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Disclaimer #2: When leaving the U.S. and moving abroad, you must perform your own research and due diligence on your personal situation. I am NOT a tax professional, financial planner, or immigration attorney. This guide is to help you get started on your journey, but you should not make any decisions solely based on what I write – your situation is unique and requires a unique analysis.
- Why We Left the United States?
- Step 1: Why Are You Leaving the U.S.?
- Step 2: Lifestyle Factors to Consider
- Step 3: Legal Considerations
- Step 4: Planning on Leaving the U.S.
- Step 5: Time to Move!
- Step 6: Preparing for Leaving the U.S.
- Medications
- Vaccinations
- Install WhatsApp, Google Translate, and Google Maps
- Port your U.S. Phone Number
- Set Travel Notifications with Your Bank
- Give the Keys to your Realtor or Property Manager
- File Change of Address with USPS
- Get Electrical Adapters and an International SIM Card
- Booking Flights and Hotel
- Temporary Travel and Health Insurance
- Step 7: After Arrival in Your New Country
- Step 8: Connections with the United States after Leaving the U.S.
- Final Thoughts on Leaving the U.S.
So, you want to leave the United States? Is it because of the election in 2024? The high cost of healthcare? Inflation? The daily grind? There are many reasons why you are leaving the U.S.
My husband and I left the U.S. in late 2022 and haven’t looked back after two years. The cost of living abroad is dramatically lower while the quality of life can be even higher (a better life for cheaper? Yes!). The election was just a small headline in the world news section.
In this blog post, I’ll tell you how to plan leaving the U.S. based on how my husband and I did it. If you need help, don’t hesitate to contact us at hello@nomading.world

Why We Left the United States?
Before moving abroad, I got frustrated towards the end of each year, thinking that another year had passed, but did my life improve? My husband and I have always wanted to live abroad, as we love to travel and enjoy adventure. Yet it always seemed like an impossibility each year. We never had enough money, or we had to stay in the U.S. because of family, or we had to continue to work at our in-person jobs, etc… There was always an excuse, and it was primarily me cranking out excuses.
And what were those excuses protecting? This daily routine:
- Wake up at 7am or earlier with my alarm clock.
- Hit snooze a few times and then wake up 45 minutes later
- Rush to get dressed, brush teeth, and get in the car.
- Waste an hour driving to work.
- Work all day.
- Waste another hour driving home.
- Cook dinner or eat out.
- Be exhausted to do anything other than watch TV and go to sleep.
And what was that routine paying for? High cost of living, high taxes, and high medical bills while Kevin and I weren’t getting any younger. Kevin and I bonded over our love of travel, and taking a one or two-week vacation each year was not cutting it. Quite simply, I felt trapped.
To be fair and transparent, we had amazing lives. We both worked high-paying jobs with steady careers, owned property, and didn’t have any significant health problems. Objectively, we had it good. But adventure and travel made us feel alive, not going to work nine hours per day. And adventure and travel were greatly missing from our lives.
The Benefit of Covid
Once Covid hit, I had a life-changing moment. There may not be a tomorrow. Life changed overnight. I remember looking out at the Bed Bath & Beyond next to our apartment and seeing no cars in the parking lot during the middle of the day. It was so eery. Things I took for granted – having a steady job, being young and healthy, using toilet paper – were no longer guarantees. In fact, Covid led to massive layoffs at my job, and I took a massive pay cut as one of the people left behind. Being young and healthy meant nothing when the invisible virus was circulating rapidly and killing young and old people. And how could I not live with toilet paper?

That spurred me to finally accept my husband’s wish to move out of California. It was a life-changing move for me. I had lived in Los Angeles my entire life, including at university, and my family and my job were based there. I was afraid to tell my family, and I was afraid of losing my job. I’ll save the details of how I managed this for later, but the end result is that both accepted our move out of California. And I didn’t know it then, but this laid the groundwork for us leaving the U.S. two years later.
Moving Interstate vs Internationally
When we decided to leave Texas and the United States and live abroad at the end of 2022, it was also a huge move for my husband and me. But oddly, I had less anxiety and reservations about it than moving from California to Texas. It wasn’t so scary. It wasn’t full of unknowns. We had made a big move before and can do it again.

Andrew of the Nomad Capitalist says in several of his videos that if you are going to move to another state, you might as well move to another country. People make it seem like moving to another country is so much worse than moving to another state. But having done both moves – interstate and internationally – they really aren’t all that different.
Yes, by all means, moving to another country adds cultural and language differences. But we have been surprised at how much we have been able to adapt and take the process in stride. And the benefits are way more numerous than simply moving states. Now that we have started to revisit cities for the second and third time, I reflect on how I feel compared to the first time we visited. It surprises me how much more comfortable and confident I was in the city during the second visit. I feel that shows how much we have grown!
Step 1: Why Are You Leaving the U.S.?
Before planning for your new life abroad, let’s pause and ensure you are leaving the United States for the right reasons. It may be natural to want to escape after a significant event such as the 2024 elections. But moving abroad isn’t just something you decide to do one day, like deciding where to go for lunch.
For us, it was years in the making, as I wrote briefly above. It takes serious planning, flexibility, and commitment. For every person who seems to be living the dream life abroad, there are stories like this one about a couple who spent a year in France and decided to return to the U.S.
Trust me, it hasn’t been easy for my husband and me these past two years. There have been tears, stress, frustrations, and more frustrations. But it has been more than worth it. As I write this in our apartment in Lima, Perú, I look out the window and realize how glad I am we decided to leave the U.S. in 2022. What are some reasons you are leaving the U.S.?

Lower Cost of Living
The lower cost of living is the top reason why Americans are leaving U.S. No doubt, living in most places around the world will be cheaper than living in the United States. Rent is more affordable, food is cheaper, transportation costs less, and even healthcare is cheaper. We bought a condo in the La Carolina neighborhood of Quito, Ecuador. La Carolina is Quito’s new business district, and we fell in love with the neighborhood. Here are our expenses:
Expense Category | La Carolina, Quito, Ecuador | Los Angeles, CA |
---|---|---|
Condo purchase | We bought our condo on the top floor of a 12-unit building for around US$166/sq ft ($1790/m2). It was built in 2015. Our monthly HOA fee is $85/month and includes water, trash, and sewer charges. Property taxes are around $300/year, and annual insurance is $190. | We used to own a similar-sized condo in Glendale, CA, a few miles north of Downtown L.A. We sold it in 2024 for around US$700/sq ft ($7600/m2). Our monthly HOA fees were $425/month, including water, trash, and sewer. Property taxes were $2800/year and insurance was around $600/year. |
Utilities | Our electricity bill is around US$15/month. We pay $32/month for high-speed Internet and $7/month for cell phone service with 5GB of data. | Electricity can easily be $60-80/month for just the two of us and can be a lot higher in the summer when constantly running the air conditioner. Internet is around $50/month plus taxes and fees if unbundled. Cell phone service can be as low as $20/month, but often $40-50/month. |
Groceries | Groceries aren’t much cheaper in Ecuador and can be more expensive for imported goods and personal care items. Deodorant, toothpaste, and mouthwash are cheaper in the U.S., for example. We generally spend $125-$150 for a week’s worth of groceries for two people, which includes cooking dinner each night but eating out for lunch. Meat, fruit, and vegetables are cheaper in Ecuador, but other items are more expensive. | We averaged around $150 for a week’s worth of groceries for the same amount of food and personal items. |
Eating Out | We eat mid-range meals and average $10-15 per person with tax (generally, you do not tip in Ecuador except at high-end restaurants). If you eat at lower-end restaurants, you can easily eat for US$3-5, especially at lunchtime. We do not drink alcohol. | $20-25 per person at least, with tax and tip, unless you are eating at McDonalds with their $5 combo meals. |
Transportation | We walk all the time, and La Carolina is super walkable. Quito just opened its first subway line, and a one-way ticket costs US$0.45. Uber and taxi trips are easily $5 or less for going a couple of miles, perhaps up to $10 if traveling across the city. | Must have a car and pay monthly payments, insurance, maintenance, and registration, which is thousands of dollars per year. The Los Angeles Metro costs US$1.75 one-way. Uber trips cost around $20 for very short trips, and can easily go to $40-50 or more. |
Gym | US$27.90/month at Smart Fit on their Black annual plan with no yearly membership fee. | US$27.72/month for 24-Hour Fitness for their National level annual plan, including yearly membership fee. |
Health Insurance | We paid just under $3,000 for the year – $250/month – for the two of us for health insurance. This included a “daily” plan with a $250 deductible and up to $70,000 of coverage, plus a catastrophic policy with a $25,000 deductible and $500,000 of coverage. In late 2024, we switched to one plan with a $5,000 deductible and $500,000 of coverage and paid $934 for the year ($78/month). We are topping this up with yearly travel insurance for “daily” coverage, which costs around $1,000 annually. Both plans include basic dental coverage. | Health insurance is highly variable because it depends on how you source your health insurance and how much your employer pays. I remember my plan cost more than $500/month for around the same coverage before my employer paid their share, and Kevin’s was a bit more. Dental insurance was another $30-40/month on top of that. |
Healthcare Costs | We both got physicals last year, and the doctor’s visit cost around $11 each. The blood tests for the physical cost around $45 per person. Our dental exams were free, but the panoramic X-ray cost $10 per person. I also had to have five fillings replaced from when I was younger, and I paid $15 per filling. | Annual exams are free in the U.S., but doctor visits can easily cost $25-50 per visit. Dental exams and X-rays are generally free or very low cost, depending on your insurance. Fillings aren’t that high, from what I remember, but more than Ecuador. |
On the other hand, we just spent five weeks in Santiago, Chile, and here is how our monthly expenses added up for a short-term stay. Of course, this doesn’t include some long-term items like healthcare, so it is not a complete picture of your monthly expenses. But I include it to show how a month’s trip to a new city can be cheaper if you live like a local and not in a hotel, yet it allows you to explore new places. In fact, being a “permanent” tourist is a way to live – you don’t have to tie yourself to one place!
Expense Category | Santiago (Centro) | Los Angeles, CA |
---|---|---|
Rent | One-bedroom condo: $1427/month on Airbnb if booking at the monthly rate | One-bedroom apartment: $2500/month on a year lease |
Eating Out | We ate mid-range meals and averaged $30-40 per meal, or $15-20 per person, with tax and tip. | $20-25 per person at least, with tax and tip. |
Transportation | We walked almost all the time, as downtown Santiago is very walkable. The Santiago Metro is around US$0.83 one-way. Uber trips cost US$8-15 for travel between neighborhoods. | Must have a car and pay monthly payments, insurance, maintenance, and registration. The Los Angeles Metro costs US$1.75 one-way. Uber trips cost around $20 for very short trips, and can easily go to $40-50 or more. |
Gym | US$27.90/month at Smart Fit on their Black annual plan with no yearly membership fee. | US$27.72/month for 24-Hour Fitness for their National level annual plan, including yearly membership fee. |
Note that not everything is cheaper abroad. Imported goods are more expensive, and you’ll be surprised how much is imported. Computers and electronics are often more costly for lower performance, but this is not always true. For example, I am looking for a new phone, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the price of a new iPhone 16 is generally the same in the U.S. and Latin America. On the other hand, laptops and computers are cheaper in the U.S. for higher performance.
We have also found that clothing is more expensive in Latin America than in the U.S., especially factoring in sales. It is much cheaper and easier to shop for clothes at places like Target, Walmart, and Ross in the U.S. than outside of the U.S. If you care about brand names, brand names will also be much more expensive outside of the U.S. Also, be very careful about purchasing counterfeit goods – this is illegal, and the quality is way poorer!
Healthcare
As noted above, health insurance is very cheap in Ecuador. However, we have found healthcare much more affordable in several countries. We had to visit a doctor in Argentina. It cost us $25 without insurance, and we saw a doctor within an hour. In Paraguay, I had to get my mouth retainer replaced. I saw a dentist the next day, and she replaced my retainer for US$110 without any insurance. She used a 3D printer to print the retainer, and I had my retainer within four hours of seeing her. It fit perfectly – perhaps a little too perfectly! – and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
Thankfully, we have not had any major or serious medical conditions to test hospital care. However, other American expats have, and here are a couple of videos demonstrating their experience.
Improved Work-Life Balance After Leaving the U.S.
The culture of the United States is to work, work, work until you are exhausted. And then work some more. I see it all the time with my friends and have had many work burnout episodes. Indeed, other cultures are not like this, with Europe being the prime example of a laid-back lifestyle combined with high quality of life.
However, that doesn’t mean your work-life balance will improve just by moving to another country. You have to ensure you make the necessary changes. For example, if you currently feel burnt out at your current job and then work that same job but remotely in another country, will your work-life balance truly change? Or will you have the same stresses, just in a different location?
Kevin and I chose to remain in our current jobs when we left the United States but work remotely. We experience the same stresses at our current jobs, especially mine. We work the same number of hours. Looking at the narrow focus of our jobs, nothing has changed.
On the other hand, my overall work-life balance has improved since leaving the U.S. I have thought a lot about this over the past few months, especially as work has gotten stressful. The most significant change for me has been the literal working hours. Since my job is based on Pacific Time (GMT-8 or GMT-7), and most of Latin America is GMT-4 or GMT-5, I don’t start work until 12pm or 1pm local time.
Having a long morning has dramatically helped my well-being, especially by being able to go to the gym without waking up super early. My morning routine isn’t as strict as what you see on Instagram. But generally, this is what I do before I start work:
- Wake up naturally sometime between 8am and 9am local time
- Go to the gym or take a long walk with Kevin if we have arrived in a new city.
- Come back home and work on the blog or take care of errands.
- Go to lunch (lunch is super important to me).
- Then start work!
- Cook dinner at home around 8pm or go out
- Relax and go to sleep

