Sharing an expat’s experience with the process of relocating, or their life overseas, can teach some very useful lessons.

Here’s a list of expat and travel blogs and websites that are worth a look. To my surprise, I discovered it’s been about three months since the last one, so here’s a new list for 2012.

1. My Life In Canada Under the Snow
2. Gringos in Paradise (Mexico), for American expats in Mexico
3. Anywhere in the World, expat entrepreneur from France
4. The Road Less Traveled, American couple spend part of every year in Mexico in an RV or boat.
5. Overseas Exile, American currently in Amsterdam.
6. Far Away Hammer
7. The Venice Experiment, American expats in Venice, Italy.
8. Without Any Walls, expats in Germany.
9. Gringos Abroad, a family of Canadians in Ecuador.
10. Piglet in Portugal, writes a lot about food as well as other aspects of everyday expat life in Portugal.
11. Nicaragua Dispatch. This is actually an online newspaper, but I found it well worth spending some time with.
12. Expats in Italy
13. The Zieglers Blog, expats in Canada

Travel

These are not your typical travel sites, but sites of people who spent most of their lives traveling.

14. A Little Adrift
15. Travels of Adam
16. Magic Travel Blog
17. The Adventures of D
18. How to Travel with Pets
19. Fox Nomad
20. Tech Guide for Travel
21. Ramble Crunch, an American/Canadian family traveling through Europe and Turkey.

Do you have a favorite expat or perpetual-travel blog you’d like to recommend? Leave a link in the Comments section!

Europe

Expat in Germany provides information about living in Germany (and a little bit about Canada). The author is a Canadian serial expat who’s also lived in Thailand, S. Korea and the US.

Not From Around Here, subtitled “Stranger in a Strange Land” is all about the adventures of a US transplant to the UK.

Emtpy Nest Expat is an American who seized the moment (kids grown, no grandkids yet) to lace up her traveling shoes. She’s lived in the Czech Republic and is currently in Istanbul, Turkey.

Adventures in Expat Land is the blog of an American writer living in the Netherlands, where her husband works with an international organization.

Latin America

Monday or Something is not an expat blog, per se, but an interesting account of what it’s like to live in a place for one month, then move on. So far the author’s published from several locations in Panama, Nicaragua, Belize and Honduras.

The Mexile looks at Mexico and the UK from a British point of view. Back in England now, he lived in Mexico for five years and loved it.

An Expat Life in Nicaragua, an American in San Juan del Sur for the past four years.

Rewired and Retired in Nicaragua, another couple who moved from the US to Nicaragua, in this case a tiny island. They’ve been happy there for seven years.

North America

With more than a dollop of the dry wit and self-deprecation the British are famous for, Culturally Discombobulated looks at the Big Apple. His take on Pop Tarts and hurricanes is hilarious. . .

Expatlogue chronicles the adventures of a British family newly arrived in Ontario, Canada.

Asia / Pacific Rim

Expatria, Baby is a tongue-in-cheek look at living in Japan with a small child. The author is Canadian, her husband is Swiss, and they’ve been in Japan for about four years.

In Search of a Life Less Ordinary follows a Brit married to an Australian who lived in Canada for a while and are now located in Sydney.

Africa

Africa Expat Wives, a UK citizen moves to Africa two days after her marriage, and raises a family there.

Middle East

Intercultural Meanderings. Lynne Diligent, a long-time expat and Middle Eastern resident since 1990, writes about interesting questions relating to intercultural business, expat issues and multicultural issues.

Asia

Our Big Expat Adventure, moving the family from Australia to Singapore.

The Dropout Diaries. No, not education related, this is one person’s account of packing it all in and going to China to teach. . . and what happens next.

The Sublime Portal, an online community and reference sites for all things Turkey.

Europe

Kitchen Chinese Adventures in Food, France and Beyond with chef and journalist Ann Mah.

Expat-En-Provence, tales of a young American woman in the south of France.

Central and South America

What’s Up El Salvador, an American woman falls in love with El Salvador and moves there with her husband and young daughter.

Xpat Escape tells about one woman’s move to Panama, with stunningly gorgeous photos.

Ecuador 4 U, a lovely photo blog about life in Ecuador.

Global Nomads

The Displaced Nation, a site devoted to global nomads.

Unwire Me — Work Anytime from Anywhere. All about portable careers.

If you’d like to see more of the sites I follow, check out my bookmarks page on Delicious.com – it’s all there!

Do you have an expat blog or website you’d like to recommend? You can share it on Facebook, or add it to the Comments below.

