What People Don’t Tell You About Moving Abroad

We’ve all seen the people who write articles about how they moved to the other side of the world and seemingly became immediately successful. There are the influencers who are living the dream, doing yoga on Instagram, sharing raw food recipes from the jungle, or bloggers writing from a tropical beach.

If that’s you, congratulations. But if you’re planning on packing your life in a suitcase and leaving your country, I want you to know the experience might not be all that social media leads you to believe.

If there’s one thing I wish somebody had told me before I moved abroad, it’s this:

It’s probably going to suck for about a year.

The Best Advice

I moved from my small town in Finland to Barcelona in 2006, at 21 years old. I never moved back, although there were definitely times I thought I would have to.

About a year into living abroad, I started dating the man who would become my boyfriend of six years. With him, I ended up packing up and moving to Costa Rica and later to Argentina, where I still am, 15 years after I left home.

On one of our first dates, when we were sharing our experiences on immigration, he said something that stuck with me.

“When I got here with my ex wife and my law degree in my pocket, I had high expectations,” he said. “But my marriage ended and the only job I could find was washing rice in a sushi restaurant. I liked that job, though, and the chef in that restaurant was great. One day we were talking, and he said something interesting.”

“Don’t even think about getting anywhere in your first year,” he said. “Just get through it.”

Just get through the year.

Why a year, though? Because it takes about 12 months to create a life in a new place and get settled. You might become an instant success in your new life, but most people will need some time to adjust.

Unless you’re only in a new country for a limited period of time for work or study and you’ve got a return date, in your first year you’ll probably have to get through a lot of hurdles. Finding a job, getting through paperwork, learning a language, building a network of people you trust around you. Even just getting used to a new culture can be heavier on you than you might think.

What you need is some time without beating yourself up about everything that goes wrong.

A year of no expectations.

My Experience

When I heard this little pearl of wisdom, I had already gotten through my biggest hurdles.

But boy, was it hard. The paperwork, the language barrier, the cultural differences. (I have nothing bad to say about the food.)

I had spontaneous crying fits on the street after things fell apart with a boyfriend and I couldn’t find a job. When I finally found a job, I couldn’t get the Spanish bureaucracy to work fast enough to get an official ID number and start working. Even opening a bank account was a pain.

I had studied Spanish before I had moved there, but I wasn’t learning quickly enough. It’s exhausting to not be able to say what you want. I was used to being funny in Finnish, and suddenly I was expressing myself at a toddler’s level. People speak faster in real life than in a classroom, have accents and colloquialisms you’ve never heard of. Not to mention obscure political or pop culture references that took me years to learn.

Oh, and I had an interview for a job I was completely unqualified for, in Catalan, a language I didn’t speak. To make matters worse, the interviewer decided to invite a native bilingual Catalan and Spanish speaker to the same interview, to make us compete. My guess is, they had only invited me there to say: “See, we tried to hire a woman but she just wasn’t the right fit.”

I got mugged and was even run over by a taxi, luckily at a low speed.

I took long walks by the beach, watching happy people and feeling sad for myself.

At one point, everything I did just seemed to go wrong. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t want to go home, but I almost had no choice.

Yet, somewhere along that first year, things started rolling. I managed to open a bank account and get a real, monthly-billed phone plan. Sounds dumb, but it made me feel like a local.

I met a lovely man and got two different jobs, as a barista in a Starbucks and a cashier at a clothing store. I spoke fluent Spanish and understood enough Catalan to get by most of the time. And I found some friends.

How to Make It Easier on Yourself

When I moved to Argentina 11 years ago, I already had a couple of advantages that made the whole thing easier. Here they are, so you can save yourself some time.

1. Learn the language.

If you can and you have some time before you move, study the language as much as you can.

But don’t just study, speak the language. I had studied Spanish for a full year and traveled to Barcelona on vacation twice in preparation. I had listened to music and watched a lot of movies, and I had been emailing with a guy I’d met in Barcelona. Still, I hadn’t spoken it enough.

The best thing you can do is, as soon as you know some basics, finding a language exchange buddy. There are plenty of Facebook groups and forums where language learners like you can find others with the same interest.

Trust me, it’ll make your life a lot easier.

2. Fix paperwork beforehand, if possible.

If there’s a way to get official business out of the way before moving, do it. Make sure you have any translations, IDs, visas or other documents handled if possible.

If not, make sure you’ve got a clear picture of every public office you need to visit before you can get your life started. There’s usually more than you’d think.

For me, not getting my paperwork fixed on time almost made me move back to Finland when I couldn’t start working. Moving between two EU countries is about as easy as it gets, but bureaucracy is still bureaucracy.

3. Start a hobby or studies right in the beginning.

One of the things I was really lacking in Barcelona at first was friends. I did fix that situation, but only in Buenos Aires did I really build myself a family away from home. And that’s because I went to college.

If you get a job, you’ll meet some new people, and some of them will be great. But colleagues aren’t the same thing as friends, and it’s harder to build long-lasting relationships with people in a work environment. You’ll often need something else to relate to people through.

So take up a new hobby, go to a language-learning group or find a new exercise class. You don’t have to get a university degree, just make sure you share as much as possible with other people.

4. Find a support person before leaving.

Do you know someone who lives in your destination country or city? Maybe it’s someone from your own country who understands where you’re from and the issues that will be harder for you to handle as a foreigner. And it can make you feel less like a person who doesn’t belong anywhere.

I’m all about living like the locals and not surrounding myself with ex-pat groups, because it would just feel inauthentic to me. But it feels great to meet someone every once in a while to speak your language and relax.

When I moved to Buenos Aires, I had an Argentinian boyfriend with me who was familiar with our destination and also knew me, my family and friends and my culture at home.

Now, I have a Finnish friend who lives close by. When we get together, we speak a lovely mix of three languages only the two of us understand, and it’s surprisingly effortless for the both of us. This friend probably understands me better in many ways than my Finnish friends, because she also gets the way I’ve lost touch with my own culture.

5. Take care of your mental and physical health.

Exercise regularly and go outside every day if you can. I know this sounds old, but the effect fresh air has on your energy levels when everything goes wrong is crucial.

Journal, meditate or practice some form of art that makes you feel good. Do all of the above if you can. Express what you feel, don’t just create content for others to view.

6. Keep an open mind.

Things will still go wrong, and you might have stronger feelings about any possible failures because you’re feeling homesick. It doesn’t mean you should give up.

Just stick to it and get through one issue at a time. And most importantly, don’t plan to reach any major goals. Just push through the small ones, and let your life take you where you need to be.

It Will Get Better

I’ve later taken this same advice and used it in other tough situations.

Getting your heart broken? Hold on, and let the first year go by. You’re probably in love with someone else when the year is over.

The death of my father? Just let it wash over you and feel the feelings. It will get better, but you have to hang in there. Just give it a year.

Now, I’m not saying your problems will vanish if you just wait around for a year. You do need to put in work and keep trying to get results, whatever you do. If you’re in a bad relationship or job or struggling with mental health issues, make sure you get help when you need it. It might take longer to get everything in order, especially if you’ve gone through something really traumatic.

But if you’re going through a hard time, sometimes just giving yourself a year with no expectations is the best way to go.

It might suck, but it gets better.

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This story was originally published by me, on Medium.