But what about the loved ones you leave behind? While you have a wealth of new opportunities and experiences to explore, all they will be left with are the memories of your lives together.

Transition Tips

No doubt they will feel your loss. Nevertheless, there are a few things you can do to make the process as painless as possible:

1. Once you have decided to move, share it with your family and friends well in advance. It may take time for them to accept you are leaving, and some may try to discourage you. However, a calm approach will help. Tell them your reasons for moving, and explain the advantages you hope to achieve as a result.
2. The days before you leave are bound to be hectic. You will get caught up in a whirlwind of shopping, packing, finalising insurance and visa arrangements, getting health checkups and a host of last minute details. As a result, you may not realise how quickly the days are flying. So don’t forget to spend quality time with your loved ones, especially your family, before you go.
3. Try to maintain a cheerful environment while you are still at home. Avoid emotional discussions, and reminders that soon you won’t be there.
4. The period after you leave home can be tough for both you and your family. Sudden bouts of loneliness may make you feel homesick, and leave them feeling sad at your absence and anxious for your safety. At these times you have to be the strong one, since it was your decision to move. So the moment you arrive, call to let your family know you are well.
5. Once you reach your destination, keep yourself occupied. Get involved in your new life and location by settling into your new home, learn about your new environment, and start making friends.
6. During your first few months in the country keep in touch with family and friends as often as you can, making sure you share with them all the details about the place and its people. The pleasure and relief on both sides from hearing each other’s voices is priceless. And because international calling is so cheap these days the cost is no longer a worry.
7. You can stay connected too by writing emails to friends and family explaining what you did today, or by sending pictures of where you are.
8. And for those friends and family back home who are not well-versed with the internet, why not write them a letter or send a postcard? It is sure to make their day.

Related posts:

1. Your Moving Abroad Location Checklist
2. Agassi’s Open Secrets to Living Abroad
3. Expats Top Concerns When Moving Abroad

Times were when the best option for many people was to get posted overseas by their employer – you got to experience life in a new country but without the risk of leaving your job. Oftentimes it was a great way to ascend the career ladder too.

However, the global recession has seen many companies cut back on the number and generosity of their international assignment programmes. Moreover, a foreign posting is no longer a surefire career progression path.

As a 2009 report by the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra[i] noted: “Expatriates have extremely high expectations, largely due to the considerable demands required of them. However, companies cannot guarantee that there will be a vacancy to match these expectations upon their return, say in three to five years’ time.” The report added, “In general, repatriated employees hold positions similar to what they held prior to leaving.”

With the advent of the Internet, mobile communications, videoconferencing and the like though, a myriad of income-earning possibilities have opened up for the budding expatriate.

For such technologies are giving people the freedom to become independent freelancers/contractors or small-scale entrepreneurs, selling their products and services from wherever they happen to be, to customers across the world. Better still, such work opportunities are portable. And that makes moving abroad – and even multiple relocations – a whole lot easier.

For more on portable career possibilities take a look at Megan Fitzgerald’s excellent article on the topic, at http://jobsearch.about.com/od/careerdevelopment/a/portablecareers.htm. For more information on how to start a portable career or business you can also check out her website at www.careerbychoice.com.

In addition, I recommend reading Jo Parfitt’s seminal book, A Career in Your Suitcase, which includes a wealth of advice on creating a portable career.

It could offer you a whole new gateway to the world.

[i] Expatriation: More Than Just Knowing Languages, José R. Pin Arboledas, P. García-Lombardía, IESE Business School – University of Navarra, http://insight.iese.edu/doc.aspx?id=1006&ar=20&idioma=2

Related posts:

1. What’s your biggest obstacle to building a successful career abroad?
2. Career Abroad or Life at Home?
3. Cost of an English University Education

Like so many other journalists, I too have been dreaming of that publishing deal that would set me on the road to literary fortune. In fact, my journalistic career was more happenstance than design, a by-product of my early book writing efforts, rather than the other way around.

The impulse to write has been with me since my exercise book-filled scribbles at infants’ school. But it wasn’t until a backpacking trip around Spain with my wife in 1997 that I took the all-important step, and committed to become a writer. And that means consistently putting pen to paper.

I remember it now. Sitting in front of our tiny tent under the pine trees and stars, enveloped in the warmth of a Valencian spring evening, I opened my newly-bought notepad and with a cheap ballpoint began to recount our adventures.

In the 12 years since I have written something practically every day.

In amongst the hundreds of magazine and newsletter articles for my day job there has been that original backpacker’s tale, several novels, a host of short stories, TV programme pitches, and a work-in-progress screenplay.

The investment of a lot of time, a lot of work and a lot of hope. It’s been a long, and at times frustrating, journey. Indeed, given my lack of publishing fame and fortune you’d probably be justified in thinking it’s about time I gave up.

But although the dream of being a full-time author has seemed a million miles away at times, I have never lost sight of it. So I persevere.

Still, rightly or wrongly – and I’m sure there were glaring deficiencies in my work that merited the stack of rejections – I haven’t had much joy thus far with the traditional publishing world.

Which is why for “Should I Stay Or Should I Go,” my guide to the pros and cons of expat living, I decided to go down the internet route by writing an e-book, and setting up a website to support and sell it.

The internet is a fantastic evolution in the spread of the written word. For it has provided the opportunity for anyone with a message to reach out to a global audience, even if at times it can be difficult to get that message heard.

But the thing is, you never know when someone is listening. And that’s when one of those serendipitous events occurred to me.

Somehow Bea Stanford, founder of global network community Inside Twente (http://www.twenteinside.com/), stumbled on my website and signed up for my Moving Abroad-opedia newsletter. Apparently she liked what I wrote and asked if I’d share my blog posts on her site.

Through Bea and Inside Twente my book reached the attention of Jo Parfitt, the author of numerous bibles on expatriate living, including “Expat Entrepreneur” and “A Career In Your Suitcase” (http://www.joparfitt.com/).

And I have Jo to thank for referring me to her publisher Lean Marketing Press, who in turn got in touch expressing interest in my book. As a result, we’re now working together to produce a print version of Should I Stay Or Should I Go, which we hope to bring out shortly.

It’s been a strange, circuitous route to publication – certainly not how I imagined it would occur. Nevertheless, it is an immensely exciting prospect, not least because I believe – and many other writers have similarly argued – that the model adopted by companies such as Lean Marketing is the future of publishing. But I’ll go into that another time.

Related posts:

1. Expat Living By the Book
2. Book Publishing: The Future … Part I
3. Expat Book Publication