How To Choose Your New Home Overseas (Hint: Fall In Love)
It’s all about chemistry…
Whether you’re making friends or looking for love, there’s usually something that draws us to another person that we couldn’t put into words… it just feels natural. You enjoy yourself effortlessly in their company.
The same goes for locations.
I Call It Location Chemistry
You’ll never be happy living somewhere that you just don’t take an immediate, ineffable liking to.
I’ve fallen in love with places based on the scent that hit me as I stepped off the plane—Kenya, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic… they each have unique aromas that hooked me from first whiff.
Of course, chemistry is something that can work against you as much as for you—if you’re forced into close quarters with someone who just doesn’t jive with your rhythm, it won’t work no matter how much you want it to.
I’ve been places that I was sure I would love on paper, but in person I felt let down. I may not have been able to put my finger on it in every case, but there was something about the place that just didn’t click with me.
We often talk about the heart versus the head when it comes to moving overseas—each play important roles, but I’d argue that, as in all things in life, heart has to trump head if push comes to shove.
To take my own example, I live in Paris because I love Paris. The head played no part in my decision to move here, it was 100% emotion based.
Now that I do live here, the head has had to catch up. While Paris can be more affordable than many would think, it is an objectively expensive place to live. And the tax burden can be onerous depending on your situation. These are realities that we’ve had to deal with… but they can’t convince me to move somewhere else.
When it comes to choosing a new home, no reason is too small to give you the warm-and-tinglies.
Likewise, no downside is too trivial to be ignored if you know you could never live with it.
Compromise is always going to be necessary, but you should choose carefully what you’re willing to budge on. Make a list of a few dealbreakers and think on it for a few weeks. Add things and remove them as you marinate on the list. And make them as silly or as grand as they need to be.
Some Dealbreakers I’ve Heard (Or had) In The Past Include:
- Someplace they could own an American-style washer and dryer…
- Someplace close to museums…
- Someplace within a certain radius of family back home…
- Someplace where they would not hear the ocean…
- Someplace where they would hear the ocean all the time…
- Someplace to play golf regularly…
- Someplace with singles to mingle with…
- Someplace they could import their vintage car…
- Someplace they won’t need to own a car…
- Someplace they could import their African grey parrot…
This list should be intensely personal, but if you’re moving with others, you’ll need to merge lists at some point. This might mean further compromises, but you need to be strict with your serious dealbreakers. If you know, for example, that you never want to see snow again in your life and that’s the primary motivation for your move, then you probably won’t be happy if your partner convinced you to move someplace with a serious winter.
I’ve been speaking about a kind of love-at-first-sight experience up to now, and we can extend the love metaphor even further. Because we all know that instant attraction doesn’t equal a lifetime of bliss…
How To Discover If Living Abroad Will Make You Happy In The Long Term
You should certainly take your first impression to heart. If you don’t immediately feel a kind of a spark, there’s probably nothing in this place that will keep you invested no matter how long you stay.
And if you do feel that je ne sais quoi—I think of it as a kind of kick in the pants, I feel energized and revitalized with a new hunger for life—then you should stick around and see what it’s all about.
But, as in any relationship, you need to dig beneath the surface to know if it will work long-term. I may have fallen in love with Kenya, Nicaragua, and the DR at first scent, but I knew that they wouldn’t keep me happy in the long run.
The only way to truly know whether you’re looking at a fling or a serious commitment is to give it some time…
You need to stay for more than just a couple of weeks to know whether any place could make you happy full-time, and you need to try to live like a resident, not a tourist, in order to do that.
Not every place you try it out with is going to work… some might turn into favorite vacation spots, others you might never see again…
After some experience playing the field, you’ll get to know yourself better. Your list will change—some dealbreakers will cease to be such sticking points, and you’ll doubtless discover new ones to replace them with.
And sooner or later, you’ll find The One.
You’ll fall head over heels and dig in to find that this place checks every box on your list—and no matter how long you stay, you never want to leave again and are always excited to return.
You might even find more than one place that strikes your fancy and split your year between them…
I can promise that it feels just as fulfilling to find the place you belong in the world as it is to find the someone you belong with.
Happy hunting…
Kat Kalashian
Editor, LIOS Confidential
