How to Move Abroad: Your Guide to Start Living Abroad

I am, in English, reasonably funny. Quick. Articulate. I can read a room. In German, even after years, I am a flattened version of myself. I can express the basic version of an idea. I cannot do nuance. The jokes don't translate. And in social situations I go quiet — not because I have less to say, but because the gap between what I want to say and what I'm capable of saying is genuinely embarrass...

You've optimized your LinkedIn profile. You have the right keywords, the right headline, the right summary. You're applying to listings that match your experience. You're posting content to stay visible. And nothing is happening. This week I'm telling you why. LinkedIn is not a job hunting platform — it's social media for people who are at work. And the difference between those two things matters...

Moving abroad is a privilege. I'm going to say that clearly and then spend the whole episode explaining what I mean by it — because I don't mean what you might think I mean. I moved to Switzerland with less than $2,000 in the bank. I also had a relocation package, a transferable job, a university education, and a US passport. Both of those things were true at the same time. And I think that's actu...

You've been using visa, permit, and residency like they mean the same thing. They don't. And it's sending your research in the wrong direction. This week I'm walking through the vocabulary of moving abroad — not in a glossary kind of way, just in a these words matter and here's why kind of way. Visa vs. permit. Temporary vs. permanent residency. Citizenship vs. naturalization. Schengen vs. EU. Dom...

In this episode, I'm just chatting about what it's really like to live abroad and what I miss most about the US. There's no task on this one... just me and you sharing how it actually feels to live abroad.

I had cancer at thirty. I've navigated healthcare in two countries with that history, including a high-risk pregnancy in Switzerland that cost me nothing beyond my regular insurance premium. This week I'm talking about what healthcare in Europe actually looks like — how most of Europe's systems work for legal residents, what makes Switzerland different, whether doctors speak English, and what to d...

Here's the thing nobody says clearly enough: moving abroad is not opting out. You still file US taxes. You still carry that passport and get the face when someone finds out you're American. You still feel the dollar losing value in your actual bank account. You are still affected by what happens there. This week I'm making the case for why your vote matters more from abroad than you might think .....

Nobody wants to talk about taxes. Until the IRS sends them a letter, at which point everybody wants to talk about taxes very urgently. This week I'm giving you the heads up before that happens. The basics of what Americans abroad actually need to know about US taxes — why you still have to file even when you live somewhere else, why you probably won't owe anything, what FBAR is and why the penalti...

Someone I know just got accepted into a Master's program in France. She's in her thirties. She's moving in September. And she is not doing this because she couldn't think of anything else — she's doing it because it is one of the smartest moves I've seen someone make in a long time. This week I'm making the case for the student visa as a legitimate, strategic, completely underrated pathway for adu...

This one is for the person who has been doing the work. Really doing it — hiring coaches, rewriting the resume, applying and applying and applying — and still not moving. This week I'm talking about what's actually happening when the job-first strategy isn't working, why the problem is sometimes structural and not personal, and the questions worth sitting with honestly when you've been at this lon...

My daughter has been in schools in two countries across three different systems — a bilingual Swedish-German private school in Vienna, a German-English bilingual private school in Switzerland, and next year the local Swiss public school. Every single one of those decisions was made deliberately, for specific reasons, with real trade-offs. This week I'm talking about what I actually learned navigat...

You have the plan. You have the country, the visa, the number, the Tuesday Test results. You know this works. Now you have to tell people. This week I'm walking through every type of person you're going to tell about your move abroad — the Catastrophizer, the Underminer, the one who makes it about themselves, the Unsolicited Expert, and the rare and precious Quiet Supportive One — and exactly how...

You picked a country. Amazing. Now let's find out if it actually works. Not the Instagram version — anyone can imagine themselves somewhere beautiful on a Saturday with a glass of wine and nowhere to be. The Tuesday version. The one where you need to buy toilet paper and find a dentist and figure out whether your visa actually works and whether you can afford to live there on your actual budget. T...

Last week I made you cry. This week I'm giving you a break. No frameworks, no heavy stuff, no seventeen-step process. Just the honest, slightly unhinged truth about why you're overcomplicating this — and the only three things you actually need right now to move this whole situation forward. Spoiler: it's not a perfect plan. It's not a fully funded savings account. It's not a remote job and a signe...

I found out I had breast cancer at thirty years old. That's the real reason I moved abroad — not the job offer, not the adventure. The diagnosis that made one day stop being an option. This week I'm telling you the actual story. The cancer. The friends I lost. My best friend of twenty years I haven't spoken to in eleven. The moment every single time I say goodbye to my mom at the airport. The weig...

Everyone on the internet has an opinion about how much money you need to move abroad. Most of them are wrong — or at least, wrong for you. This week I'm giving you a simple formula to calculate your actual savings target based on your specific situation: where you're going, which visa you're using, and how long you need to float yourself before income kicks in. Because your number is built from th...

Moving abroad means making trade-offs. Every single person who has done it has had to make them — there is no version of this where you don't. The goal isn't to avoid them. It's to make them on purpose instead of by accident, because the accidental ones are the ones you end up resenting. This week I'm breaking down the two trade-offs that trip people up the most — do you move now with less money o...

Once people realize moving abroad might actually be possible, this is where things usually go sideways. In this episode, I talk through the exact places I see people overspend when they’re scared, where they cheap out and regret it later, and how fear quietly drives a lot of money decisions during an international move. This isn’t about perfect budgeting or cutting everything fun — it’s about maki...

There’s a moment in the move-abroad process that almost no one talks about — and it’s not the exciting beginning or the adrenaline-filled end. It’s the messy middle. In this episode of How to Move Abroad , I talk about the exact point where most people quietly bow out of their plans — not because they ran the numbers and the numbers said no, but because they didn’t run the numbers and let fear fil...

Appointments and processing timelines are the part of moving abroad people avoid until it is too late. In this episode, I break down the difference between document timelines, appointment timelines, processing timelines, and your real life move timeline. I explain why appointments are often the real bottleneck, how to plan backwards so you stop getting surprised, and what to do when you cannot get...

In this episode, I break down the documents that control your moving abroad timeline, including passports, certified birth and marriage certificates, background checks, income proof, and when apostilles and translations matter. I also explain the three ways people get delayed (wrong document version, authentication requirements, and expiration windows) and I give you a simple weekly task. Grab Pre...

Moving abroad is not expensive in one big way. It is expensive in dozens of small ones. In this episode, I break down what you should DIY, what is worth paying for, and where people waste money out of overwhelm instead of strategy. We talk about how to decide based on risk, timeline, and complexity, which parts of moving abroad are safe to do yourself, and when paying for professional help actuall...

Proof of funds isn’t a personal attack... it’s a stability check. In this episode, I explain what proof of funds actually means in plain English, what typically counts as “proof” (income, savings, self-employment, combinations, and sometimes insurance), why the requirements change depending on your visa lane, and how to make a plan if you don’t meet the requirement yet, without turning it into a c...

If you’re choosing a country before you know your visa lane, you’re not planning—you’re sprinting at Platform 9¾ without the Hogwarts letter. In this episode, I break down what a “visa lane” actually is, why it’s the first decision that makes everything else easier, and the most common visa lanes Americans use to move abroad (yes, some don’t require a job offer). What we cover The Platform 9¾ prob...

Welcome to Season 2... and yes, the podcast has a new name. ABROADly Speaking is now How to Move Abroad . Same show, same feed, same me. I just got tired of pretending we’re here to “chat about life abroad” when what you actually need is a plan that works in real life. In the new format, every episode ends with one weekly task because collecting information isn’t progress, and we're done with 'nex...