Compare this to my routine when I had to go into the office:
- Wake up with an alarm at 6:30am
- Wake up for real at 7:05am
- Take a shower, get dressed, and brush my teeth
- Eat something quickly
- Get in the car by 8am to get to work by 9am
- Lunch break at 11:30am
- Work all afternoon until 6:30pm (hopefully)
- Get home by 7:30pm
- Go out for dinner because I am exhausted to cook
- Return home, pass out on the bed, and sleep.
But I want to clarify that leaving the U.S. doesn’t magically fix your problems if you bring all of your U.S.-based baggage with you. It is just the same stressors in a different location. But remember that one of the goals of moving abroad is to lower your cost of living. If that lower cost of living allows you to work a less stressful job – or not work at all! – then that in itself is an improved work-life balance.
Personal Growth and Adventure
My dad is an immigrant to the U.S. Growing up, I had several first-generation American friends. This was the closest knowledge I had to immigrating to another country, which is to say, almost non-existent. What I did know was that a lot of people in the world wanted to immigrate to the U.S., and it is exceptionally hard to do so unless you are super rich or super bright. And it never occurred to me growing up that someone would want to leave the U.S. – why would you want to leave the best country on earth?
Fast forward to today, after spending two years living outside the United States. There are many reasons why the U.S. may not be the best country for you, and it is not impossible to move to another country. In fact, many countries want foreigners to immigrate and make it relatively easy. We have residency in four countries, and each country’s process was more bureaucratically complex than actually difficult.

I don’t want to sugarcoat it and say it is easy to move to another country. It isn’t. It is difficult at best and hair-tearing frustratingly difficult at worst. You will cry, get homesick, and wonder why you ever read this blog post. However, overcoming those moments and adapting and learning will make you grow more than ever imagined.
Reflecting on our journey during the past two years, I am surprised at how much we have accomplished over the past two years since leaving the U.S. We adapted to new cultures, experienced so much that we’d never experience taking one vacation per year, and have developed friendships with people we’d never meet as tourists. If I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self to go forth and leave way sooner. I was ready before I knew it.
New Cultural Experiences
For Kevin and myself, the adventure of living abroad excited us more than any other aspect. A lower cost of living is great, but we weren’t poor in the U.S. Healthcare is essential, but we are young and healthy at the moment, so it is not a big concern. Work-life balance ties into living abroad because if you are going to work hard, you must play hard. And for us, traveling is playing hard.
One or two weeks per year of vacation at most jobs in the United States just doesn’t cut it. You may say you can travel when you retire. That is what I told myself. Yet, when will you retire – when you are in your 60s or 70s? By then, will you be healthy enough to enjoy traveling? Or worse, even be able to travel? And as Covid showed me, there isn’t a guarantee you will even live until your 60s and 70s.

My husband and I wanted to travel and soak up new experiences now while we are relatively still young (late 30s/early 40s). Instead of checking off a list of tourist traps during a one-week vacation, living abroad fully immerses ourselves in the local culture. Spending months in a new city or country, shopping at the local grocery store, working at co-working centers, befriending locals. These things allow us to learn and understand the culture authentically. And that is what we really crave – not posting a photo on Instagram of a tourist site hundreds of thousands of others posted too.
Additionally, because you aren’t battling the vacation clock each year, you can afford to spend time in places you wouldn’t otherwise want to “waste” your vacation time on. We have visited smaller cities in Latin America that would never have made the vacation list. But since we are nomadic and do not have a vacation clock, we can afford to spend time in these cities, like Encarnación, Paraguay.

Retirement or Pretirement
Finally, some of you may want to retire “early” – earlier than your American peers, that is – so you can enjoy life. Yet, you can’t afford to retire based on the cost of living in the United States. The lower cost of living outside of the United States may mean some of you can retire early, which is an excellent reason for leaving the U.S. to move abroad.
If you are crunching numbers on retiring early, here are some things to consider:
- The cost of living may be cheaper abroad, but it highly depends on your lifestyle and where you choose to live.
- Real estate may also be cheaper, meaning you spend less on rent, allowing your savings to go further.
- Medical costs and health insurance are cheaper abroad. Not only does this allow you to save on current medical bills, but you may be able to afford preventive measures that will pay off more in the future by avoiding certain medical bills.
- Taxes may be lower abroad, allowing you to keep more of your income if you continue to work or bring in income.
Furthermore, the idea of retiring and not doing anything is antiquated, in my opinion. You may retire from your current job and/or career. But many people don’t stop working. They discover new things to do, new people to help, and new ways to make money. I call this “pretirement.”
Pretirement is one of the hacks my husband and I discovered about being able to move abroad without having to feel that we had enough in savings. Especially with the rise of remote working since Covid hit in 2020, you can create an online business anywhere in the world and work as much as you want or need to. Furthermore, if you can charge U.S. prices yet live in a cheaper country, you can take advantage of geographical arbitrage. Geographic arbitrage supercharges your retirement plans!
Step 2: Lifestyle Factors to Consider
The problem with deciding to move abroad is that there is no one “abroad” in the world. It isn’t like you either live in the United States or you don’t. Once you decide that leaving the U.S. is right for you, you face a more significant problem: Where do you move to?
Below, I go over some factors you want to consider. However, I strongly encourage you not just to pick a place and go all in. At the very least, you must spend one to two weeks on the ground in that location as a scouting trip. Get a feel for the city, the weather, the people, the food, the culture, the cost of living, etc… Ideally, you would spend at least a month at that location to truly soak up the city.

Kevin and I didn’t decide to seek residency in Ecuador until after we had visited several countries in Latin America, taking around seven months of full-time travel. In some ways, I wish we had explored more places before buying our property in Quito. If you can be nomadic for a while, I recommend that as a good way to learn more about yourself, your family, and what feels best.
Prior to leaving the U.S., I knew very little about Ecuador. It wasn’t even on my list compared to more name-brand countries like Peru. But a series of weird events left us flying to Ecuador as a flight of last resort. Who knew we would have loved Quito as much as we did? Not Cuenca, which is where all the expats live in Ecuador. Not Manta, where the beach-loving expats live. But Quito, a city no one talks about, despite it being Ecuador’s capital city. We visited Cuenca, Manta, and Loja, yet Quito felt the best.
Since then, we have found several other cities we would love to consider as part-time bases. We have also seen other cities we’d never want to live in, including some very popular cities. You can’t beat having that on-the-ground experience – you know yourself better than anyone else.
Weather
What kind of weather do you prefer: hot or cold? Rain or no rain? Do you prefer four seasons per year or have steady weather year-round?
The world has a plethora of different climates and microclimates available for you. Yet one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to make broad assumptions about the weather purely based on macro geography. For example, Ecuador is on the equator, so it is natural to assume it is hot year-round. This is true for many Ecuadorian cities, especially those along the coast. Yet, many Ecuadorian cities in the Andes mountains experience much cooler temperatures. People are so surprised when I tell them Quito – Ecuador’s capital – rarely has a day warmer than the mid-70s (23 degrees Celsius), even in the heat of summer!

Likewise, I was stunned when we visited Buenos Aires earlier this year, and it was freezing. I associated Argentina with hot weather, probably because when I visited previously, it was hot and humid. Instead, the temperature was in the 40s (single digits Celsius). I almost cut our trip short because I could not take the cold. I hated the Texan winters because they were bitter cold, and I found myself back in that same environment!
Also, something that I thought was obvious turns out is not obvious to many people: the seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. Summer in places like Argentina and Chile is from December to February, not June to August. If you are researching the current weather in the Southern Hemisphere, you have to flip the seasons from your current home in the Northern Hemisphere.
To research weather, look at the Climate section on the city’s Wikipedia page. Wikipedia shows the average temperatures and rainfall for most medium and large cities worldwide. Another resource is Weather Underground. Type in the town and go to the city’s page. Then click “Calendar” – not “History” – at the top. You’ll be able to find a monthly calendar for past years. Weather Underground gives you more detail than Wikipedia, which is helpful when digging into specific cities.
Natural Disasters
Along with weather, you’ll want to review natural disaster risks. Is the country or city in a hurricane or typhoon zone? An earthquake zone? Are there volcanoes? Dust storms? Droughts? Heat waves? Snow storms? Tsunamis?
Growing up in Los Angeles, I am so afraid of earthquakes. While I would not want to experience an earthquake or a hurricane, if I had to choose, I’d rather be in an earthquake zone than a hurricane zone. I have experienced earthquakes and know what to do. I have never experienced a hurricane. Which would you choose?
Along with this, I will never forget opening up our condo insurance policy in Ecuador and reviewing the coverages. Who knew that volcano insurance was a standard item in Quito? How would you react if you found volcano insurance on your insurance packet? Think of this answer when researching natural disasters.

Man-made Disasters
Leaving the U.S. may be a culture shock and a quality-of-life shock. Public infrastructure may not be what you are used to in the United States. Some places might be better than what you had back home. But many places may be worse off. Learning to cope with these “man-made disasters” is part of adjusting to your new life.
In the past two years, my husband and I witnessed in Latin America alone:
- Uruguay’s capital city (Montevideo) running out of drinking water. By the way, Uruguay has one of the highest development indexes in Latin America.
- Mexico City and Bogotá facing their own water shortages.
- Ecuador having widespread power outages, up to 14 hours per day, across the entire country.
- Hyperinflation in Argentina, where prices changed on a daily and weekly basis. Banknotes that were worth something a few weeks ago turned into worthless paper. Buenos Aires – a global, cosmopolitan city – facing a cash shortage where ATMs limited you to withdrawing only US$30-50 at a time, and some businesses adding 15% to your bill if you dared to use a credit card.
- Cuzco – one of Perú’s picturesque tourist towns – getting shut in by workers protesting, trapping Americans for three weeks.
This doesn’t mean that the U.S. doesn’t have similar problems. Water shortages are becoming acute in the Southwest – Las Vegas and Phoenix, for example – while California had its own statewide electricity problems back in 2001. However, the U.S. has one of the highest development indices in the world – the 20th highest in 2022. Thus, by definition, you will be the leaving the U.S. to move to a place with a lower development index. You need to be prepared, especially if a natural disaster creates a man-made disaster.
Urban vs Rural / City vs Beach
Many expats have romantic visions of moving or retiring abroad in a small beachside community – the Pura Vida vibe of Costa Rica comes to mind. Or perhaps the rural countryside, like the Argentine Pampas. However, is that truly what you want? Spending one or two weeks at the beach on vacation is completely different than basing your entire life around a small beach community.
Small beach cities and small rural towns in most parts of the world tend to be lower on the development index. For some expats, this is a plus. They crave the raw, adventurous, slow pace of life these towns exude. Being in the middle of nowhere is exactly the point!

Yet, for you, will you have access to doctors and medication? Will your kids have access to schools you want them to attend? For digital nomads, how reliable and fast is the Internet connection? If you travel somewhat frequently, how easy can you get to an airport for international flights? Are there activities you want to partake in? Lounging at the beach on vacation is relaxing – lounging at the beach every day may be very dull.
Likewise, if you are a city person, how big is too big? We have been to some of the world’s largest megapolises, which can be overwhelming and stressful. Yet, the key is to narrow in on certain neighborhoods in these cities to make it easier for yourself. Instead of looking at Santiago de Chile, research Las Condes instead. For Mexico City, focus on neighborhoods like Polanco or Roma Norte.

