for foreign nationals (aka you who are moving abroad) with sufficient funds or who can show a stable income to support themselves in the foreign country. The rules and requirements for these residencies change a lot from country to country, so I strongly recommend that you research in detail what applies to your situation or consult with an immigration attorney in the country you wish to move to.
The Freedom of Movement Act states that “All EU citizens and their family members have the right to move and reside freely within the EU.”
What you need to be aware of is that despite having the right to move abroad within the EU, you are still obliged to register as a resident in your new EU country within the first 90 days, and you need to show proof of how you are going to support yourself (and your family) economically.
Get your documents in order
The next step after you figure out which long-term visa or residency to apply for when moving abroad is to gather the necessary documentation.
Normally, you’ll need certified copies, and sometimes apostilled and translated versions, of your essential personal documents such as:
Passport
A copy of your passport along with your original passport is most likely needed when you start the immigration process.
Many countries require your passport to be valid for more than six months when you start your residency application, so remember to check that your passport is valid well beyond your move date.
Birth certificates
Some countries will require a copy of your birth certificate to check against your passport.
If you are moving abroad with your children, you will also need their birth certificates to prove your parenthood to them.
Criminal background check
A criminal background check from your country of origin is required in many countries, and most times the certificate cannot be older than 3 months.
Make sure to request this ahead of time in your home country, and check whether you require an official translation of the background check.
Marriage certificates
If you are moving abroad with your spouse, you are likely required to show your marriage certificate as part of the immigration process.
Ensure you check if the marriage certificate requires translation to the official language of the country you are moving to.
Health insurance
Many countries requires to to show proof of private health insurance that can cover you in case of illness during the time you wait for approval of your residency application.
This is, for example, the case in Spain – even for EU citizens!
Plan your money
Planning your money is a crucial step for planning your move because moving abroad is expensive!
However, the details of how much money you need to move abroad depend entirely on your own particular situation and private finances.
Are you moving abroad as part of an international transfer in your company where the company supports you financially? Or are you moving abroad entirely on your own, covering all expenses yourself?
Do you have a job or an income stream that you can rely on when arriving in the new country? Or do you need to ensure enough savings to get by the first months until you can find a job in the new country?
Here are some other things to take into account when planning your money for moving abroad:
Research the real cost of living in your destination so you know what income you actually need. Rent, groceries, transport, healthcare, etc.
Sort your banking. Tell your home bank you’re relocating, look into whether you can keep your account, and set up a low-fee international transfer service (Wise and similar) before you need it.
Build a bigger buffer than you planned. Visa fees, deposits, first month’s rent, temporary accommodation and living costs before your first local pay-cheque add up fast. Overestimate on purpose.
The home-country admin and the goodbyes
Before you leave your home country, you also need to ensure that you close off any admin work that might cause you a headache once you are not in the country anymore.
So, make sure to notify the tax authorities, cancel or redirect subscriptions and insurance you won’t use, set up mail forwarding, and cancel the lease of your apartment or house (or rent it out if you are a homeowner).
Depending on your nationality, you could also investigate your ongoing tax obligations to your home country. For example, for Americans, I know you generally still have to file back home even while living abroad. For the first many years I lived abroad, I also still needed to file taxes in Denmark, because I was receiving the Danish scholarship for students (SU). So, make sure to check this properly.
The logistics will eat the calendar if you let them, so make sure you also leave yourself time for actual goodbyes with friends and family.
Healthcare and insurance
As a new arrival, you’re often not entitled to the local public system straight away (or only partially), so you will need private health insurance to cover you in case of illness or accidents during the first months in your new country.
When I moved to Spain with my husband in 2023, we contracted private health insurance through the local Spanish bank account we set up. The bank had a special offer where if you got the health insurance through them, you would avoid paying extra for a non-resident bank account.
On top of that, in Spain, we also needed to show private health insurance as part of the residency application, so it was a no-brainer for us to do the two things together. We used Santander as the bank and got Aegon as the private health insurance (and Aegon was approved by the Spanish Immigration Office).
Safety Wing also offers an international nomad health and travel insurance, Nomad Complete, which is perfect for moving abroad. Safety Wing is especially useful if you are moving to a country where you aren’t sure what health insurance to choose or don’t want to also have to deal with customer service in a foreign language.
What is great about the Nomad Complete insurance is that it covers both routine and emergency medical care abroad, so you don’t have to worry about missing a routine check during the time you are in the process of moving abroad.
Housing
When moving abroad, you also need to make sure you have a base to land in your new country. But my biggest piece of advice here is to not get ahead of yourself before you arrive in your new country by signing a long-term lease before you arrive.
Book somewhere temporary for the first few weeks or the first month; either an Airbnb or short-term flat. And take your time to find your permanent place and actually visit the apartment or house before signing a long-term lease.
That way you also have some time to get to know your new city or town and get to know the different neighbourhoods. The “perfect” area online is rarely the one that suits your real daily life.
When we moved from Argentina to Barcelona with my husband, we booked an Airbnb for the first month and went to visit several apartments before settling on the one we stayed in for the two and a half years we lived in Barcelona. In hindsight, the Airbnb was way too far from Barcelona city center, and we did spend too much time travelling back-and-forth of visiting the potential long-term rentals.
Don’t forget the pets!
If a furry family member is coming (but of course they are coming with you!), start their paperwork early too: vaccinations, an accredited vet, import permits, and in some cases quarantine rules.
