93: The 20 biggest mistakes people make when moving abroad (and how to avoid them)

In this episode, I break down the 20 biggest mistakes I’ve seen people make when moving abroad, from choosing a country based only on Instagram photos to underestimating the true cost of relocation. I’ll share practical tips for avoiding planning, financial, logistical, and emotional pitfalls so you can make a smoother transition and actually enjoy your new life overseas.

Whether you’re still dreaming about living abroad or already knee-deep in your moving plans, this episode will help you avoid regret, save money, and settle in with confidence.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The mindset shifts that make adjusting to a new country easier
• How to budget realistically for the move and the months after
• Why visas and legal requirements should guide your country choice
• Common logistical oversights that can cost you time, money, and sanity
• How to handle the emotional challenges of starting over in a new place

If you want your move abroad to be exciting and sustainable, this is the episode to listen to before you pack your bags.

Free Resource: Want help figuring out where to go first? Take my free quiz: Which European City Should You Move To?

👉Take the free quiz: Which European city should you move to? 🤔

Grab my free guide: 5 Exact Steps to Move Abroad

Website: jordangiberson.com
Instagram: @jordan.giberson

Transcript

0:00

You need to make sure that you're moving somewhere that will align with the lifestyle that you want there are going to be bumps along the way. Just like with anything, focus on the positives because nothing is ever perfect in life. Hey, my name is Jordan Giberson. I'm a Texas girl living and thriving in London. The best thing I've ever done? Moving abroad, hands down. And I'm passionate about helping others do the same. Are you curious about finding a job abroad? You're in the right place, friend. I'll teach you the tried and true secrets of how to make moving abroad a reality for you and how to live a fulfilling life once you get there. We'll cover topics like choosing the best visa for you, how to get a job offer in another country, how to get over your fear of moving abroad, and how to live a life you love once you get there, this is The Move Abroad Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Move Abroad Podcast. For today's episode, we're talking about the 20 biggest mistakes people make when moving abroad and how to avoid them. Now, whenever I was putting together this podcast episode, I was like, eh, I don't know if I really wanna focus on the negatives. And while I want to be really honest with you about life abroad, and I feel that I am quite candid about my life and about, the experiences that I have had and that other people have had about moving abroad. I think that it's best not to focus on the negatives and to focus on the positives because nothing is ever perfect in life. However. I do often get people asking about the biggest mistakes or what to avoid because obviously we want things to go as smoothly as possible whenever we're thinking about moving abroad. So I do think that it might be helpful to talk about these 20 biggest mistakes that people make whenever they're moving abroad so that you can avoid them. So we'll go ahead and get started with today's episode. Number one, our first section that we'll be covering is on planning and mindset mistakes, and our number one biggest mistake that people make whenever moving abroad is moving without a clear why. This feels like it's not super important, but I do think that it is. Important to get honest about your goals, whether you're moving abroad for freedom, for adventure, for the cost of living, for political values, just to make sure that you're moving to the correct place that aligns with your move abroad goals. My goal was to have adventure in for me. London made the most sense because I also cared about having a good career. That was also a priority for me, so I was really clear on my why and what was really important to me when moving abroad. Whereas the weather was not the most important thing for me personally, and that's also why I ended up in London. So I think that it is important to move abroad with a clear why, with clear priorities. The second mistake that I see is choosing a country based on only the vibes on what they see on Instagram and not with a lens of, could I live here? The lifestyle is not. You need to make sure that you're moving somewhere that will align with the lifestyle that you want. You might think that, oh my goodness, I love being on a vacation in southern Italy. It's so incredible, but could you really live there? What would that look? Like, does everyone speak Italian? Do you speak Italian? Could you get a good job there? If you're working a nine to five job, would you be able to make friends there? Would you have good community? Is that aligning with your goal of being able to travel abroad across Europe while you're living there? But then you realize, oh my, but then you realize that that's not an airport that's close to you. So I do think that it's important to have a lens of, could I live here? Not just moving somewhere because it has good vibes. Number three is believing that moving abroad will solve all of your problems. Now, I did do a podcast episode on how moving Abroad will solve a lot of your life's problems. And while it can solve a lot of your problems, it's not going to solve everything and it's not going to fix you or some of the problems that you have. So I do think that some people move abroad hoping that they're going to escape some of their problems they're dealing with in your life, but then you'll move there and still have the same problems, but just in another location. So I do think that's important to address some of those things. And I think that kind of goes back to why you're moving abroad. Are you moving abroad to avoid something, to escape something? Or are you moving abroad because of positive things like freedom and adventure or cost of