ok brehs so am going to drop some harsh realities right quick since living abroad has come up a lot around here lately , some things to keep in mind
- I would only recommend making a jump to living abroad if you have some money in the bank first, $5,000 is good to start off with
- Do a lot of research on Visa laws, i see dudes always tellin dudes to go live abroad but they never expand on getting Visas in these countries or the implications of what happens when you live outside the US for the more than 6 months
-Buying property aboard is not as easy as it seems , obviously if you sitting here talkin about buying a house abroad then you have money in the bank and dont need to work there, but buying a house in other countries is pretty similar to here but not as smooth, you still have to deal with banks,lenders,realtors etc with TON more paper than you would here
- Getting a job is not as easy as showing up there and sayin hey i want to teach , a lot of these countries you either have to know someone or do a wholeeeee lot of networking (hence why you need the $5,000 to to live on ) and income is nowhere as high as some of the figures i see here
-If we strictly talkin teaching, yes, actual in school time might only be 4-6 hours per day, but teaching preparing can easily add an hour 3-5 hours per day, so expect to be working 4-12 hours per day.
-speakin of work dont expect to earn any benefits aboard most of these place dont have retirement/401k none of that, yes that might be something u dont care bout but still something good to
-renting those luxury apartments are a dream , trust me most of those are usually far away from a city center or where you would and they also have rigorous application process and usually are to buy only not renting and require high down payments
- speaking of getting around , methods of transportation in most other countries are different that here, everything from public to driving, way different than what you used to
-Security , this is mostly for south america, pretty simple , your an american , there is a target on your back, be ready to get robbed at least once in your life if not more, it happens to people from the areas so it will happen to you, also because your american everyone will try to scam you
-Food and other customs, this is blessing and curse there will be many american things you miss man you dont, food being one of the main ones, and yes most place have mcdonalds and kfc but yea this not a viable daily option
- Communications , cellphone services are mostly prepaid and usually have very shytting plans and almost always dont offer international options, so be ready to do all your communications with people back home through skype/IM's
There's many other things am forgetting and i will ad to this post as i remember, but yea this come from someone who has family/friends living in other countries and could easily move there (panama,Amsterdam,Germany,Dominican republic) and chose not to , I will end up retiring in panama though and am going there in a few weeks and then in a few months to look at some property
i might make this a 2015 goal