I recommend thinking of your current living situation and previous places you have lived – not vacationed. What did you like about those places? What did you not like? By focusing on places you have lived, you focus on what matters in day-to-day life, not the fun, romantic bubble of being on vacation.
Time Zone
If you are a Digital Nomad or plan to work remotely, you’ll want to keep track of which time zone your clients, customers, or work base is in. Kevin and I work for California-based companies, so our work schedules are tied to Pacific time (GMT-8 or GMT-7). For us, the best schedule is being two or three hours ahead. Four hours is doable, but pushing it. Five or more hours doesn’t work well for us – we’d be working until midnight!
This means that our ideal places to live are in Latin America. We take time zones seriously and have cut trips short to ensure we don’t get caught by a time change. You want to account for Daylight Savings Time (DST) in both your work and destination countries. For example, Paraguay in South America can be three, four, or five hours ahead of Pacific Time, depending on the time of year. This is because both Paraguay and California have DST, but calendar-wise, they are opposite of each other.

On the other hand, if you aren’t tied to a specific country or region for work, or you won’t be working, time zones may not be a consideration at all. You’ll need to consider time zones for calls to friends and family back home, but that can easily be figured out.
Nomadic vs Stationary
Remember that just because you are leaving the U.S., you don’t have to go somewhere else and stay there permanently. You can move around! We were nomadic when we left Texas in 2022, spending two to four weeks in a different city. Then, after a few months, we decided to set up roots in Quito, Ecuador, because we loved it so much. Then, in mid-2024, we became nomadic again after realizing Ecuador had changed its tax laws on us.
Our goal is to have two or three bases around the world. In these bases, we’d own a condo, have residency, and enjoy spending a couple of months per year. For followers of Andrew at Nomad Capitalist, you may recognize this as the “Trifecta” plan. If you plan your Trifecta correctly, you may be able to reduce your taxes to avoid the 183-day rule. And as an added benefit, you can experience different cultures throughout the year. As mentioned previously, Kevin and I love the thrill of traveling and adventure. Thus, rotating around to different bases is right up our alley.

Nomading isn’t for everyone. It adds the stress of traveling a lot, plus keeping track of different residencies, laws, and tax rules in various countries. If you buy real estate in different countries, will you rent it or keep it vacant while you aren’t there? You’ll also need two or three sets of everything: furniture, clothing, property management, etc… For me and Kevin, these costs are small compared to the fun of moving around.
For others, staying in one place is best. Perhaps you have kids, or just like the stability of setting up one life. Maybe you want to immerse yourself in your new country’s culture and grow roots there. There is no right or wrong answer; it is just what works best for you. And as Kevin and I have done, you can also rotate between being stationary and nomadic throughout your life.
Language
If you already know a language besides English, that could be an excellent place to start when making your list of countries to move to after leaving the U.S. Knowing the local language will make your move incredibly easier, especially in countries where English is not spoken widely. I learned Spanish growing up, so it is much easier for us to navigate Latin America than non-Spanish-speaking countries.
Yet, I am not fluent in Spanish. Thus, countless times, I missed something important or just couldn’t understand what someone was saying to me. Additionally, not all Spanish-speaking countries are the same. Dialects, slang, and accents can make Spanish-speaking countries easier or harder for me to understand. For example, I understand Ecuadorians and Paraguayans the best. Yet, Uruguayans and Argentines are more difficult for me because of their Ríoplatanese accent.
Context is also critical. While I am not fluent in verbal Spanish, I am probably near fluent in written Spanish. Yet, even when I understand what is said word-for-word, I can still get confused without local context. One prime example occurred when we researched Ecuador’s residency laws a couple of years ago. The law says you can achieve citizenship after three years of residency. We knew that was not true – it is five years – but it was confusing to keep reading three years.

The context I was missing is that Ecuador considers permanent residents to be “residents,” while temporary residents are just visa holders. Since it takes two years of temporary residency to achieve permanent residency, the law is correct in that you can get citizenship after three years of “residency.” However, you could greatly misinterpret the local law without context.
If you don’t know another language or don’t know the local language, don’t treat this as a barrier to moving abroad. However, you’ll need to spend more time learning the local language and rely more heavily on English-speaking help in the local country. This could be an expat network, neighbors, or professional help that speaks English. Again, note that “English-speaking” locals may not be fluent in English, depending on the country. We found that many English speakers in Ecuador can converse but can’t necessarily express complex thoughts in English. No problem when hanging out, but a huge problem when figuring out tax law.
Culture Shock
“Culture shock” is real, especially when living full-time in a new country. Yet, I don’t believe culture shock is always a bad thing! After all, learning and immersing yourself in a new culture is part of the fun and adventure of traveling. Yet, here again is a difference between a one-week vacation and full-time living. Full-time living will get you acclimated to the local culture much faster, but it may come with homesickness sooner. Your one-week vacation won’t last long enough to experience homesickness.
Cultures vary so much globally, but regions tend to have similar cultures. Latin American culture is drastically different than Asian or African cultures, but countries within Latin America tend to have similar cultures, even if somewhat different. Latin American culture is more straightforward to acclimate to if you come from North America or Europe, but the reverse may not necessarily be true.
Then again, large cities in any country will have distinct neighborhoods with different cultures for you to feel at home. Buenos Aires has a large Jewish population and the best gluten-free orange chicken I’ve eaten. Cuenca has a large American and Canadian population (one reason why we do not like Cuenca). Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese population in the world outside of Japan. If you feel at home in these cultures, you can easily surround yourself with that comfort.

Again, researching and spending time on the ground during a scouting trip cannot be underestimated. You may love Asian culture at home and can’t wait to dive right in. But once you get to an Asian country, and you experience the daily language barrier, frustrations over cultural differences, and completely different food, you may wish to return to the U.S.

Don’t give up! I can’t tell you how often Kevin and I have been frustrated and shed tears over differences between Latin America and the U.S. It will happen to you many times. However, you must overcome it and rely on English speakers and your expat network to resolve the issues. And learn to adapt! You’ll look back one day and realize how strong you were and how much you learned through these immersion experiences.
Crime and Safety
Crime and safety in other countries are some of the most frustrating topics when talking about living abroad. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people tell me this country or that country is unsafe and don’t go there. What everyone needs to realize is that every country – and I mean every country – has safe and unsafe parts. The United States, Canada, and Europe are no different. I lived in Los Angeles for 30+ years and know areas not to visit, especially at night. It is no different in any other city worldwide.
Countries like Ecuador, Mexico, and Colombia have bad reputations in the United States for being crime-ridden countries. And yes, plenty of areas in these countries aren’t safe, and I would strongly recommend avoiding them. Yet, I feel entirely secure in some places in these countries, even at night! Leaving the U.S. doesn’t mean leaving safety for insecurity – it could be the opposite!

Kevin and I were in Ecuador when the January 2024 crime wave occurred. It was definitely scary for a few days. I was scared because the locals were scared, not because I felt unsafe. But after a few days, our neighborhood returned to normal, and everything was fine. Yet, crime rings still rule some parts of Ecuador. My answer: don’t travel to those areas.
Also, note that petty crime occurs everywhere. You have common sense at home not to leave belongings unattended, not flash expensive items, and keep a low profile. Interestingly enough, these common sense tips apply in cities outside the U.S., too. In over two years of full-time travel, the only crime that has occurred to us was that my hat got stolen in Quito. I put it down and lost track of it. I then realized it was gone. On the flip side, Kevin forgot his phone at a Starbucks in Buenos Aires. We returned an hour later, and a good samaritan turned it into lost and found. These things happen in every city on earth.
Of course, you should pay attention to crime and safety statistics. I don’t mean to minimize the importance of safety or disregard it. However, I recommend not painting countries with broad brushstrokes on crime levels when crime varies significantly between cities and neighborhoods, even within the same country. And don’t underestimate how much commonsense – and knowing the local geography and culture – can prevent you from getting into trouble.
Healthcare and Health Insurance
Leaving the U.S. permanently means you will need new health insurance. Your U.S. health insurance almost certainly will not cover you living in another country. It probably barely covers your injuries while traveling, if at all. For retirees, Medicare and Medicaid do not cover international health issues. You will need local health insurance or a global expat health plan once you leave the U.S. We have done it both ways, and each has pros and cons. You may need to get both if you plan to be nomadic.
Why Get Local Health Insurance
Get local health insurance if you stay in one country for most of the year. You may also want to get local health insurance if you consider a country a “base,” even if you aren’t spending most of the year there. If you happen to get sick with a long-term illness, you will want solid health coverage in a country that you’ll need to spend a long time recuperating. Most likely, local health insurance is cheaper than a global expat plan.
I generally don’t recommend getting public health insurance in other countries unless it is top-notch. Stick with private health insurance. We have local private health insurance in Ecuador, which we consider our base plan. As health insurance is so much cheaper in Ecuador than in the U.S., we splurged and purchased a top-tier plan in Ecuador to ensure we are fully covered.

Why Obtain a Global Expat Health Insurance Policy
If you are nomadic, don’t have a base, or aren’t considering one, you’ll want a global expat plan. This way, you won’t have to worry about which countries you visit, live in, or get injured in. However, note that most expat health insurance plans have exclusions in some countries to lower the cost of the premium. The U.S. is almost always excluded, but parts of the European Union, Canada, East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand may also be excluded. It is crucial to note the exclusions because if you travel through East Asia but Japan and Taiwan are excluded, that could be a massive problem.
Currently, we have both policies. We have a “catastrophic” health plan in Ecuador with a US$5,000 deductible and a $500,000 coverage limit. This is my doomsday insurance, so if one of us develops a long-term illness, we can return to Ecuador and use this health plan. However, we also have a global travel insurance plan that has a low deductible. If we get sick while traveling, we can use the travel insurance plan to obtain benefits, including repatriation.

If you have health conditions, not all countries have insurance covering pre-existing conditions, unlike the U.S. You’ll want to research this beforehand, preferably with a local insurance broker. Additionally, if you have health conditions, are there special medications or medical specialists you need access to? Will they be available in the country or city you are considering?
Some countries have looser laws than you are used to, and others have tighter laws. I take two medications, both of which are considered prescriptions in the U.S. but available over the counter in many Latin American countries. Yet again, this is not always true: both pills are considered prescriptions in Argentina! And some medications aren’t available in other countries, either by prescription or over-the-counter.
Cost of Living
Finally, have you created a monthly budget? What is your maximum “comfortable” living expense budget? And how does that relate to the cost of the lifestyle you want in your destination country? While many places are cheaper than the U.S., not every place is more affordable. Just like Los Angeles is way more expensive than Lexington, Madrid is way more expensive than Mendoza, Argentina. And even within cities, there are expensive neighborhoods and cheaper neighborhoods. Polanco and Roma Norte are expensive neighborhoods in Mexico City, but adjacent neighborhoods are much cheaper. What can you afford?

Furthermore, can you make changes in your new country to reduce your cost of living? By far, the most significant change we made when leaving the U.S. was to ditch our car. Not having a car means significant savings each month. We choose walkable neighborhoods when staying in a city to reduce our reliance on Uber and taxis. Plus, many big cities have incredible public transportation systems, unlike the U.S.
Another change we made was to downsize our home. We went from a three-bedroom, 1300 sq ft (120 sq m) home in Texas to a 490 sq ft (43 sq m) condo in Quito. We made such a downsize work in two ways. First, leaving the U.S. forced us to eliminate all the junk we had collected over the years (I discuss decluttering your home in Step 5). Honestly, I couldn’t believe the stuff we kept for absolutely no reason.
Second, buying a smaller place allowed us to buy in our top-choice neighborhood and buy a condo on the top level. Our top-choice neighborhood is extremely walkable, allowing us to avoid owning a car. And buying on the top level was Kevin’s dream to avoid having noisy neighbors above us. Furthermore, since we plan to be in Quito only three months per year under our Trifecta plan, having a smaller place isn’t an issue because we plan to be out more than living there full-time.

Step 3: Legal Considerations
I hope it is fun to consider all of the places you can live in the world. I LOVE talking about where people can move to. Kevin and I love talking about it for ourselves, too. Since we are Nomadic, we love planning where else we can go. But it is not all fun and games – serious legal considerations must be considered.
The three main items to consider are immigration, tax, and business laws. Let’s get into all three aspects.
Immigration and Residency Laws
On the top of the list is a country’s immigration and residency law. If a country won’t allow you to move there, all other planning is pointless. Fortunately, if you come from a Western country (US, Canada, UK/EU, Australia/New Zealand), most other countries will grant you temporary residency. However, the ease of obtaining temporary residency varies wildly between countries and how you intend to obtain such residency (retirement vs remote working, for example).
Digital Nomad Visas
After Covid died down and the world re-opened, many countries promoted new “Digital Nomad” visas. However, be very careful when researching Digital Nomad Visas. Many of these visas are suitable for relatively short durations – one year or less – and are not meant to be for people wishing to relocate to a country. I consider many of these Digital Nomad visas to have a lower status than the previously lowest residency status called Temporary Residency.
Digital Nomad visas could be a good option if you want to try living in a country for a few months. Perhaps you can obtain a Digital Nomad visa now, and if you love the country enough to relocate, you can apply for Temporary Residency later. Note that a few countries also market their Temporary Residency schemes under the Digital Nomad title to be trendy. However, you generally want to stay clear of Digital Nomad visas and focus on Temporary Residency visas if you plan on staying more than a few months.
Temporary Residency
Temporary residency is permission to live and stay in a country for a limited and specific duration. Most countries start by granting new immigrants one or two-year temporary residency. It means you are free to live there and be a part of society during temporary residency, but you must apply for a renewal upon expiration. In other words, temporary residency is a long-duration visa (in fact, many countries refer to it as a visa).
Unless you make a significant investment or donation to your new country or have family ties, you will almost certainly start with a Temporary Residency permit. You’ll want to know the process of obtaining Permanent Residency and whether Temporary Residency can be renewed or renewed indefinitely.

