Who? Why? How?

We’re here to look at who decides to live overseas, why they do, and how they accomplish it. There are probably as many reasons to live outside of your native country as there are people who do so. In my case, my husband and I realized several years ago that, if we stay here, we will never be able to afford to retire. Add to this my lifelong desire to spend significant time in another country, and we began looking at the possibilities of retiring overseas. But that’s not the only reason, not by a long shot! More

Expat, Missionary, Saint

green_dog

March 17 is celebrated throughout the United States and Ireland as St. Patrick’s Day. On St. Paddy’s Day, as it is familiarly known, we wear green, eschew orange and drink gallons of green beer. (Yuck!) We hold parades, dye entire rivers green, and generally behave in a very un-saintly fashion.

St. Patrick: A Brief

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Do I Need to Learn the Language II

Yes! Learning the language is vital to the success of your move. That is, if you’re a cultural expat.

As a cultural expat, you are motivated to bring your culture, or a specific aspect of it, to the people you’re living among (missionary expat), or you are a student of the new culture.

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“Missionary” Expats

This entry is part 2 of 10 in the series What Kind of Expat Are You?

I recently posted an article in which I attempted to categorize expats into groups. This is not easy, as many – if not most – expats live overseas for reasons that include multiple categories, but I thought it was worth a try. Over the next few days, I will elaborate on some of the categories I included in that initial post, beginning with:

Cultural Expats

Many people choose to live a life outside the boundaries of their native countries because they want to immerse themselves in another culture, or because they want to bring their culture to a foreign land. I divided the cultural expats into the broad classifications of missionaries and

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