If you are a keen traveller and a bit of a culture vulture, then visiting other countries will probably come naturally to you. Even if your money is tight and you can only afford a brief trip each year, you are steadfastly working through a list of places and sights you want to see.
But have you ever considered living abroad?
While holidays are brilliant for taking in a lot in a short space of time, you never quite have the opportunity to really settle in. As you live out of a suitcase in a hotel room or rented apartment, you aren’t really encouraged to mingle with local people or to try anything other than the most highly recommended restaurants and bars.
Living abroad is an entirely different experience. Not only will you have to work while you are away (unless you are exceptionally lucky!) but you will also find that you are more settled, giving you more confidence to experiment a little more. Holidays are ideal for discovering lots of new experiences in the short term but when you live abroad, your sense of the culture is much more nuanced. Whether you plan to live in one of the Gem Residences in Singapore, find a bijou apartment in Paris or you are after a beach shack somewhere in the Caribbean, there are 5 brilliant reasons to extend your stay and become a temporary resident.
Make New Friends
This may perhaps be the biggest difference for those living abroad to those who are just on holiday: making friends. Sure, you can make temporary friends while you are on holiday, but it is likely that you have a connection to the activity you are doing or the place you are staying in and it is a bond of convenience rather than a genuine, blossoming relationship.
If you are living in a building or a small neighbourhood, it is worth checking Facebook to see if there is a group you can join. This is a nice way of meeting people and persuading them to grab a coffee (or whatever) with you but will also help you to integrate with your new area. Work friends are also a great place to start. But if you want to build up your friendship group, the best way to do it is to say yes to every invitation you get and do new things too. Making friends means different things to different people, of course, but when you are living in a community, the relationships you build are quite different. For one thing, you will need to get on with people you might not bother with if you were only to stay for a few nights. Another strong difference is that by making new friends near where you are now living, you will also have a better chance of doing the next four things.
Learn the Language
Everyone speaks English these days so when you go on holiday it’s unlikely that you’ll need more than a polite please or thank you. This is fine for ordering multiple beers while you lie by the pool reading a rom-com, but isn’t the best way to learn more about another culture.
Language is an incredible asset to have but with one language a week becoming extinct, we are already losing a lot of the culture and cognitive landscapes available to us. When language quite literally affects the way you think, why would you not want to take the chance to open yourself up to different ways of thinking by learning a new language?When you are on holiday, the language you might pick up is usually transactional and functional. You aren’t trying to have a conversation – you just want to know if you can have another beer. However, when you live in a different country, you are more likely to want to strike up a conversation with other people and, as you feel your way towards more complex topics involving emotions and opinions, you are much more likely to understand how people shape their thoughts through the language they have access to.
Don’t believe this could be true? Have a look at this TED talk by Lera Boroditsky.
Discover Local Culture
Just as you have more opportunity to learn a local language, while you are living abroad, you will also be able to discover more of the local culture. For all that you might still go to the usual tourist traps (and hey, they are popular for a reason!), you will also find out where the locals themselves tend to spend more of their time.
In large cities, it is often true that the locals do things completely differently to the tourists visiting the areas. Rather than going to the restaurants that are most popular on TripAdvisor, they are much more likely to go to family favourites or quieter venues a little more out of the way. Locals also act differently because they are not on the holiday high of spending lots of money. Living and working on a regular Monday is quite different to the first Monday while you are on holiday! By living as the locals do, you will also find that you settle into different patterns. Take the idea of the siesta for example, or the German attitude that work stays at work and home life stays at home. You are unlikely to experience either of these differences if you are on holiday.
Taste Local Recipes
Back in 2011, pasta was declared the world’s favourite food and, to be honest, it doesn’t look like much has changed since. But, unless you are going to live in Italy, you really should be looking to expand your worldview through the foods you eat and cook. And, unsurprisingly, this is much easier when you are living abroad and cooking for yourself.
Though you may not be fluent in the local language, finding and trying recipes online (use Google translate) is a great way to mix up your culinary skills and find new ingredients. If you aren’t a confident cook, then you have all the more reason to make some local friends who can make some incredible dishes for you and show you what to do. Regional foods vary hugely and even in the UK, this is definitely the case. Ask a southerner about barm cakes and they won’t have a clue but ask a Lancastrian and they will immediately start reminiscing about home. The same is true in Wales where everything just seems to taste better, from the delicious Welshcakes to the Swansea loaf. What we eat and the way we eat is steeped in culture and though restaurants are great, they don’t always get to the heart of what food means or why it was developed. Eating with the locals will certainly be an eye-opener.
Take Day Trips and Short Breaks
Of course, just because you choose to live in a particular area, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still take day trips or even short breaks to discover more of the country, or countries you are surrounded by. The great thing about moving to somewhere far away from your current home is that travelling from there to other otherwise far flung places will be a lot cheaper, and better for the environment come to think of it.
If you are living in an area where there are lots of islands, such as around Greece, Indonesia and Malaysia, it is certainly worth taking some time to visit these different islands as they can offer different interpretations of local culture and even have some of their own traditions and practises too. Just as the different counties of the UK are all different and the States of America have their own personalities, so too do different regions and islands of other countries and the more you visit, the more nuanced your understanding will become.
Digital Nomad
Travelling the world is such an amazing thing to do and in recent years, more and more people have become digital nomads in order to create a better balance between work and exploration. As they have discovered, living abroad can be a really eye opening experience and when you are not being shepherded towards tourist attractions, a whole new world can open up before you.
Living abroad is certainly a challenge and the more remote you go, the harder it will be to acclimatise and assimilate. However, starting simple and then moving on to other destinations is a good way to start living a completely new way. This is an incredibly exciting time to be alive and our planet is getting smaller all the time. Now is the moment to start exploring, pushing the boundaries of your knowledge, and get in touch with your inner wanderer.