living? Like is moving abroad actually gonna solve those things? So number three, moving abroad, and believing that that will solve all of your problems. So I think it really depends on what the problem actually is. Number four of the biggest mistakes that people make when moving abroad and how to avoid them is comparing everything to the us. It's just going to come very naturally to say, oh, in the US we do this. It just mentally makes it kind of hard to adjust, expect things to be different. Not better or worse, but just different. Number five is waiting too long to start planning. There are different things that will come about, like visa deadlines, figuring out housing, figuring out, or starting to do savings. The timeframes can really sneak up to you. So I would start planning ahead. If you can start six to 12 months out, I'd say six months would be if you don't have really. Any responsibilities 12 months would be if you have a family that you're moving with, if you also have a home like a mortgage, and if you have a lot of other things that you kind of need to deal with before moving abroad. So waiting too long to start planning is another mistake that people make. Number six is over researching and never actually taking the leap. This is paralysis by analysis. Have you ever heard that saying, this is a very common thing where people start researching and they get really overwhelmed with all these decisions that they have to make with everything that they have to do, and then they never actually take the leap. And I think that this is really the biggest mistake that people make whenever moving abroad is just over researching and letting themselves get really overwhelmed instead of taking it one step at a time and just starting to check things off so that you actually do move abroad. Our next section is on the financial mistakes that people make when moving abroad. So this brings us to number seven, which is underestimating how expensive the move itself is. Now you don't have to have a super, super expensive move, but you just need to think about what the cost would look like. So things like flights, making sure you're accounting for how much shipping might be, if you need any deposits for housing. The visa fees and if you need to pay lawyers, if you have a very specific circumstance for visas and just saving for emergencies as well for any last minute flights to go back home if there's an emergency or for anything that comes up that you weren't really expecting let's say you also need to pay for furniture if you're gonna do that. So just budgeting for moving. I'd recommend planning for at least three to six months of living expenses. So just kind of make a detailed list of all the things that you think you're going to need. Man, throw that into chat GPT as well. So I'd say to estimate how much you think you're going to need, and then give yourself a bit of a buffer as well, so that there's not any unexpected costs and you don't have to worry financially. So that's number seven is underestimating. How expensive the move is, so just make sure that you plan ahead. Number eight is not researching cost of living properly. Cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich are very different from more rural Spain or Eastern Europe, so make sure that you're looking at cost of living calculators. You can also look at different expat YouTube vlogs. You can do research online just to figure out what the cost of living is and how much your life that you currently have now, like the way that you live, how much that's going to cost in your new city abroad, because it could be more than what you're used to, but it could actually be less than what you're used to, depending on where you're moving to. If you're moving to Lisbon, Portugal, then it might actually be less than if you're living somewhere like. Chicago or New York or wherever you are in the US or elsewhere, abroad. Number nine is not having an emergency fund. There are always unexpected things that come up in life in general, so it's nice to have a buffer. It's nice to have an emergency fund so that if there are unexpected fees, there are apartment issues where you have to get outta your apartment. You really don't like it, but you just need out. If you. Lose your job. I mean, of course we hope that that doesn't happen, but you just wanna have an emergency fund for if there are emergencies. This is just like a life tip in general. I think that it's always great to have an emergency fund and not having that stress of if you do have a big emergency cost that comes up in life, that you have the ability to pay for that. So, yeah, I think not having an emergency fund would be another mistake that people make. Now this brings us to our logistics mistakes, which brings us to number 11, which is not visiting first. If possible, some people move somewhere and realize that they really don't like it, that it's not the best fit for them. I would recommend doing a test visit to help you feel out what it's actually like to live there. Again, having this lens of could I actually live here and what will my life look like? Like what neighborhood would I be in? What would the feel of the neighborhood be like? Would it feel safe? Where would be my local gym that I would go to? How would I make my friends here? How would I be working here? Am I going to work in a. Coworking space. If I am gonna be working online, am I going to be working in a local hospital? What is my life going to look like? So I would say not visiting first if possible. And you might say, I don't have the ability to move abroad or to test it out for a long period of time, and that's totally fine. Just do whatever is possible for you. Maybe it's just one week, maybe you're able to swing it for three months depending on where you're at in life and, and what you have, like what you're able to do. For me, I only visited London for four days before knowing that I wanted to live there. And then I did another trip before I actually moved there for another, I think maybe like five days or something. But at that