Permanent Residency
Permanent residency is “indefinite” permission to live and stay in a country. Americans may know the colloquial term for permanent residency in the U.S.: “green card.” Note that I wrote “indefinite” in quotation marks. I used quotation marks because permanent residency in many countries is not a blank check indefinite residency. You may have to renew your permanent residency, with many countries only granting a five-to-ten year permanent residency. Or you may have visitation requirements, such that if you stay too long outside of the country, you give up permanent residency.
Permanent residency is better than temporary residency, yet permanent residency is rarely “permanent.” If you truly want a permanent connection to your new country, research how to obtain citizenship.
Citizenship
Citizenship is the ultimate right to stay in a country as you are no longer a foreigner – you are a citizen of that country. You have the same rights and responsibilities as every other citizen of that country. This includes beneficial rights, like obtaining that country’s passport. It could also include not-so-beneficial responsibilities, like mandatory military service and worldwide taxation.
In practice, citizenship is complicated to obtain in most countries, if at all. There are some shortcut ways to obtain citizenship in certain countries. Still, this usually requires a significant investment or having an immediate family member who is already a citizen, and this is an exception to the rule.
Furthermore, many countries do not allow Dual Citizenship. Dual Citizenship is a blanket term referring to a person being a citizen of two or more countries simultaneously. While the U.S. generally allows Dual Citizenship, many countries require you to choose only one citizenship. Some countries, like Uruguay, have “second-class” citizenship for foreigners. And other countries, like Argentina, prevent their citizens from ever renouncing said citizenship, complicating the process of obtaining a second citizenship.
For most immigrants from Western countries, temporary residency is pretty easy to obtain in many countries. Permanent residency is also easy, but generally, more rules are attached to obtaining it. However, only the hard-core immigrants may be able to achieve citizenship. Whether or not you want citizenship is a topic of discussion for a different time and can be decided upon later. For now, if your goal is leaving the U.S., focus on temporary and permanent residency paths.
Citizenship by Descent
Before continuing, I want to make one exception to the residency vs citizenship discussion. If you have parents who are citizens of another country – especially European countries – you may be able to claim citizenship as a direct descendent. It might be possible if your grandparents are citizens, but only in certain countries like Ireland or Italy. But if you can claim citizenship by descent – as it is called – you will want to explore this path to citizenship fully.
Kevin and I used Ancestry.com to review our family trees thoroughly and came up short on the citizenship-by-descent pathway. Kevin had two very narrow pathways, which both expired when he was younger. I also had a very narrow path, but the descent country introduced a quirk in the descent law in the 1970s, so I don’t qualify. However, we would have wanted to explore this option if we had qualified.

Note that citizenship by descent can take several months to years to complete. However, leaving the U.S. doesn’t require you to complete the process. You can nomad and travel until the process is completed and then move to your new country. Or you can move to another country and use the Citizenship by Descent country as a second option or a concurrent part-time option.
Tax Laws and Tax Residency
Tax laws make my head explode. As U.S. citizens, we must pay taxes in the United States regardless of where we live. Yes, that is correct. U.S. citizens will always pay taxes in the United States for as long as they are U.S. citizens. There are ways to reduce your U.S. tax burden – notably through the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) – but leaving the U.S. doesn’t remove the obligation to file and pay taxes.
If you are a resident of another country, you’ll also need to pay attention to their tax rules and whether you need to file and pay taxes there. Ecuador changed their tax laws in 2023 while we applied to be residents. That is why we had to stop living in Ecuador full-time, not to be tax residents in Ecuador. It was a complete headache and an experience I don’t want to repeat. Kevin and I always want to do the proper thing and follow the law, including paying taxes. But we don’t want to pay more tax than legally required.
Many countries have a 180 or 183-day rule. In other words, if you spend more than 180 or 183 days in a country, you are a “tax resident” and must file and pay taxes there. There may be ways to offset your U.S. taxes with taxes paid in another country or vice versa. But you now have to juggle two sets of tax laws, tax returns, and tax payments.

More importantly, the 180 or 183-day rule is not universal. Other countries have a 120-day rule, a 180-day rule over two years, or all sorts of wacky laws. Some countries may continue to tax you if you still have family and/or banking in that country, even if you never set foot in that country during the year. After all, the U.S. taxes its citizens merely for being born in the U.S. Australia has talked about introducing similar citizenship-based taxation.
You must obtain tax advice from a reputable tax professional in the U.S. and your destination country. Get second and third opinions if you have a complicated tax situation. We had talked to two tax professionals before applying for Ecuadorian residency and thought we had it covered. Then Ecuador changed its laws, and our planning went out the window. Get used to it.
Business Laws
If you run your own business or are self-employed, consider where that business is based. Where a company is based impacts the laws it has to follow, access to banking, and the taxes it has to pay. You and your business don’t have to be based in the same country – they can be based in different countries.
However, note the worldwide tax concept known as “CFC rules.” CFC is an acronym for Controlled Foreign Corporation. If you are a majority owner of a business or even a large shareholder, your business may be taxed where you live, even if the business is based and taxed elsewhere. CFC rules attempt to prevent business owners from “virtually” basing their business in a low-tax jurisdiction while controlling and running it from a high-tax jurisdiction.
I can’t stress enough how vital it is to get professional tax help when planning your personal and business taxes. And please get a second or third opinion. Leaving the U.S. means leaving the American legal system. There is a lot of talk in this field, especially with people just wanting to take your money. But tax law is no joke; you can pay dearly for it if you mess up.
Work Permits
A fourth consideration is the ability to work in the local country. Although related to both immigration and business law, you’ll need to think ahead as to whether you will be working in the local economy or working remotely. If you plan to work locally, you’ll need to ensure your residency permit includes the ability for you to work. While many countries allow you to work as part of your residency permit, some do not. Others don’t allow you to work on certain types of visas, but you can work on others. Make sure you account for this if you will be – or may need to – work in the local economy.
Step 4: Planning on Leaving the U.S.
Alright, you did your research, and you have a plan in hand. (Side note: Your plan will change several times over the following months and years.) Now what? How do you plan on leaving the U.S.?
At this point, either blogs will stop abruptly and leave you hanging, or people will ask you to pay them globs of money for help. I am going to detail how we did it and the next steps. And then if you want to pay me money to help you, you can still do that by booking a consultation.
Where’s the Money, Honey?
The first step is to map out your financial future. Where is the money coming from for you to live day-by-day? How much money do you need? Do you have money stashed away for emergencies? Do you have excess income or savings such that if the money stops coming in, you’ll be okay with it for the time being?
The People of Leisure
If you are retired and receiving Social Security or pension income, have you compared this to your expected cost of living? Social security and pension incomes are nice in that they are more or less “guaranteed” – note the quotation marks – and also come with cost-of-living adjustments each year. Remember that Medicare isn’t valid outside the U.S., so you must obtain (preferably private) health insurance in your new country.
Some of you may have built-up savings and won’t be working for the moment, but will need to work in the future. Have you planned how long you can go without working? How much do you need to work in order to keep your lifestyle going? When you start working, do you know what you’ll be doing and who will hire you?

The Working Class
If you need to work, will you be taking your current job with you? Have you spoken to your current employer about working remotely if you are employed? If you already work remotely, have you spoken to them about working remotely outside of the U.S.? Working remotely in the U.S. is different than working remotely outside of the U.S. for an American company. Some companies don’t want to hear or know about it.
I am very fortunate that my employer allows me to work remotely. I am again lucky that they allow me to work while traveling. My situation is very unique and privileged. But I didn’t just ask for this and get it granted. I had set myself up to be in this position by working really hard before we even thought of moving abroad and making myself critical to the company’s operations. Your company has no obligation to cater itself to your wishes. You have to make it worth their while!
On the other hand, if you own your own business, which is primarily online, you will have an easier time setting up shop abroad. However, do you need someone physically on the ground to oversee any physical assets or situations? Who will that be? If you are moving to Asia or parts of Europe, do you need a manager or supervisor to be in charge when you are not working due to the time zone difference?
As you can see, almost everything I just wrote is geared toward Digital Nomads – those who can work online in their home country while being physically based in another country. That is what Kevin and I do, and it is by far the easiest way to make money abroad other than through retirement or passive income.

If you are an avid entrepreneur and want to create a business in your destination country, I applaud you for wanting to do that. In this case, you’ll need to 10x your research into your destination country and fully learn the ins and outs of that country’s markets, culture, laws, and taxes. Never assume anything – and I mean anything – is equivalent to the U.S. Chances are it is different and will burn you badly.
Residency Permits: Before or After Arriving
If you are moving to a specific country, you’ll want to get the residency permit timeline and process down first. Everything else can rotate around that. First question: must you apply for residency in your home country, or can you apply after arriving? Each country is different in this regard. Some countries, like Mexico, require you to obtain a residency visa first in your home country and then finish the process after you arrive in your destination country. You can’t apply after you arrive. In fact, Mexico has strict rules and timelines for this process – called canje – that you can get a glimpse of in this blog post of ours.
Other countries allow you to apply for residency after you arrive, assuming you can enter the country as a tourist without needing a visa. For example, we applied for Ecuadorian and Paraguayan residency after arriving in those countries. We entered as tourists with our U.S. passports and received 90-day visa-free stays as tourists. But if you come from a country requiring a tourist visa to enter those countries, you’ll need to get that first in your home country.
Also, keep track of your stays in a country if you recently visited that country, such as during a scouting trip. Since we had just been in Ecuador before applying for residency, we only had around 40 days left as a “tourist” for that year. As such, we had to apply for a 90-day tourist extension while we waited for our residency to get approved. We could have been fined or worse if we didn’t apply for this extension.

Furthermore, we use local immigration attorneys for all our residencies. The very first time, we obtained Mexican temporary residency entirely ourselves. But after going through that process, hiring someone to handle all of the paperwork, frustrations, and hair-pulling for us made more sense. Since I speak some Spanish, I could obtain residency for us. But the frustrations and wasted time cost us more in lost work than just paying someone to do it for us. And trust me, you will get very frustrated when applying for residency, regardless of the country.
Residency Permit Timeline
If you must obtain your residency permit or visa in your home country, call the Embassy and ensure you understand the rules and timeline. For Mexico, we had to travel to North Carolina to get an appointment before we left in 2022. It was so hard to get an appointment at any other consulate. Furthermore, once you get your Mexican residency visa in your home country – the United States for us – you only have six months to arrive in Mexico and then 30 days after arrival to complete the residency process. As such, you’ll want to ensure this timeline is set before planning everything around it.
If you can apply for residency after arrival, you may think you have more flexibility, but you don’t. This is where a lot of expats go wrong. You can’t just show up in your destination country, say “I’m here!” and get a residency permit. Generally, you must provide paperwork from your home country to get a residency permit. Documents like criminal background checks, bank statements, marriage licenses, notarized diplomas (yes, I had to get a notarized copy of my diploma for Ecuador), and other weird items may be required. They are not just required, but most likely, they will need to be apostilled and possibly even translated.
FBI Criminal Background Check
For the U.S., the FBI background check is generally required as a criminal background check for other countries. And here’s the rub: you have to be physically present in the U.S. to get your fingerprints scanned. It is very easy to get your fingerprints scanned; all major cities have a “LiveScan” office. Your fingerprints go to the FBI, and you’ll get your criminal background check within one or two days. If you think easy peasy, guess again.
Almost every country will require the FBI Background Check to be Apostilled. Apostille is a global agreement that says if one country stamps a document saying it is official, then any other country that signed the agreement will accept the document as official. For the U.S., the State Department apostilles federal documents, such as FBI Background Checks. And this process can take months. (Note that Canada is not a party to the Hague Convention and Canadians generally need to go to an Embassy to certify official documents.)
Worse is that some countries will only consider the FBI background check to be valid for a certain time period, generally not more than three to six months. As you can see, frustrations and stress can develop quickly if you don’t have your ducks in a line. Fortunately, there are ways to expedite the FBI Background Check apostille process if you have a demonstrated need – contact us for more information at hello@nomading.world
Other Documents to Notarize and Apostille
If you are married, it is a near certainty you’ll need your marriage certificate to apply for residency. Note that marriage certificates in the U.S. are a local matter. You’ll need to get it certified first by your county clerk and then you’ll need to get it Apostilled by your state. Generally, your state’s Secretary of State will handle the apostille process. However, this can be a same-day service or take months. If you don’t live in your state’s capital, it may be easier to hire an apostille service that will handle getting the documents apostilled for you. We have done this in several states and it saves so much time and hassle.
Birth certificates are another common document needed for residency. Not all countries require this, but many do. Fortunately, birth certificates are generally handled the same way as marriage certificates, so if you were born and married in the same county, you could knock them out simultaneously. But if you weren’t – or worse, in different states! – then you’ll need to carry out this process in two different counties and states. Again, hire someone to do this for you!