Rabies-free countries especially can have strict requirements. Baloo’s first international move taught me that there are even more rules and deadlines to keep in mind when moving abroad with a pet!
Me in Buenos Aires
The view from our last flat in Buenos Aires
Our dog, Baloo, moved from Argentina to Spain with us
Choosing Where to Go
Where to Move Abroad?
Figuring out which country to move to abroad is difficult and nerve-racking, as there is no single right answer that suits everyone.
The country that is right for you might depend on your motive and reason for moving abroad: Do you want to find a better job and earn more money, or do you want more adventure and a change of scenery?
Your motives for living abroad will so drive which countries are more suitable for you.
People fall in love with a place on holiday and assume living there will feel the same, but mostly it won’t! A week as a tourist tells you almost nothing about doing your taxes, finding a doctor, or surviving a grey February day.
Living abroad is a wonderful mix of building your own routine in a country with its own customs and traditions.
I’m biased towards the two corners of the world I know in my bones, so if either is calling you, I’ve got proper guides:
Living in Argentina
Discover the best of Buenos Aires with my insider tips and travel guides after 7 years living in the city
Studying in Cuba
The best of Miami after my repeated and long-term visits to Florida’s most popular city
Living in Spain
Explore Barcelona like a local with my detailed city guide after more than 2 years living in the city
Integrating Abroad
How to Thrive Once You Move Abroad?
The first couple of months of moving abroad, easy passes by with focus on the logistics of getting settled in the new place.
However, after the logistics are settled, your new life abroad will start to get its own routine. And staying happy in this new life abroad and integrating into your new community is the real skill, and it’s the part most guides ignore.
After more than a decade of not just living abroad in one place but actually starting over again in a new place several times, here’s what I have found helps to thrive once you are settled in your new life abroad:
Learn the language sooner rather than later: Being able to communicate is the single biggest factor in whether you feel at home or permanently on the outside. Even clumsy, broken attempts open doors when engaging with locals. When I moved to Spain for the first time back when I was 19 years old, I took private Spanish classes twice a week after work to keep improving my Spanish. At first, it was painful to live in a country where I didn’t speak the language. But now, more than 10 years later, I can see that those early efforts to learn Spanish have paid off.
Build community on purpose. Friendships don’t happen by accident when you’re new in a place. You have to chase them and build them on purpose. It might feel awkward at first to hang out with people you don’t know as well as your friends back home. But join the class, the run club, the language exchange, and start saying yes when asked if you want to join additional social gatherings. Facebook groups for expats or locals wanting to improve their language skills are also a good place to start meeting people.
Let yourself be a beginner. You’ll be bad at simple things for a while when moving to a new place. The bus, the post office, the small talk. Everything can seem uphill at the beginning, but treating it as funny rather than humiliating is a survival skill. And I promise you that it does get easier with time!
Stay connected at home but don’t live there in your head. Call your people and share your experiences of living abroad. Also, be present where your feet actually are, so you don’t isolate yourself by still living in your home country inside your head.
Frequently Asked Questions
Living Abroad FAQ
Find answers to commonly asked questions about living abroad.
Living abroad means making your home in a country other than the one you’re a citizen of, for an extended period rather than a short visit. It covers students, workers, retirees, digital nomads and anyone who relocates their daily life across borders — whether temporarily or permanently.
The main difference is intention. An expat typically lives abroad temporarily and may plan to return home, while an immigrant moves intending to settle permanently. In practice, the words also carry class and nationality connotations, and the line between them is blurrier than most people admit.
Plan for six to twelve months from decision to departure, and longer if you need a complex visa, are moving with children or pets, or are selling property.
Visas are usually the slowest step, so start that process first. Some long-stay visas take six months or more to process.
It varies enormously by destination, but budget for far more than just the flight: visa fees, a rental deposit, temporary accommodation, shipping, insurance and several months of living costs before your first local income arrives. Always overestimate your startup budget.
For most people who plan it properly: yes, living abroad is worth it.
Moving abroad is a lot harder than viral social media videos suggest, with real bureaucracy struggels, language hurdles, and homesickness along the way. But living abroad also gives you personal growth, new relationships, and skills. Plan your move abroad with open eyes rather than only rose-tinted ones.
For most long-term expats, it isn’t the move itself that is the hardest part of living abroad. It’s the quieter stuff: the language barrier, the endless paperwork, homesickness that hits on ordinary days, and the “in-between” feeling of not fully belonging in either country. Building community and learning the local language are the best ways to fight off these hard times.
Moving Abroad
Final Thoughts on Living Abroad
Living abroad changed the entire shape of my life. It gave me a husband, a dog with bilingual selective hearing, cities that I know as well (or even better) as my hometown Copenhagen, and a version of myself that I would never have discovered if I had stayed in Denmark.
But living abroad also gave me hundreds of hours in queues and a permanent, low-level homesickness I’ve learned to live with, accepting that there will always be life-changing events in my friends’ and family’s lives that I will miss out on.
If you’re standing where I stood when I was 19 years old, with a daydream in one hand, one-way flight in the other, here is my honest recommendation: take the big step and move abroad!
But do it with your eyes open. Plan the boring parts. Expect the hard days. The life abroad you’re imagining might not be as glamorous as social media shows, and it is most likely going to be a lot messier than you expect!
But living abroad will change you and force you to grow in ways you will never experience if you stayed at home!
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