point I already knew that I wanted to live there and I was doing interviews like that whole week. But I also was kind of getting a feel for the city and kind of having this lens of like, I remember being on the train and seeing this guy on the train on his way into work, and I was like, that's so cool. I want that to be me. So I was kind of. Having this lens of like, oh, I'd be walking to the tube station and on my way to work and I'd be, sitting on the tube and reading a book like this guy was doing. So I remember just thinking that that was really cool and I was envisioning my life there. So I think that's cool to experience that whenever you're visiting there, so you can actually see it in real life instead of kind of just imagining it in your head. Number 12 is not researching healthcare situations, especially if you have health needs before you move. You can't assume that you're going to be covered or that it's free. While Europe mostly has free affordable healthcare, like most of the time it's public healthcare. And you don't have to worry nearly as much as you do in the states. Like you could probably assume that it's gonna be way better than in the US so it'll be a lot cheaper and it will also be great healthcare. But I do think that it's important to do a bit of research because you might need to pay a little bit extra per month. Like you might have to pay a little bit out of pocket if you're gonna be a freelancer to have like health insurance or something, depending on the visa that you're getting. So I just think that it's important to understand what the healthcare system looks like, and especially if you know that you have health needs to kind of set some of that stuff up before you move to make sure that you're registered at the local doctors' office if you need to do that to make sure that you are registering for additional insurance. If you know that you have health needs, then you can pay for insurance. And in Europe, a lot of times it's so much cheaper to pay for that than in the US so my company pays for it. So a lot of companies, if you are working a nine to five or if you're employed somewhere just in general, sometimes they'll pay for your insurance. But it's really not expensive. And I don't even, my first job I had here, I didn't have any insurance because you don't have to. And I ended up like going to the hospital actually whenever I did not have. Private insurance and I had like$2,000 worth of medical attention or medical,, treatment. That was two th worth 2000. But I didn't pay anything outta pocket because the UK has public healthcare, as do many, most European countries. I mean, that's the case across Europe. So it's just great though. But it is just important to know what the expectations are whenever you're there, so that there's not any surprises. Especially again, if you have health needs. If you don't have immediate health needs, this might not be as important, but especially if you already know that you have regular medications or regular doctor's visits for different things, then I would just make sure to research that ahead of time before moving. Number 13 is signing a long-term lease before seeing the home and the area. Now this is a bit of a difficult one because I understand people wanting to move abroad and just kind of settling into your new home abroad and just kind of easing into life there. I totally understand the want to do that, I've heard this from many people, but I did have a friend that was moving to London and she was like. Do I need to see the house, like see the flat before I actually move there? And I was like, yes, please don't sign anything until you see it. You just don't know. It could be a nice area, but a really sketchy street. It could be really dark and dingy inside, but the photos look bright. It could have a really weird smell, like I just think that it's important to see the space and get a feel for the actual home because it could look totally different in photos or in like a video. Showing. I just think it's really important to get a feel for the neighborhood, for noise, for the commute and what that looks like. I just think that it's important to do that first. So I recommend to stay in temporary housing first, but if you're able to do that sneaky little test drive abroad before you move, maybe you do that a couple months before you actually move there, or three months or. Whatever. Then maybe that's whenever you're able to look into housing and find your long-term lease and be able to see the home in person before signing, or maybe you find temporary housing first. So I know that's not ideal, but I would recommend seeing it first because I've just heard so many horror stories about signing long-term lease and then really hating it and then needing to like break the lease and get out. Number 14 is not to handling the paperwork in your home country before leaving. So things like figuring out taxes, like making sure that you're all settled with that. Any phone contracts, if you wanna keep your phone contract or maybe you wanna get rid of it. Forwarding your mail if you're moving locations, like if you're not gonna keep your home there, or, if you're gonna have renters or whatever that looks like for you. Any maybe voter registration, if you wanna get that handled beforehand. Health insurance, retirement accounts. Just tying up any loose ends before departures that you're not stressed out or trying to make international calls or whatever. After moving abroad, you do not want to be thinking about closing out your life. In your old country while trying to also integrate into your new country. You wanna have all those things kind of squared away and done before moving so that you can just fully focus on your new life and just settling into your new home and life abroad. Number 15 is not having a plan for how long you intend to stay abroad. Now, whenever I first moved abroad, I told everyone I'm just gonna move abroad for one to two years and then I'm gonna come back home. And here I am almost six years later and I'm still living abroad and still