Countries love to ask for bank or wage statements, especially if you are applying for residency based on a monthly income. If you are retired, usually you’ll need to provide a letter from Social Security or your pension showing the monthly amount you get and that it is for your lifetime. If you live off of dividend or rental income, you may need brokerage statements or rental contracts showing this. Rental agreements can be tricky, though, because some countries require a two-year rental agreement, which is not common in the U.S. for residential real estate.
Some countries have some oddball requirements. Ecuador required me to present my university diploma, notarized and apostilled, along with my university transcripts. This is because I applied for Ecuador’s Professional visa, which is only granted to university graduates with four-year degrees. But even weirder, Ecuador required a letter from my university stating that my diploma was earned through in-person education, not virtual education. Never underestimate what weird items you’ll need.
You’ll want to obtain your kids’ school and vaccination records prior to leaving the U.S. You may not need them, yet if you do need them, you’ll be so glad you got them while you were still in the U.S.
Mailing Addresses for After Leaving the U.S.
It is 2024, and everything is electronic nowadays. Yet, why is there still so much mail? I have no idea, but it is super annoying. Either way, you must have a mailing address in the United States to collect mail, at least for the first couple of years. Fortunately, many virtual mailbox companies will do this for you.
You’ll want a virtual mailbox company that gives you a physical address and scans your mail. The scanning is why you don’t just want a PO Box at the post office. These companies can range from $15/month for just a couple of pieces of mail and scans per month to $100+ for heavy mail users. It would be best to cut down on your physical mail as much as possible and convert to e-statements as much as possible.
I’d recommend setting up this mailbox months in advance to ensure all mail is correctly stopped at your current mailing address and routed to the virtual mailbox. You’ll also get used to having your mail scanned – the contents, not just the envelope – and see how much mail you can cut out.
One thing to note is that financial institutions will not accept PO Boxes as a permanent address. This is true whether it is a USPS PO Box or a commercial PO Box. You can use PO Boxes to receive mail and credit cards from your banks, but not to claim you live there.
Step 5: Time to Move!
Congratulations on deciding to move abroad! You and your family must be so excited! Sipping margaritas on the beach is just around the corner…
Not! Now that you have agreed to move abroad, you have to take care of wrapping up your life before leaving the U.S. And this takes a lot of work – both emotionally and physically – before you can board that plane to fly to your new home.
The rewards will be worth it. During this process, when you get upset, sad, or frustrated, remind yourself of all of the reasons why you are choosing to move abroad. Reference Parts 1 and 2 again of this guide.

Selling or Renting Your Home
If you own your current home, you’ll need to decide whether you should rent out your current home or sell your current home. This is as much a personal decision as it is a financial decision. I am a licensed real estate agent, so I can help you with this decision and recommend local Realtors in your area. Email me at hello@nomading.world to set up a consultation.
In general, if you can financially afford to keep your home and rent it out, you may want to do that as a safety net. If moving abroad doesn’t work out, you can always return to your home after the renter moves out. If you decide you aren’t moving back to the U.S. after a year or two, you can either keep renting out the property as an investment or sell it. We didn’t sell our properties until two years after leaving the U.S. By that time, we were 100% comfortable not returning to the United States.
If you have the financial means, it may be tempting to buy a home abroad. However, don’t buy until you have lived in a location for at least a few months, if not a year. A recurring theme of this blog post is to experience a place on the ground rather than just researching online. Don’t make such a big jump right away. As such, if you need to sell your current home to buy a new home abroad, there is no rush to sell since you won’t be buying right away.
Either way, you’ll want to meet with Realtors three to five months before you plan on selling. You want to get price quotes and your “net sheet” ahead of time to know how much you’ll net from the sale. If you are planning on renting, meet with property management companies. Ask them about their fees, their services, and how much they believe your home will rent for. And contact me for more help on this! I am a licensed real estate agent, so I will help you navigate the selection of a real estate agent.
Selling Your Car
We only had one car in the United States, so we couldn’t sell it until the very last moment before leaving. As such, we sold to Carmax because we could plan the time and date to sell the car. We also appreciated that Carmax gave us a quote online so we could shop and compare it to other online dealers. Carmax gave us the highest price, but you should shop around with others, such as TrueCar and Carvana.
We never thought of selling the car privately because we didn’t want the hassle and stress of selling the car ourselves. We could have sold for more money, but that extra money wasn’t worth it. We needed the car until the last minute prior to leaving the U.S., so we couldn’t sell beforehand. If you have two or more cars, you may be able to sell one of your cars ahead of time to reduce the last-minute stress. However, remember that you will have plenty of other things to do in the weeks and days leading up to your leaving. That is why we decided to just sell directly to Carmax and remove that stress from our minds.
Some of you may want to take your car with you to another country. That is possible, but you must research the cost of shipping your car to that country, plus entry taxes and tariffs. And this goes back to lifestyle – do you want to be car-dependent in your new country?
Decluttering and Downsizing
For many of you, the anticipation of having to get rid of most, if not all, of your belongings may be an emotional roller coaster. There will be tears of joy as you reminisce over old but good memories. There will be tears of sadness as you struggle with having to throw away sentimental items. There will be tears of frustration and stress as you feel the task of packing up your current home is overwhelming. Get ready for it.
We got rid of almost everything because we did not intend to ship anything abroad. We recommend selling all material goods – you can always buy them in your new country or replace them if you need to return to the U.S. Furthermore, many countries allow you to import a certain amount of U.S. goods each year. While this will cost you extra money for shipping, local tax, and local tariffs, it may make you feel better that you still have access to Amazon, Sam’s Club, and Costco while abroad.
On the other hand, I know many of you will want to keep sentimental goods. Photos, souvenirs, and other memorabilia will be fine to keep – at least for now. You probably won’t be able to take all of your sentimental items with you – most will need to go into storage or be sent to friends and family to store.

There is no magic solution to decluttering and downsizing. You must put in the time and energy to get it done. If you have several months before departing, we recommend devoting one weekend day per week to cleaning out a room of your house. Breaking the chore into one room at a time makes it more manageable. Plus, only needing to do it one day per week will prevent you from burning out and getting too emotional or frustrated and then stopping entirely.
For each room, make three piles: must keep, for sale/donation, and trash. “Must keep” items are sentimental or absolutely necessary material items you want to keep – either by shipping or by storing somewhere else. Items that can be sold or donated – especially clothing, furniture, and cookware – go into another pile. The trash pile is everything else that can just be thrown away. Once you have these piles set up, I’ll talk about what comes next in the next section.
Please note the old saying when renovating a house: it will always cost more and take longer than expected. The same is true with packing up your house. Even though it was just my husband and I, we ran out of time packing up our home. I was able to sell most of our furniture and other goods. After we left, we hired a junk-hauling company to clean out the rest of the home. It cost us a few hundred dollars, but we had no choice. However, know that at least this option exists because you will run out of time.
Selling Your Goods
Your job isn’t finished once you have your three piles. Now you need to get the piles out of your house!
Let’s start with the sale and donation pile. If you intend to sell goods, I recommend selling goods as you go week by week. Don’t wait until the last minute because some goods take a while to sell. We thought we could get a lot of money for our bed and mattress because we spent a lot of money on it and it was two years old. We were wrong. We barely got a couple hundred dollars for it and had to slash the price drastically because we ran out of time.
The best two apps for selling goods locally are Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp. Both are free and easy to use. Note, though, that both rely on supply and demand. We had a far easier time selling our furniture in Los Angeles than in small-town Texas. Not even close!
If you live in a big city, OfferUp is my favorite app. You don’t need a Facebook account to use it; I thought it was very straightforward. But in a small town, there aren’t enough OfferUp users to ensure there is demand for your stuff. I didn’t want to use Facebook Marketplace at first because I don’t have a Facebook account. I had such incredible success using OfferUp in Los Angeles that I didn’t think I needed it in Texas. I was wrong.
I succumbed to using Facebook after not getting much activity on OfferUp. It was a game-changer. I was moving inventory much faster once I started posting on Facebook Marketplace. I thought it was great to use once I got going.

There are only two drawbacks to Facebook Marketplace. One is that you need a Facebook account to use it. If you have a Facebook account, then this isn’t a drawback. The second drawback is prepared to have quite a few scam attempts. I was surprised at how many scammers there are on Facebook Marketplace. Most of them ask you to ship stuff to them instead of picking it up locally. I read there are quite a few scams involving this, so I did not ship anything. I had a pick-up-only policy.
I also got a few requests for me to deliver items to people. Perhaps if I had more time, I would have considered it. But I didn’t have time nor a vehicle to deliver anything except for small items. I lowered prices instead and asked people to come get them if I was desperate.
You can also sell items online, such as through eBay and Mercari. I sold a few things through Mercari, but nothing compared to OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace. The problem with selling online is that you can only sell goods you can ship. And unless those goods have a high resale value, you are generally paying through the nose in shipping costs.
To me, it didn’t make sense to drive to the UPS Store and buy packaging to only net maybe $5 or $10 at best. If I had several sales at once to drop off, that would be more worth my time. But the sales came in sporadically and I found it easier to sell locally.
Keep in mind that each site requires you to create a new listing. Thus, to post something on OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and Mercari to get as wide of exposure as possible, you are spending quite a bit of time per item. Again, you must decide how much your time is worth and whether you even have the time to do this.
In the end, whatever you don’t sell, you should donate to your local Goodwill or other charity. Some may even come pickup everything for you. But please don’t just throw usable items in the trash!
Storing Your Goods
You may ask, what about the first pile you made – the “Must Keep” stuff? Where are you keeping it? Or are you taking it with you?
In reality, you aren’t dragging your entire life across continents. It will be painfully expensive and painfully frustrating. And really, isn’t part of the fun of moving to a new country to experience that country’s culture? If so, why are you packaging your American life and taking it with you?
We planned to stay in Airbnbs when we first moved. In other words, we treated it as an extended vacation, not that we were starting a new life. We only packed the following to take with us:
- Medication for 30-45 days (confirm with your destination country that none of your medications are illegal – this is especially true for mental health medications)
- Standard toiletries for a vacation
- Enough clothes for two weeks – other countries have washing machines (and maybe dryers)
- Lightweight jacket if you are going to a hot climate
- Laptops and cell phones
- Electrical outlet and voltage converters for the destination country (or an international converter if you plan on traveling or nomading)
- Most – but not all! – of our credit cards, plus our passports, U.S. driver’s licenses, and Global Entry cards
- Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors (most Airbnbs do not have these detectors built-in)
- Face masks and COVID-19 self-test kits
- Notarized documents for our Residency Applications, such as our Marriage License and recent bank statements.
As you can see, we didn’t pack anything more than if we were going on an extended vacation. Ideally, this is what you would pack too. Everything else can stay behind.