1. Empty Nest Expat. Currently living in Prague, the blogger describes herself as “an American expatriate bursting with enthusiasm to GET OUT AND EXPERIENCE OUR GLOBE! ”

2. Living In the Sun. This is a website with four offshoot blogs, each dealing with a European/Mediterranean country. There’s one for France, Portugal, Spain and Greece.
3. Soul Travelers 3. Two fifty-something parents and a nine-year old travel the world in “an epic odyssey: open-ended, years long slow trip around the world as a family adventure, unschool, spiritual journey and lifestyle.”
4. Expat+Harem. A Berkely, CA native living in Istanbul with her Turkish husband.
5. My Several Worlds. The author is a traveler and photographer. Originally from Ottawa, Canada, she currently lives and works in Taipei. Her site features gorgeous photos, as well as information about teaching English abroad.
6. Career by Choice. Megan Fitzgerald helps expats develop their careers abroad.
7. Traveling4Health. While not specifically an expat blog, this is a terrific resource for anyone interested in health care abroad.
8. Mid-Atlantic English, the blog of an American who’s lived for an extended time in the UK.
9. The Cranky Yank. This is the personal blog of Dan Prescher from International Living, and he always has a unique perspective.

   Do you have a favorite expat blog? Share it by clicking on the Comment link below.

   
   
   
   ]]> http://futureexpats.com/9-expat-blogs-to-follow/feed 7 http://futureexpats.com/take-it-all-in-stride http://futureexpats.com/take-it-all-in-stride#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:00:40 +0000 FutureExpat http://futureexpats.com/?p=1453 Guest Post by Brandi N. Grays
   
   I never really decided to live overseas. There was no well-laid plan, no dream destination. I didn’t do any research. When I first got off the airplane in Ankara, Turkey I had no idea what life had in store for me. My boyfriend had been working in Turkey for a little over a year and he asked me to marry him. He was already in Turkey (and it seemed that I had been awaiting this proposal forever), so we decided that I would go there and we would get married right away. I found a tenant for my apartment, packed my bags, and hopped on a plane to Ankara.

   Because I hadn’t done any research, I arrived a few days before the start of Ramadan. We had to wait through closed offices and holiday observances; but, we were finally able to get married about three weeks later. So many people ask me, “How did you manage to get married in another country?” It was a challenge, but this experience is what helped shape my perspective about life overseas; take it all in stride.
   
   

   I have lived all over the world; Turkey, Belgium, Bosnia, Israel, and now Mexico. I am thoroughly enjoying myself. However, I believe that in order to take full advantage of your expat life you have to relax a bit and understand that you don’t have the same amount of control as you do in your home country. I have had many opportunities to work myself into fits of frenzy; however, my outlook on this uncommon life has saved me.

   What Do You Mean, I Can’t Buy Groceries Here?

   I can remember standing in the checkout line at a grocery store in Belgium. I had a basket full of groceries and was at least 7 months pregnant. I handed the cashier my credit card and my passport and began bagging my groceries. However, I was alerted to the fact that there was some sort of problem with my identification. The cashier explained that my middle name was not on my credit card as it appeared on my passport and therefore, I couldn’t pay for my basket full of groceries. I tried to explain to her that it was just my middle name and didn’t have to be on my credit card, but my explanation was not sufficient. I speak enough French to get through my daily life; but, I can’t go head to head in a verbal battle with a native French speaker.

   So, here I was holding up the check-out line in Carrefour and getting angrier by the minute. Had I been in the states, I would have demanded to speak to the manager, asked for the number to corporate headquarters and called them while I sat in the car. In this case, however, I pushed my basket to the front of the store, bought a hot waffle on my way out, and went back later with my husband and his credit card.

   These sorts of experiences will happen, especially when you first arrive in a new country. If you don’t fluently speak the language, you will encounter them much more often. But they will give you opportunities to laugh later on. They are simply part of the adventure. There is no sense in getting upset and angry. Take it all in stride.

   I could tell you stories about rogue taxi drivers, hostile sports fans, ridiculous apartment deficiencies, and the worst McDonald’s on Earth. Of course, when you are standing face to face with a cashier and can’t buy your groceries, it can be disheartening. If you have to demand that a taxi driver take you back home because he doesn’t know where he is going (and you don’t really either), it can be a bit overwhelming. But when you stick it out and get past these little bumps in the road, the journey is a blast.

   Brandi N. Grays is the owner of Eleven Twenty-Three Creative Group, a small business marketing firm. She blogs about starting and growing your small business. She will be launching her own blog dedicated to expat moms in the spring of 2010. You can reach Brandi at brandingrays@1123creativegroup.com.

   
   
   
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