loving it. And I have no plans of moving back home right now. But I mean, you never know. We'll see what, where life brings me, but. I do think that it's important to kind of have an initial plan for how long you intend to stay, or I guess what I really mean is how long you promise yourself that you'll give yourself a chance of living there. It won't be, it could be really smooth for you. You could absolutely love it from the very beginning, but sometimes for people, it takes them a bit of time to kind of integrate into the new culture, to find their people. I mean, that's any city that you move to, I mean. Just if you're moving across the US it takes a little bit of time to settle into your new neighborhood, a new job,, finding new friends, new community, new, like everything, like whatever you do, like maybe it's, you love being a part of the sports team, like to just kind of settle in. It takes some time. So I would just give yourself a promise to say, I'm gonna stay at least six months and I'll reevaluate after six months to see if I plan to stay or not. Or maybe you give yourself a year. I feel like personally I could do. Like I could probably move anywhere for a year, or maybe not anywhere, but many, many places for a year. So I think that I could fully commit to being somewhere a year. And then figuring out from there. So I would just kind of already have a plan for saying, I'm gonna give myself six months, or I'm gonna give myself 12 months or however long you think is best for you, that you will stay to kind of stick it out and see how you like it, and then plan from there. If you don't love it, then you can always adjust. So maybe you move to Berlin, Germany and you're like, okay, I. Did not really love Berlin. It's just not really me. But now that I've been here, actually, I think that Munich is gonna be a way better fit for me because Munich is more family oriented and I just think that it fits us and our family a whole lot more. So that could be you, and I think it's just good to kind of have that. Decided beforehand, number 16 is not scheduling time to visit home again. I have seen this so many times where people move abroad, but they don't make a plan for going back home. Remember meeting a girl semi-recently and she said that she'd been living abroad for like three years and she still hadn't gone back to the US to visit her family. And I was like, what? Because even for me, whenever I first moved here, I was not making very much money. I was really scraping by, but I still made it a priority to visit my family every six months. Like I knew that whenever I. Before I even moved abroad, I told myself, I'm gonna go home twice a year, once every six months, and I'll reevaluate from there. And there's been some years where I've said, ah, I think that I. Could have gone home maybe one more time, like I would've liked that. So I think that it's a case of trying it out your first year and then readjusting from there. Maybe you wanna go home once a year, maybe you think twice a year is good for you. For me, twice a year was good, and I typically stay for like 10 days to three weeks, depending on the time that I have to take off and what my schedule looks like and all that. But. I do think that it's important to kind of decide that ahead of time to schedule that time to go visit home again. And I think that it's also great to have that to look forward to for yourself and for your family, to have that expectation of, okay, they're moving abroad. But I'm gonna see them soon. I'm gonna see them at this month. So I think that it's kind of nice to have that to look forward to and to just make sure that you're maintaining those relationships with friends and family, because phone calls are great, but I do think that in person time is also. Really special and, is needed as well. And then moving on to our last section, which is the emotional and social mistakes that people make. So number 17 is not preparing for loneliness or culture shock. This is especially the case in the first like three to six months that is totally normal to experience a bit of culture shock or loneliness. And as you're just kind of building up your life, you need to. Just focus on giving yourself time and building a support network early. This was something that I did whenever I first moved to London, because I moved to Brighton first, and I did struggle a little bit more because I didn't make it a priority to build a support network and to build community. Early on I was just like, this is so fun, and I would go by myself to visit a castle or to do a weekend trip or. Whatever. And I didn't really make it a priority to build a community early on, and I do think that it's important to try to do that. It will take time to meet your people, but I think that it's important to try to start setting up your gym membership and start getting in a routine and start. Joining clubs. If you are really into rowing, then join a rowing team. If you're really into playing soccer, then like join a soccer club team. If you're really into like whatever it is, then try to like join that community early on so that you can start meeting people that align with, what you're interested in and, and like a similar type of person so that you can build that support network because you're gonna feel so much more a part of the community and the place if you know people, that is what it's gonna make you feel like you fit in the most. Is if you meet your people, and I would recommend it being, it's going probably to be a mix of expat people, so people have also moved abroad because there'll be a similar type of person and local people. I think that it's good to have a mix, but I would just say that it is so normal to feel lonely. I still feel lonely from time to time, for sure, and I definitely had culture shock in the beginning, even moving to. The UK where people speak English. I thought that it'd be a really summer culture, but there is like, there are a lot of cultural differences. So I would say that it's okay to like expect to be lonely sometimes, expect to have a