But what do you do with items you want to keep but not take with you? You have two options: self-storage and friends and family. We shipped several boxes of goods to our families to keep for us. These boxes mainly contained irreplaceable items such as school paperwork and diplomas, legal and financial paperwork, and small souvenirs. We made sure to scan all of the paperwork and store it on Google Drive. That way in case we needed to reference it, we had it with us.
Others may want to get a self-storage unit and keep things there. It depends on how much stuff you are keeping and whether your friends and family have space for your junk – or if they even want to keep your stuff. A self-storage unit may also be preferable if you are unsure if this new lifestyle will work for you. You can always come back to the U.S. and not start purely from scratch.
But let’s be honest – we both know that once you pack that self-storage unit, you won’t come back and clear it out. It will just be another monthly expense for the rest of your life. That is why I would prefer you not get a self-storage unit. Downsize, downsize, downsize instead.
Shipping Your Goods
There is a third option besides selling/donating your items and storing them. You could also ship them to your new country. Note that this is only an option if you plan to stay somewhere long-term. We couldn’t do this as we intended to be nomadic for awhile.
Most countries allow you to import a certain amount of household goods tax-free or at a reduced rate when you achieve residency. While nice, you should only be shipping and importing items you truly cannot replace. Legal and financial paperwork and souvenirs top the list. Perhaps add clothing to this list if you have a lot of fancy clothing you don’t want to get rid of.
Everything else you should just buy when you settle down. Believe it or not, countries outside of the U.S. have household goods, too. And it doesn’t necessarily have to cost a fortune to buy everything again. Again, this is where downsizing comes into play.
If you are moving from a 3000 sq ft American home into a 1200 sq ft retirement condo by the beach, you don’t need to replace 3000 sq ft of furniture – you just need to buy 1200 sq ft of furniture. Additionally, you may want to rent a furnished home long-term in your destination country; we did so in a way by using Airbnb. Or when you buy a property, you can buy a property semi-furnished or furnished.
When we purchased our condo in Ecuador – read our full Buying in Ecuador Guide here – we bought all new furniture and appliances. We wanted nice stuff, and we got it. We probably have better furniture in our condo in Quito than the IKEA stuff we generally purchased in the U.S. Please don’t ship furniture to your new home unless it is truly irreplaceable.
As I mentioned previously, you can also import stuff from the U.S. In Latin America, for example, every country has a “Miami” shipping company. You buy items online from Amazon and other retailers like in the U.S. But instead of shipping them to your home, you ship them to the company’s warehouse in Florida. Then, that company will repackage them and ship them to you in your new country.

We have done this many times in Ecuador for items we love on Amazon and for clothing (clothing in Latin America is actually more expensive than in the U.S.). Black Friday and December sales are an ideal time to do this. Note that taxes and shipping costs will be quite high. But if you need those goods from the U.S. and the local equivalents just don’t cut it, it is worth paying for the international shipping.
Please note when you do this, ask the shipping company if there are items you can’t import into your new country. Also, ask them for shipping quotes and information on taxes and tariffs. Ecuador charges its own sales tax on items imported into Ecuador from the U.S., plus many goods have a tariff of up to 30%.
It pays to do your research on shipping items. For example, we found out that Ecuador removed tariffs on computers and laptops a couple of years ago, so you can import those and only have to pay Ecuadorian sales tax (IVA). This allowed us to buy nice computers during Black Friday and score a fantastic deal compared to local pricing in Ecuador.
Even better, Ecuador allows residents to import up to US$1600 of goods per person, tax and tariff-free annually. But remember when I said you will experience a lot of frustration abroad? Well, the $1600 per person exemption only applies to packages that are “4×4” – that is, packages that weigh less than 4kg and have a value of less than $400. Importing a $100 item that weighs 5kg? Nice try, you’ll be taxed. Importing $2000 of items in a year because you are a married couple? Wrong again. You can import $1600 and your spouse can import $1600, but the two of you can’t import $3200 combined. That means you’ll have to import some packages under your name and others under your spouse’s name and make sure you buy items that don’t weigh much.
Our local shipping company in Ecuador – we use Laarbox – does not provide great customer service. We continue to use them because they are cheap and get the job done. They have never lost one of our packages and facilitate the customs process for us. But we had to do a lot of our research about taxes and tariffs on our own.
Step 6: Preparing for Leaving the U.S.
If you have made it to Step 6, then you are seriously doing this. Awesome job! At this point, you probably have both strong feelings of excitement and intense anxiety. That is ok. I asked myself many times why are we doing this. We had an easy life in Texas – why couldn’t I just be happy with normalcy?
But that is the problem! Some of us don’t want to be normal. We want to experience the world, or at least parts of it. We want to immerse ourselves in a different life, another lifestyle, an alternative way of thinking. The status quo may not be difficult, but if we never attempted difficult things, we’d never grow and see what else we may like. Who says you can’t have it better?
Don’t give up at this point! There are some last items to prepare for to make the actual journey as easy as possible.
Medications
By now, you should have already done your homework on what medications are available in your destination country. If you need a doctor’s prescription, you should know how to obtain one. You may not know a specific doctor, but at least you have an idea of the process.
Nonetheless, if legal in your destination country, I recommend taking at least 30-45 days’ worth of medication with you, preferably 60-90 days if possible. I had to ask my doctor in the U.S. to call the pharmacist to allow them to release me for more than 30 days at a time. If you use a mail-order pharmacy, this process may be more straightforward.

Even if your medication is readily accessible in your destination country, you have enough going on acclimating to new surroundings. Don’t add the stress of getting medication into the mix.
Also, if you need special medication for your destination country, remember to get that too. For example, if you are moving to a malaria-prone area, you may want to get anti-malarial medication in the U.S. to bring with you.
Vaccinations
Vaccinations are another thing I didn’t consider until it was too late. Heading to South America, the CDC recommended we get Hepatitis A vaccinations plus tetanus boosters. (We didn’t plan on visiting Brazil at the moment, but Yellow Fever is needed for Brazil, along with some other countries.) I didn’t even think about it until a couple of days before we planned to leave.
I called our local doctor and their vaccination clinic didn’t have appointments for weeks. Thus, we had to call a bunch of local pharmacies to see if they had the proper vaccinations in stock for Kevin and me. In small-town Texas, these “exotic” vaccinations aren’t just kept on the shelf like bottles of water.
We had to go to two different pharmacies to get the right combination of vaccines. Again, unnecessary stress and wasted time. Worse, one of the vaccines required two doses spaced months apart. While traveling with just one dose was okay, it was not optimal. And then we ultimately forgot about the second dose, so it was a complete fail.
Just plan for your vaccinations ahead of time, especially if you have kids. That way, you know you are good to go. Most vaccinations aren’t going to expire right away, so it’s even better to do this ahead of time when you aren’t rushing out the door. Country-specific Vaccination recommendations are found on the CDC’s Traveler Information page here.
Install WhatsApp, Google Translate, and Google Maps
Trust me: you will not survive abroad without WhatsApp. Owned by Meta – yes, the parent company of Facebook – WhatsApp is indispensable in other countries. Save yourself the headache and download and install it on your phone before leaving. Set up your profile – it is okay to use your U.S. cell phone number – and give it to your friends and family, too. Most likely, you’ll communicate with friends and family through other ways. But at least they have WhatsApp in case of an emergency.
Additionally, you will want to install Google Translate and Google Maps on your phone. The key for both of these apps is to enable Offline mode. It may be a few days before you buy a local SIM card, and you may not have WiFi access everywhere you go. Even if you buy an international SIM card, having an offline backup for communication and directions is always good.
You can download dictionaries for various languages to allow offline translation for Google Translate. Note that the offline dictionaries only allow written translation, not speech-to-text translation. Furthermore, Google Translate won’t describe words, just translate them. Restaurants are prone to mistranslations without context. For example, the Cuban dish ropa vieja literally translates to old clothing. You may be very confused seeing this on the menu without the context that it is a beef stew dish that is quite tasty!
You can select areas for which you want to download an offline map for Google Maps. You can download as many maps as you want; each map is generally 100MB or less, so it won’t take up much space on your phone. You’ll get a map and a lot of businesses and points of reference. You will not get any information on those businesses, such as contact information and business hours. Also, offline Google Maps will only provide directions by car, not by foot.
Port your U.S. Phone Number
We ported our U.S. cell phone numbers to Google Voice prior to leaving the U.S. That way, we can use our U.S. cell phone numbers abroad as long as we have an Internet connection. This is key: you must have an Internet connection to use Google Voice abroad. And another clarification: Google Voice is not the same as Google Fi; you need Google Voice.
By porting our cell phone numbers to Google Voice, anyone in the U.S. can call or text us as if we were in the U.S. However, instead of receiving a call or text, it gets routed over the Internet by Google Voice onto an app on our phone or computer. That is why you need an Internet connection to use it.
This has been critical for me as my work is heavily phone-based. In most countries we visit, we buy local SIM cards and use a local cell phone plan with data. SIM cards are way cheaper in local countries than getting a global cell phone plan with a U.S. carrier. Not even close!
We also have a global SIM card as a backup e-SIM on Kevin’s phone. We use that when we arrive in a new country and need data right away, such as when using Uber at the airport or finding directions. But if we are going to stay for more than a couple of weeks, we generally switch to local SIM cards.
It is possible not to get a local SIM card and instead use WiFi when you go out. This highly depends on how much you need your phone and how well-connected your destination country is. In many cities worldwide, you can get by hopping from one WiFi network to another. But generally, I wouldn’t recommend it if you use your phone quite a bit.
Set Travel Notifications with Your Bank
Travel notifications are becoming somewhat antiquated nowadays. The two main banks I use in the U.S. do not require travel notifications when leaving the U.S. – they just “know” where you are. However, if your bank requires travel notification, ensure you do so. You don’t want to be without access to cash (via your debit card) or the ability to pay (via your credit card) abroad.
Note that we took three debit cards with us, plus several credit cards. We also added each other as Authorized Users on each other’s credit cards to ensure if one of our cards got lost, stolen, or hacked, we could shut it down and maintain access to the credit card. If your card gets lost abroad, a new physical card will take a while to be issued and mailed to you. Always have several backups!
Give the Keys to your Realtor or Property Manager
If you own your home, please remember to give a set of your house keys to your Realtor or Property Manager. This may seem self-evident, but a lot is happening in your life right now, so the reminder doesn’t hurt. You don’t want to be midway across the ocean and then realize your Agent can’t access the home!
Also, if you didn’t have time to clean out your home fully, now is a good time to book junk haulers and cleaners. Or communicate to your Realtor or Property Manager that they need to hire and provide access to the junk haulers and cleaners. We booked the junk haulers and cleaners to come the day after we left. But we booked them as I sensed we were running out of time to clean out the home. It added a lot of stress and wasted time finding people with good ratings, who didn’t charge extraordinary fees, and who could come with short notice.
In hindsight, I would have assumed the worst-case scenario and booked them in advance. Cancellation policies are generally generous, but trust me, you’ll need them. Don’t waste your time hauling junk and mopping floors. Again, you have way too much to do, and you need to focus your time and energy on before departure.
File Change of Address with USPS
Remember earlier when I said to get a virtual mailbox as your new mailing address? At that point, you should start changing all of your mailing addresses to that address. That way, your new mailing address will have time to propagate through everyone’s system and divert mail to the virtual mailbox.
However, you still want to file a change of address with the USPS before you leave. Any mail delivered to your old address will be rerouted to the virtual mailbox. The USPS recommends you file a Change of Address least two weeks before leaving the U.S. You can easily file a Change of Address online here directly with the USPS. It costs a couple of dollars, but so what? That is the least of your concerns right now.
Get Electrical Adapters and an International SIM Card
Research what kind of electrical adapters your destination country uses and buy those ahead of time. They are cheap on Amazon, especially if you have free shipping through Amazon Prime. We bought an 8-pack of US to European adapters for $7. To be clear, you can usually get adaptors in the destination country. But if you arrive and your cell phone is dead, walking around to find a place that sells adaptors isn’t ideal. Just buy them ahead of time and pre-pack them. Another task you can check off your list.

While shopping online, buy an international SIM Card. I strongly recommend you get local phone service in your new country. However, that could take days to a week to obtain. In the meantime, in the 21st century, you need your phone, even for basic needs, such as getting the menu via QR code at a restaurant.
Kevin bought a 7GB SIM card we can use as needed. We use his phone upon arrival in a country, including booking Uber rides from the airport. Then, we switch to a local SIM Card after a few days and save the International SIM card for the following new country.
Buying an International SIM Card ahead of time will ensure you have Internet access from the moment you arrive. It will give you peace of mind until you get a local SIM card, during a time when you are already sky-high on stress and emotions. It may be relatively expensive, yet well worth it, in our opinion.
- EUROPEAN TRAVEL PLUG ADAPTERS - US to Europe Plug Adapters are European travel must haves. Go from United States, America, China, Australia to ALL of Europe (EU) with European plug adapter power converter.
- COMPACT SIZE FOR TRAVEL - Come with drawstring bag for easy carrying. European power adapter is compact and lightweight for travel or cruise ship with No surge protection, No cords. Suitable for luggage and a briefcase for travelers and businessmen.
- WILL FIT MOST EUROPEAN OUTLETS - including the Modern hexagon wall outlets. These type C international plugs are made for all Euro countries such as: Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Poland, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Turkey etc. NOTE: not work in UK/Ireland/Scotland/Germany/Korea/South Korea.
- SUPER SAFE - These EU plug adapters are made with copper pin and conductor plus a PC fireproof shell. Specs: 6A, Max 1380W at 230V use only with dual voltage devices (125-250V). Note: European plug adapters does NOT convert voltage, it only changes the pin of the device you plug in.
- MULTI-PURPOSE USAGE - Small handy electric adapter plugs can be used to charge: smart phones, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, shavers, power banks, laptops, tablets and so on. Attention: Not support wide voltage device like hair dryer, straightener or curling irons.
Last update on 2025-02-11 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Booking Flights and Hotel
If you are used to booking round-trip flights, it may seem weird to book a one-way flight. This may be the first time you realize what it means leaving the U.S. Booking one-way international flights is still weird to me, especially to and from the United States.
Now, depending on your residency status, you may be unable to book a one-way flight. Generally, you aren’t officially a resident until you arrive in the country and complete the process in-country, even if you have received a residency visa in the U.S. At the same time, most countries and airlines require that tourists have a round-trip flight ticket, even if they don’t ask to see your round-trip flight.
I handle this situation by booking two one-way flights. You’ll book one flight from the U.S. to your destination country. This is the flight you will take, so if you usually book non-refundable tickets, you could do so on this flight. Then, you’ll book a second one-way flight leaving your destination country and going to a third country. This will allow you to demonstrate that you plan to leave the country if you enter as a tourist (again, you may or may not, depending on the country).

