You Don't Have to Know Exactly What You're Getting Into to Move Abroad

Dr. Raquel
Aug 16
7 min read

I was talking to a friend recently about moving abroad, and somewhere in the conversation I realized something I hadn't really thought about in a long time. Of all the places my husband and I have decided to move, only a few were places we had actually visited before making that decision.

We had never been to Spain before moving to Spain. We had never been to Germany before moving to Germany. The same was true when opportunities took us to Switzerland and France. Belgium was different because I actually interviewed there before we moved, and Mexico was a place I had spent time in when I was younger, but never as an adult before we decided to move. Now, as we work through the process of moving to Canada, we've had the opportunity to visit and experience the area before making that decision.

But for a lot of our life abroad, we didn't have that. We couldn't tell you exactly what it would feel like to wake up there every morning, whether we would love the neighborhood, find our people, adjust easily, or eventually decide that particular place wasn't for us.

We went anyway.

Looking back, I think that willingness to step into something without knowing exactly how it would turn out has shaped so much of the life I've been fortunate enough to live.

You Can't Research Your Way Out of the Unknown

Now, let me be clear. I am a planner. I believe in doing your research before moving abroad. I believe in understanding visa requirements, researching schools, looking at the cost of living, thinking through healthcare, figuring out your finances, and asking a whole lot of questions before uprooting your life. That's a big part of what I teach through Best Life Abroad.

But I also believe there comes a point where preparation ends and experience begins.

You can watch 100 YouTube videos about a country, join Facebook groups, read Reddit threads, study neighborhood maps, compare grocery prices, and talk to people who already live there. All of those things can help you make a more informed decision, but none of them can tell you exactly what it will feel like for you to live there.

I think that's where some people get stuck. We tell ourselves we're gathering more information when, in reality, we're looking for certainty. We want to know that we'll love it, that our children will adjust, that we'll make friends, that the financial decision will work out, and that we won't regret leaving.

But nobody can promise you that. I certainly can't.

Moving abroad is still life, and life doesn't come with guarantees.

But What If I Regret Moving Abroad?

I think this is one of the biggest fears people have about moving abroad. What if you go through all the work of moving to another country and then realize you made the wrong decision?

My perspective on this has changed tremendously after living in several countries because I no longer see moving abroad as a decision that has to determine the rest of your life. You are making a decision about what you want to try next.

If you move somewhere and don't like it, you can make another decision. Maybe that particular country wasn't right for you. Maybe you need a different city, job, school, neighborhood, climate, or community. Maybe you discover that you actually prefer living in your home country and decide to go back.

And yes, you might regret moving.

But here's the thing: nothing has to be permanent, including regret.

You can regret a decision and change it. You can discover that something isn't what you imagined and choose something else. You can come home. You can move somewhere else. You can change the plan.

The kind of regret that has always scared me more is wondering what would have happened if I had tried.

I Would Rather Regret Trying Than Regret Never Knowing

Since I was young, I've said that I never wanted fear of the unknown to stop me from doing something. At the time, I don't think I fully understood how much that belief would shape my life.

It took me to Spain and Germany and eventually into a life that included years of living across Europe. It gave me friendships, experiences, languages, communities, professional opportunities, and an understanding of the world that I don't think I could have developed in the same way if I had stayed where everything felt familiar.

After living around the world, I believe that philosophy even more today.

That doesn't mean I don't experience fear. Fear can actually be useful. It can make you prepare, ask better questions, look more carefully at your finances, create a backup plan, and think through what could go wrong. What I don't want is for fear to be the thing making the final decision for me.

If I had waited until I knew exactly what Spain would be like before going, I might never have gone. And my experience in Spain is what propelled my global life! If I had needed Germany to feel familiar before moving there, I might never have built a life there. If every international move had required absolute certainty that we would love the experience before we left, so much of our family's story simply wouldn't exist.

And none of that means every experience was perfect. There were hard moments. There were things I didn't like. There were places that fit us better than others and seasons of life abroad that were easier than others.

But perfection was never the requirement. Having the opportunity to experience it was.

Moving Abroad Doesn't Have to Be Forever

This is one of the biggest mindset shifts I want people considering life abroad to make. You do not have to approach moving abroad as a forever decision.

Maybe you give yourself a year. Maybe you spend several months somewhere if your circumstances and immigration rules allow it. Maybe you accept a job abroad and decide you'll reassess after the first contract. Maybe your family agrees to try something different for a season and see what you learn.

Sometimes actually living somewhere is the only way to get the information you need to decide whether it works for you long term.

Living abroad teaches you what you miss about home and, sometimes surprisingly, what you don't miss at all. You discover which conveniences matter to you, what kind of community you need, how your children adjust, what makes you feel at home, and what parts of your previous lifestyle you aren't interested in recreating.

You also learn a tremendous amount about yourself.

Those are things no country comparison chart, relocation quiz, or amount of research can completely tell you beforehand. Sometimes you have to live the experience and then use what you learn to decide what comes next. I am living this in real time!

Flexibility Is One of the Greatest Freedoms of Life Abroad

People often ask me where they should move, and of course that's an important question. But I think another important question is: What happens if I change my mind?

For us, the answer has always been that we'll figure out what comes next.

We've lived in different countries. We've returned to the United States. We've made plans and changed plans. We've discovered things we loved and things we didn't. And what our family needs now is not necessarily what we needed ten years ago.

That's one of the reasons I believe so deeply in the idea behind Best Life Abroad. Your best life isn't one specific country that you somehow have to identify correctly before you leave. It can change as you change. A place that works beautifully for you in one season may not be what you need in another.

There is so much freedom in realizing that you don't have to get your entire life right with one decision. You are allowed to make the best decision you can with the information you have, experience it, learn from it, and decide what comes next.

Don't Let Fear of the Unknown Make Your World Smaller

If you're waiting for the idea of moving abroad to stop feeling scary before you do it, you may be waiting a very long time. There will probably always be unknowns because there are some things you simply cannot know until you live them.

That doesn't mean throwing caution to the wind. Research the visa. Look at your finances. Think about healthcare. Consider your children. Learn about the country. Understand the risks. Create a backup plan. Do the responsible things that make it possible to take a calculated risk rather than a reckless one.

But after you've done those things, pay attention to whether preparation has quietly turned into trying to eliminate every possible unknown before allowing yourself to move forward.

Because certainty may never come.

I think about the countries I moved to without ever having stepped foot in them before. I couldn't have known what those decisions would ultimately bring into my life. I couldn't have known which experiences would be difficult, which people would become lifelong friends, which opportunities would change my career, or how living abroad would ultimately change the way I see myself and the world.

I just knew I didn't want fear of what I didn't know to be the reason I never found out.

And after all these years and all these experiences, I still believe what I've believed since I was young: don't let fear of the unknown stop you from experiencing what could be on the other side of it.

You can prepare. You can be thoughtful. You can have a backup plan. And you can still decide to try something without knowing exactly how it's going to turn out.

Because if it doesn't work, you can make another decision.

But if you never give yourself permission to try, you may always wonder what could have happened if you had.

Your journey. Your life. Your way.

Dr. Raquel

Ready to start planning your move abroad?

Best Life Abroad helps you move from thinking about living abroad to creating a practical plan for making it happen. From funding your move and choosing a destination to preparing for the transition and building your life overseas, you do not have to figure out every step on your own.

www.BestLifeAbroad.com

Stay Connected and begin living your Best Life Abroad