bit of culture shock, and over time it will become a lot more normal and you'll start to feel like a part of the community. So that's something that you just have to give it a bit of time, but I think it's good to go in expecting that so that it's not kind of a shock whenever you first get there. Number 18 is expecting to feel settled right away. A lot of people take time to feel fully at home. Even for me, it probably took me years where London felt like home to me. And even now, which this sounds kind of weird, but whenever I leave for a long period of time, like if I move for like. If I leave for like a month, I'm traveling a lot, I'm visiting home or whatever, like a lot of times around Christmas time, I end up leaving for quite a long time and then I come back, like whenever I first get here. It feels weird to me. Like it feels like off, like, wait, I live here. Like it. I know it sounds really silly, but sometimes it does take time for it to feel totally home for you, so expect it to take a little bit of time to feel settled because it's not going to feel like home right away. So give yourself time and just expect that it might take you a little bit of time, a few months to feel at home and not just weeks. And then number 19 is expecting people to put in the effort to build friendships. I feel like I've seen this so many times whenever you're the one that's moving abroad, you're the one that's moving into a new place. A lot of times people already have their friends, they have their networks, like they've already have their schedule, like they're settled. You're the one that's kind of stepping into the new space and you're kind of the newbie around. So I'd say don't expect them to be inviting you to places, like put in the efforts to organize a coffee date with people or to organize a group thing. If you're joining a. Like a club organization of some sort, like maybe try to organize a group hangout. Like I'm inviting people over, like I have met some girls in a new community of mine in London, like I'm trying to make. More friends, especially American friends. I've realized that I miss being friends with other Americans and especially people from Texas. And I actually met a group of Texas girls and I invited them over on Sunday to watch a movie and have pizza and wine. So it does take effort to put, to build relationships, and you have to realize that like sometimes you have to be the one to reach out. So don't expect to like have weekend plans automatically, like from Monday. Plan over the week to, reach out to people and to make those plans over the weekend and to schedule time with people so that you're not sitting alone at home every weekend. Like start scheduling stuff in your calendar. And then our final one, number 20. This one is going to sound really, really obvious, but the biggest mistake that people will make is not actually moving abroad. I mean, if this is something that you really want, you have to take action to make it happen. Just like anything in life, if you want anything in life to happen, you have to make it happen for yourself. Like it's not necessarily just gonna fall on your lap, you have to proactively go after it. So I'd say that like just proactively go after it that like that's to make us. Like that is the biggest mistake that people make is not actually taking action to move abroad and then not ever actually moving. So I'd say that's the biggest mistake that people make whenever moving abroad. And that sounds really obvious, but let's be honest, that is probably the biggest mistake. So there you have it. Those are the 20 biggest mistakes that people make when moving abroad and how to avoid them. So I hope that this was a bit of like it sounded a bit more positive. Like, I did not want this episode to be really negative, to be like, these are all the bad things that people do, like all the mistakes. I didn't want it to sound like that. Like I wanted it to be positive. So I hope that we are talking about the, like mistakes that people make and what not to do, but then we talked about how to avoid them and kind of like the positive side of that. So I'd say that. The final takeaways here are that everyone makes mistakes. Like it is not going to be perfect. Life is not perfect, and there are going to be bumps along the way. Just like with anything, there are going to be some mistakes. It's just bound to happen. It's like if you're planning a wedding and you plan every single thing, it doesn't matter. Something's going to be wrong. Like you are going to forget the cake cutting knife, or you're going to forget, to switch on the lights at this time or to make this announcement at this time or whatever. Like, you just can prepare and be aware and make sure that you are. Doing what you can to plan ahead and that way you can have a smoother and more successful move abroad. But I mean, it's just life to like, there will be some bumps along the way or things that are forgotten, but I do think that if you focus on these things and just take it one step at a time, then it's going to be fine. Like give yourself grace. It does not have to be perfect, but I think that it's important to be informed. So there you have it., If you are still trying to decide where you should move abroad to, if you need a quick reminder, there is a free quiz, which is, which European City should you move abroad to. So if you wanna take that quiz, it's actually linked at the bottom of the podcast description. Or you can go to jordangiberson.com/quiz and it'll take you directly to the quiz. So if you have not taken the quiz yet and you're curious like where you would be matched with like your ideal city abroad, then take the quiz. It'd be really fun to take it., But if you have already taken it, then. That's awesome. I love that. But just as a little reminder about the quiz. So anyways, that is it for me for today's episode. I hope that you feel encouraged and I just wanna say thank you again for listening to the Move Abroad podcast. I will catch you here again next week, same time, same place. I'll catch you then