Note that the second one-way flight need not be back to the United States. This also may be weird for you to think about. You are unshackled! You can book a cheap flight to a neighboring country as long as it is not in the same visa or immigration zone as your destination country and your passport allows you to enter visa-free as a tourist.
For example, France and Spain are both part of the European Union’s Schengen Zone. Thus, you’d have to book a flight outside of the Schengen Zone (ideally outside of the European Union) to make this work. But if you are a U.S. Passport holder, you can’t just book a flight to Russia, for example. That wouldn’t work with a U.S. Passport, so you must be careful.
Booking Refundable Flights
I almost always book refundable tickets for this second one-way flight. This flight is a backup plan and a Plan B since you plan to obtain residency in your destination country. Once you achieve residency in your Destination Country, you can cancel this second one-way flight since you can legally stay in your new country indefinitely. Until you actually get your residency, you generally aren’t permitted to remain indefinitely.
You may also ask why not book a round-trip ticket and cancel the second part when the time comes. If you book non-refundable tickets, you usually can’t cancel the second part and get a refund. Even if you book refundable tickets, you must be clear on the terms and conditions about how much of a refund you would get back if you cancel the return leg after the first leg has been completed.

More importantly, booking a round-trip from the U.S. could be a sizeable financial outlay you just don’t need, especially if you have kids. Flights between neighboring countries are usually much cheaper than flights from the U.S.
Additionally, remember to book accommodations. This could be pretty easy to forget as you are so focused on your long-term accommodations if you have them already. But if you arrive late or arrive very early, your long-term accommodations may not be ready. You want to either arrange that in advance or book a hotel near the airport to crash at until you can get the keys to your new home the next day.
Temporary Travel and Health Insurance
Don’t forget to buy temporary travel and health insurance with at least six months of coverage. You need time to set up in your destination country, and you won’t have access to formal health insurance for a while. Generally, you need to become a resident of the country first before purchasing local health insurance. And it may take longer than you think to become a resident. Don’t play with your health – get at least six months to ensure you are covered.
Please remember that trip insurance is not necessarily the same as traveler’s health insurance. Trip insurance often just insures you against damages you incur during your trip, such as lost luggage, delayed flights, etc… You want to ensure you obtain travel insurance that includes health coverage. If something happens to you regarding your health, you need coverage in your destination country. Also, ensure it includes COVID-19 coverage.
Once you obtain residency, you can shop for local health insurance plans. Once you purchase a local health insurance plan, you can cancel or not renew your traveler’s health insurance. But please do not do this until you are 100% sure you have local health insurance.
Even if you purchase a local plan, there may be waiting periods for both coverage to start and for certain coverages to turn on. For example, our Ecuadorian health insurance had to start on the first of the month. Once it started, the plan covered emergencies after 24 hours but didn’t cover doctor’s visits for 30 days. I kept our traveler’s health insurance during this time because I wanted to leave nothing to chance.
Step 7: After Arrival in Your New Country
Oh wow, you made it to your destination country. How exciting! You will be on information overload as you have to learn how to “live” in your new surroundings and environment. Simple things are difficult. Tasks you could do without thinking back home take deliberate planning. And multiply the struggle if you are not fluent or have a working knowledge of the local language.
In this chapter, I provide tips to make your arrival and first days and weeks easier in your new country. Note that no matter how much you prepare, you will be unprepared. You have to go with the flow and prepare yourself to be unprepared.
Learn Patience and Overcoming Frustrations
I cannot stress enough how much patience you need during this time. I am impatient and quickly get stressed, which is not a good combination. This is where being a tourist and being a new resident differs. While on vacation, many things are taken care of for you, or you get cut slack for being a tourist. However, as a resident, you are primarily on your own and treated like a local.
I actually like being treated like a local because Kevin and I love immersing ourselves in the local culture. But, again, this can add stress for you because locals have the context you will not have. What is commonplace to locals requires detailed explanations for you. Yet, if you are a resident, it is assumed you know what to do – a Catch-22 situation.
For example, I was unaware you cannot use your cell phone in Ecuadorian banks. Thus, I waited in line to get to the teller to pay a bill, only to be turned away rather forcefully when I tried showing the teller the information on my cell phone. The second time around, I came prepared, but I was so frustrated the first time around. Again, the context is that locals know you can’t use cell phones inside, so they come prepared with written documents. I didn’t have that benefit the first time.
The best you can do is learn to forgive yourself for making mistakes. Depending on your country, if you practice kindness with the locals – especially if you can speak some parts of the local language – you will get a much warmer response. Remember that you are a guest in your new country – locals do not need to cater to your needs.
SIM Cards
You will want to switch to a local SIM card – cell phone service – as soon as possible in your new country. International SIM cards – or worse, roaming – are very expensive, yet you need your phone. In many countries, you can buy prepaid SIM cards or an eSIM from the major cell phone carriers in the country.
Some countries may require you to buy a Foreigner SIM card, such as Argentina. Almost always, these Foreigner SIM cards are far cheaper than an international data plan. Use your passport to purchase the Foreigner SIM Card for the moment. Once you obtain legal residency, you can switch to a local resident plan or even a post-paid contract plan for the best rates.

Ahead of time, you’ll want to see the local carriers in the country. Once you have arrived, visit one of their stores and buy a SIM card. Some countries allow kiosks and convenience stores to sell SIM cards. However, ensure that you can use these SIM cards as a foreigner. For example, Argentina requires a special Foreigner SIM Card that you must use your passport to purchase directly from a cell phone carrier. You can’t enable the SIM cards purchased from a kiosk without a local ID. We tried this approach in Argentina but failed.
Establishing Residency
After settling in and getting a SIM Card, you need to work on establishing legal residency in your new country. The clock starts once you arrive at the airport, so don’t push this to the back burner because “you have time.” Trust me, you may think you have time, yet once the little things you didn’t realize start piling up, you will run out of time.
If you arrive in a country that allows you to apply for residency as a tourist, you will want to ensure you have enough time on your tourist visa to complete the process. For example, Ecuador allows you to apply for residency after arrival. Yet, we had two problems we didn’t foresee.
The first problem was that Ecuador allows U.S. citizens to stay in Ecuador 90 days per year as tourists. But we had already spent around 50 days earlier that year as part of our scouting trip. This means we only had 40 days to complete the residency process.
The second problem was that before applying for residency, we had to certify my college degree as we applied for the Professional Visa. And the certification process was anything but easy. We had to make three separate trips to the Education Ministry – SENYSCYT – and the first two times, we got sent back for various reasons. You’d only understand the frustration if you had gone through the SENYSCYT process previously.
What should have been a one-week process ballooned into over a month before we could even start the residency application process. We had no choice but to ask for a tourist visa extension. Fortunately, Ecuador makes the tourist visa extension relatively easy. But if you overstay your visa, you get fined rather heavily, which could put your residency at risk.
If you arrive in a country that pre-issued your residency visa prior to you leaving the U.S., you are off to a better start. But don’t mistake your pre-issued visa for having completed the process. We obtained our Mexican residency visa in North Carolina before leaving. Yet, Mexico requires you to travel to Mexico within six months of that visa being issued to complete the process. And that process has to be completed within 30 days of arrival to Mexico – not six months!

We had to work on getting an appointment at the local Mexican immigration office. To do that, you must go in person, wait in line for an eternity, and hope you make it before they cut off the line and send you back. The very first night – yes, 9pm at night! – we went, and Kevin and I made the cutoff by only two people. They turned everyone back after the couple behind us was let through.
Earlier in this guide, I mentioned that if you can use a local lawyer or immigration assistant to help you, you 100% should pay the money to use that person. A common theme of this guide is that you don’t know what you don’t know. Multiply that with the emotions and stress of moving to a new country – especially if you are not able to speak the local language – and you don’t need immigration problems to top it all off. Mainly because, in many countries, immigration problems are a serious crime. Look no further than the U.S. for the problems you may incur – and the U.S. is relatively relaxed on this, to be honest.
Finding Your New Home After Leaving the U.S.
You may have purchased a home or found a rental during your previous scouting trip. However, many of you are going to your new country with nothing more than an Airbnb booked. That is what Kevin and I did; we flew to Ecuador with only a three-week Airbnb booked. (Note: book at least 28 days on Airbnb for monthly discounted pricing.)
First, I recommend booking an Airbnb for at least a month to allow you time to settle in and settle down. If you have previously done a scouting trip, you are ahead of the game because you may be familiar with neighborhoods and have a good idea of where you want to live. For many people, you have no idea or are excited at the prospect of trying out different cities and neighborhoods.

You can Airbnb for the long term and decide later if you want to do a long-term lease or buy a property. Kevin and I did long-term Airbnbs for almost a year before purchasing a condo in Quito. It allowed us to test different neighborhoods in Quito and learn which neighborhoods were best for us. We finally settled on the La Carolina neighborhood, at which time we negotiated with our Airbnb landlord to move us to a four-month lease. This allowed us time to search for a condo to buy and complete the process.
As you are now in your new country, seek out Expat groups to start learning the inside scoop on the various neighborhoods and cities. Finding a local real estate agent is an excellent idea, especially if you don’t speak the local language. In many cities worldwide, American real estate agents took the plunge years ago, just like you, and decided to stay and make it their home.
As a licensed real estate agent, I can quickly help you find local English-speaking Agents. Email us at hello@nomading.world for help!
Opening Bank Accounts
Once you get your legal residency, you want to open a local bank account. Moving all of your money to this bank account is unnecessary. In fact, we recommend that you don’t and diversify where your money is held worldwide. At the very least, give it some time in your new country before moving significant money to a local bank account. In some countries, getting the money back out is hard once it comes in. For example, transferring money out of Ecuador incurs a 5% penalty. In Argentina…well, don’t transfer dollars to Argentina if you want to see that money again.
Nonetheless, you still want a local bank account to pay bills like utilities. Some countries make it harder to use international credit cards, so having a local credit card – even if it is still a Visa or Mastercard – can be helpful. Additionally, having a local bank account makes it easier to transfer cash electronically, such as to your new friends or cleaning person. Read our experience as Expats opening up a bank account in Ecuador here.

We recommend opening a bank account with a large, well-established bank to start. Don’t cut corners and go with a small bank because they save you a few dollars monthly. You can always switch to that bank later on. But make it easy on yourself initially and just go with a big bank. Not only will they have widespread ATM access and probably better electronic banking options, but a large bank may also have experience working with foreigners. Yes, a big bank may have more stringent documentation requirements, but we have dealt with that with smaller banks, too.
Our bank in Portugal – Novobanco – is an expat-friendly bank. They have fluent English-speaking bankers, understand that foreign residents don’t quite understand the entire process, and provide excellent communication on what is needed and when. Opening a bank account with them was probably as easy as could be, as they understood how to handle a foreigner opening up a Portuguese bank account because they have done it so much.

Once your bank account is open, transfer some money from your home country to start paying bills. Perhaps only US$1,000 is needed, or maybe a few thousand dollars, depending on what you need to pay. For example, your lawyer may want to be paid locally, so you’ll need to transfer the lawyer fees on top of initial living expenses.
Either way, don’t go all-in and transfer your life savings to your new country – yet. Give it some months to a year, and ensure you are committed to the country in the long run. Nonetheless, diversification is always better than putting your eggs all in one basket, even if you commit yourself to your new country. This is especially true if your new country uses an unstable currency. You don’t want to transfer your life savings into the new currency only to watch that currency lose its value. Argentina is a prime example.

