A few days ago, I asked the question, “Is US health care driving Americans to move abroad?” The response was swift. “Of course it is,” wrote Lya Sorano, Atlanta businesswoman. “Hardly a month passes in which I do not hear about a friend-of-a-friend or former neighbor decamping to Mexico or Costa Rica. I may be next . . . :-)" Mary Duckworth Mimouna, living in Morocco, responded: "It was one of the major factors prompting me to move overseas in 1993 when I did with my foreign husband. We had no …
Health Care: Is it Driving US Citizens to Move Overseas?
I spoke with a real estate agent yesterday to see whether we have any realistic prospect of selling our house in this economy. I mentioned to her that we would be leaving the area, so of course she wanted to know our plans. “We can’t afford to retire here,” I explained, “so we’re looking at moving south of the border. We’re considering Mexico, Panama or Ecuador.” There was a silence at the other end of the phone line. “Oh,” she said, “you’re about the fourth or fifth person who’s told me that …
Continue Reading about Health Care: Is it Driving US Citizens to Move Overseas?
Expat Films: Victor Victoria
Victor Victoria, starring Julie Andrews, Robert Preston and James Garner, was released in 1982. It's hard to believe this film is nearly 30 years old. All the main characters are expats in Paris during the difficult years following the great stock market crash of 1929 in the US. Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is an out-of-work English soprano in Paris in 1934. Abandoned by her husband, left jobless when the director of the Bath Touring Light Opera Company absconded with the company's funds, she …
Finance Your Life Overseas by Teaching English
One popular way to finance your new life abroad is to teach English as a second language. While formal teaching experience is not required, most programs require you to be a native speaker and have a Bachelor’s Degree. Training and certification as a TESOL (Teaching English as a second or other language) or TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) can be obtained through online courses, or classroom teaching in many US locations as well as locations throughout the world. The website …
Continue Reading about Finance Your Life Overseas by Teaching English
Write Your Way to a Life Overseas
In our last installment, we talked about writing as a way to finance your life abroad, specifically travel writing. There are, of course, many other different kinds of writing, and almost any of them can be done remotely once you develop the skills and, more importantly, the contacts. There is a huge demand for quality web content in many forms, including blog posts, articles on nearly any subject, marketing materials, advertising, and …
Expat Books: The New Global Student
The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education by Maya Frost. Maya Frost has written a rather astonishing (to me, at least) how-to book. While her focus is ostensibly on how living and studying overseas is a powerful alternative to the standard US educational path, it is also much more. The Frost family, Maya, Tom and four daughters, were living in Portland, OR when they decided -- with three daughters in high school -- to move to …