Note that we still keep several bank accounts in the U.S., including investment and 401k accounts. Leaving the U.S. doesn’t mean you must leave the U.S. banking system. Have U.S. banks part of your global financial portfolio unless you intend to renounce your U.S. citizenship. Either way, you must talk to financial advisors and tax planners in your new and former home countries.
Driver’s Licenses
If you are driving in your new country, do not forget to obtain a local driver’s license. Most countries allow foreigners to drive with their home country’s driver’s license for a short time period – perhaps no more than 60-90 days. And especially once you obtain residency, your new country may no longer consider you a foreigner and require that you obtain a local driver’s license. Again, you don’t want to shortcut the law in your new country!
Obtaining a local driver’s license may be relatively simple if you already have a valid one from your home country. Some countries may require you just to turn in your current driver’s license, sign some paperwork, and walk out with a new driver’s license. Others may ask you to complete a small written or eyesight test and move on. Yet others require you to perform a behind-the-wheel test.
Ask your immigration lawyer or assistant about obtaining a local driver’s license. They may be able to help you with that, and if so, you should seek their assistance. Regardless of what the process requires, you want to familiarize yourself with local traffic laws. What may be acceptable in your home country may be illegal in your new country, and vice versa.
Besides the written law, you also need to learn local driving customs. These unwritten rules will help you understand how to drive in your new country. In some parts of Latin America, lane lines are mere suggestions. Weaving in and out of lanes is commonplace and just ordinary driving. In Ecuador and Peru, honking is part of the local culture and is almost always not taken as being rude. If you flip out because someone honked at you, you could be in deep trouble.
Schools
If you have kids, start the process of enrolling them in school right away. Ideally, you have done your planning beforehand and know which schools you want your kids to attend. However, check the local school calendar. Remember that the seasons in the southern hemisphere are opposite of the northern hemisphere – i.e., North America and Europe. Summer vacations in Argentina are in December and January, not July!
Likewise, think about schools for yourself. Yes, you! You may want to consider enrolling in a language school if you don’t know the local language well. You could also try an online school or one of many DIY language courses, such as Rosetta Stone, Pimslauer, and even Duolingo. Whatever you choose, the most important thing is to practice constantly. Practice yourself, with your spouse, with your kids (who will learn the language faster than you), the waiter, neighbors, and anyone who will listen to you.

Obtaining Long-term Health Insurance
After you obtain residency, you’ll want to purchase health insurance in your new country. Health insurance will be cheaper than in the U.S., and your U.S. health insurance will not cover international health except for emergencies. You will want a local plan not just for emergencies but also for day-to-day health needs. And for retirees especially, remember that Medicare does not provide any international coverage.
Initially, I tried researching Ecuadorian health plans to figure out what to get. However, it was a bit hard genuinely to understand the coverages provided. Again, this is where understanding a language is not the same as understanding the context of that language. I gave up and used an English-speaking insurance broker our Ecuadorian immigration lawyer referred us to. He was terrific and provided us with several options. Using him was far easier than figuring out what health plan to get on my own.

We have established relationships with doctors and dentists in Ecuador. They all have been amazing, and the level of care has been equal to or superior to in the United States. I found our doctor by searching Google for an English-speaking doctor in Quito. While there were several options, I had to confirm they accepted our health insurance company, just like in the U.S. Some things don’t change!
On the other hand, I found our dentist simply by visiting Google Maps and seeing the dentists around our home. I found one who accepted our insurance and spoke English down the street. We’ve had cleanings, X-rays, and fillings done with this dentist, and the work has been perfect each time.
Note that our Ecuadorian health insurance provides trip and health insurance outside Ecuador for up to 30 days. Therefore, I still purchase travel health insurance from a U.S. company when we are outside of Ecuador. I don’t want to leave anything to chance when there is an emergency abroad. However, if we got sick and needed long-term care, then we’d have to return to Ecuador to use our long-term health insurance.
Step 8: Connections with the United States after Leaving the U.S.
Even though you are no longer living in the United States, that doesn’t mean you have “left” the United States. At the very least, as long as you are a U.S. Citizen, you are obligated to file and pay federal taxes if you are otherwise required to. You may also have to file your FATCA declaration yearly once you open bank accounts in other countries. Furthermore, you will still rely on the U.S. for banking, work, pensions and social security, and connections with friends and family. These connections may never go away.
In the excitement of planning for the next step of your life, you will focus on building your life in your new country. However, remember to plan for your “life” still in the United States. Unless you renounce your American citizenship, you will always have some connection to the U.S. Even if you renounce your citizenship, you may still have connections to the U.S.!
Filing U.S. Taxes
As a U.S. citizen, you must file a U.S. tax return each year if otherwise required. In other words, if you need to file and pay taxes if you had lived in the U.S., then you must file and pay taxes even after leaving the U.S. Many Americans mistakenly believe if they stop living in the United States, they no longer have to pay taxes in the U.S. Unfortunately, this is simply not true.
However, this is also where having an accountant or tax preparer familiar with expats is critical. Unlike taxpayers who live in the U.S., expats have access to several tax breaks to reduce or lower their U.S. taxes. The two main tax breaks are through tax treaties and the Foreign Earned Income Exemption (FEIE).
U.S. Tax Treaties
Several countries worldwide – primarily in Europe – have tax treaties with the U.S., so Americans residing in those countries aren’t liable for total double taxation. Of course, this doesn’t mean you aren’t paying taxes, just that if you pay taxes in your new country, the IRS may give you a U.S. tax break (but generally, you still have to file and may still need to pay some U.S. taxes). It is way above my expertise to describe how tax treaties work. Just note that these treaties exist, and if you move to one of these countries, you must contact your accountant to determine how the taxes work.
Foreign Earned Income Exemption (FEIE)
The other way to reduce or eliminate your U.S. taxes is through the Foreign Earned Income Exemption (FEIE). The FEIE states that if you earn income abroad up to a certain amount per year – $126,000 as of 2024 – then you don’t have to pay U.S. taxes on that amount. This can be an incredible way to save money!
Yet again, it is not a panacea. First, it refers to earned income, such as through work. Passive income, such as pensions and dividends, don’t count. Second, if you earn income above the FEIE threshold, that income is taxed at that full marginal rate. In other words, the FEIE is not a deduction but simply an exemption. Third, you still need to pay FICA on the money subject to the FEIE, and if you are self-employed, the employer portion of FICA, too. Fourth, you can’t combine FEIE allotments if your filing status is married. Each spouse gets the same FEIE amount, but a married couple doesn’t get to combine said amounts. Simply put, each spouse receives the FEIE exemption for their individual wages.
Furthermore, the FEIE eligibility is subject to very specific requirements. Ensure you are 100% compliant with these requirements. We used to file our taxes individually using TurboTax. However, we switched to an expat tax preparer when we moved abroad to ensure our FEIE was done correctly. A lot of money is at stake, and since Kevin and I both work, we wanted to take full advantage of the FEIE.
Voting in U.S. Elections
U.S. citizens can vote in Federal U.S. elections even if living abroad. However, you’ll be voting by mail only when living abroad. As such, you will need to request an absentee ballot, complete it, and send it back way in advance of the usual voting Tuesday in November. Pay attention to these dates if you wish to vote in federal U.S. elections after leaving the U.S.
The best place to learn about voting as an American Expat is the Federal Voting Assistance Program at fvap.gov. You can also contact your local U.S. Embassy for more information on voting abroad.
Notarization after Leaving the U.S.
Many of my international clients at work ask how they can get something notarized to be used in the United States if they live abroad. Apostilles only apply to documents from one country being used in another, not documents originating and being used in the same country. Fortunately, there are two primary ways of getting documents notarized after leaving the U.S.
The easiest way is through a Remote Online Notary (RON). Many states allow RONs now; if your home state allows it, that is awesome. You will still need an American ID card or Passport to utilize a RON. However, you can be anywhere in the world and get something signed via a RON for use in the United States. Not all states, governments, or companies accept Remote Online Notaries, so check before spending money on one.
On the other hand, the traditional way to notarize a document abroad is to visit a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad. The American Citizen Services (ACS) branch of the Embassy or Consulate will notarize documents for you, and the Consular Officer’s stamp is valid anywhere in the United States. You do not have to be a resident of the country where you visit the U.S. Embassy. We had to get a real estate document notarized, and we had it done at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. We just had to show our U.S. Passport and schedule an appointment.

Appointments tend to go quickly, especially at the more popular Embassies. Also, plan to spend a while getting your documents notarized. Even though we booked an appointment at the Mexico City Embassy, we still spent three hours getting the document notarized. It was also relatively expensive, at over $100.
A final option only applies if you live near the U.S., such as in Vancouver, Toronto, or a Mexican border town. Sometimes, it may be simpler to drive across the border into the U.S., use a local Notary Public, and drive back home. It seems like you wouldn’t have to do this but trust me, I have seen clients do this trick if they live near the U.S. border. It’s a bit more expensive, but if you are in Asia, you could fly to Guam or Hawaii to get it done. A flight to Miami is your best bet if living in Central America, the Carribbean, and northern South America.

Global Entry
Leaving the U.S. isn’t a one-way ticket. If you plan on visiting the U.S. quite a bit, we strongly recommend you sign up for Global Entry. Going through U.S. immigration as a Global Entry holder is such a breeze; we couldn’t live without it! The best part is that Global Entry is quite easy to get and lasts four years at a time. Furthermore, if you have a travel-based credit card or a premier rewards credit card, you may qualify for reimbursement for the Global Entry fee.
You can apply for Global Entry online and then complete the application at an airport that supports completion-on-arrival. I did this on arrival at Austin’s airport after returning from Mexico. Note that you must complete the process through an international flight since you’ll need to go through immigration and customs. On the other hand, we pre-scheduled an interview for Kevin at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. That process was also quite easy and convenient.
Note that Global Entry also serves as your TSA Pre-Check authorization. Thus, there is no reason not to pay a bit extra and upgrade to Global Entry.

Black Friday Sales
Many goods, especially clothing and electronics, are more expensive outside the United States. You will want to keep track of Black Friday sales in the U.S. to stock up on goods you need. You may ship it to your new country or have it shipped to friends or family in the U.S. to receive when you visit. Of course, check on prices between the U.S. and your new country to ensure paying the shipping and customs taxes and tariffs make it worth it.

For Ecuador, taking advantage of the country’s “4×4” tax-free import quota is fantastic for small goods. On the other end of the spectrum, Ecuador removed tariffs on computers and laptops a couple of years ago. Thus, purchasing these goods in the U.S. and importing them into Ecuador is still an excellent deal, even considering the shipping charges. However, other items like clothing and larger non-electronics have heavy tariffs and taxes coming into Ecuador, so those are usually cheaper to purchase locally.
Additionally, take advantage of Black Friday sales with airlines and hotels to save on your trips to visit the U.S. and other countries, especially neighbors. It may be weird to consider a trip to the U.S. as an international vacation after leaving the U.S.
Having said that, Black Friday is alive and well in countries outside of the U.S. Don’t sleep on local Black Friday sales. We furnished our new condo in Quito during Black Friday 2023 and scored on appliances and furniture.

Google Photos/iCloud Photos
One of the joys of traveling is taking photos to reminisce later on. I used to avoid taking pictures when traveling because I didn’t want to lug around – and show off – a DSLR camera. However, with cell phones now equivalent to or even superior to DSLR cameras, it is far easier to take photos when out and about. And for your family and friends back home, it can be great to share your new life with them.

We use Google Photos to keep and share our photos. You can easily pay around $2/month for the starter Google One plan that includes 100GB of storage. You can obtain 2TB of storage for around $20/month if you need more storage. After uploading photos, sharing them with friends and family is simple. We use Google’s service since we have Android phones, but iCloud works similarly if you have an iPhone.
Even if you don’t have friends and family to share photos with, take photos when possible. Before, I didn’t see the need to take pictures because I figured there was nothing to do with them afterward. But now, looking back at the memories we created through our travels is fun. And not all photos have to be Instagram-worthy! Even pictures of meals, prices at the grocery store, or a funny sign you see while walking can bring back vivid memories you may otherwise forget. I loved reminiscing while reviewing our photo albums to select pictures for this guide.
Final Thoughts on Leaving the U.S.
Looking back at the very first international trip I took in 2008 to Japan and Vietnam, I would never have imagined that I would be actually living outside the United States. Kevin and I spoke about it for years – our original target destination was Denmark of all places! – but I held us back. It wasn’t for the lack of desire, but a lot of fear. Now that we have lived outside the U.S. for more than two years, I really wish we had done this sooner.
But at the same time, Covid really improved the environment for us leaving the U.S. From normalizing remote work to the revelation that life is short and we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, our ability to move abroad was made easier after Covid than before. Thus, I can’t regret not moving earlier. What I can do is help others achieve their dreams and goals of moving abroad.
Let me know how I can help you – email me at hello@nomading.world Plus leave comments below if you have made the journey abroad, or you are thinking about it, or you are just dreaming about it!
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This is an excellent encyclopedia to anyone who is considering living or traveling long-term in another country, and it has such details and useful information!!! I don’t think there’s any question that couldn’t be answered, by anyone who reads this article.