How to Move Abroad: Your Guide to Start Living Abroad

When I moved to Switzerland I didn't speak German. And I was fine. I worked for a global company, English was the working language, I could do my job completely competently without it.

And then I moved to Vienna. And I had a direct report who didn't feel comfortable speaking English. And suddenly I had to manage someone... in German. And that changed everything about how I learned.

This week I'm talking about the language barrier and your career abroad. The three levels of language need and which one applies to you. Why Foreign Fridays...

My daughter and I are reading Harry Potter right now. Goblet of Fire specifically. And somewhere between the dragon and the lake and the maze I realized ... this is exactly what moving abroad feels like.

Quick note upfront: JK Rowling has said and done things I don't agree with and won't pretend otherwise. The story belongs to the readers now. So we're talking about the story.

This week I'm mapping the Triwizard Tournament onto the move abroad process.

The dragon: the obstacle you didn't fully see coming that you have to get through...

Nobody goes from the couch to running 10 kilometers without training. It doesn't matter how motivated you are, how badly you want it, or how expensive your shoes are. The distance requires training. The training takes time. And the time is not optional.

Moving abroad is exactly the same.

This week I'm using running — actual running, the specific experience of sitting in the driveway wondering if you just go, the first kilometer feeling great, kilometer two where you want to die — to talk about what the move abroad process actually looks like from the inside. Why you...

Twelve years in and three moves later, I'm going back to 2013 — the Switzerland move, the one that started it all — and telling you exactly what I'd do differently.

The good stuff first: negotiating to keep my job across an ocean, moving the cats the right way, and doing a scouting trip to find our apartment before we arrived. All of it worth it.

And then the honest part. The queen size sleigh bed that didn't fit. The cookie sheets that didn't fit the oven. The $2,000 we had in the bank when we needed three months of r...

I cannot swim. I know the theory. I've watched people do it my entire life. I could explain the mechanics to you in detail.

And if you threw me in a pool right now the outcome would not be good.

This week I'm talking about why moving abroad is the same — why you cannot read or research your way into being ready for something you can only learn by doing. Why the not knowing yet is not the problem. Why the falling down on the ice is not failure, it's the process. And why my da...

You've been googling moving abroad for weeks. Maybe months. And the information you've found is — some of it useful, some of it outdated, and some of it confidently, specifically wrong in ways that are sending your planning in the wrong direction.

This week I'm going through the biggest things Google gets wrong about moving abroad. The money number that doesn't apply to you. The digital nomad visa obsession. The Schengen confusion. The backwards order of operations. The you stop paying US taxes when you leave myth that could actually get you in legal trouble.

Google is...

I've restarted this episode three times. I've made coffee I didn't drink. I've listened to approximately four true crime podcasts this week and I know more about cases in rural Ohio than I do about my own content plan.

And I'm guessing you have a version of this too. Not about a podcast. About the move. The research you've been doing. The applications you've been sending. The thing you've been working toward that hasn't quite shown up back yet.

This week I'm talking about the in-between. The hardest part that nobody names. The place where...

I am, in English, reasonably funny. Quick. Articulate. I can read a room.

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

This week I'm talking about something I call competence grief ... the real, disorienting loss that comes from being good at th...

You've optimized your LinkedIn profile. You have the right keywords, the right headline, the right summary. You're applying to listings that match your experience. You're posting content to stay visible.

And nothing is happening.

This week I'm telling you why. LinkedIn is not a job hunting platform — it's social media for people who are at work. And the difference between those two things matters enormously when you're trying to get a job in another country as a foreign applicant hitting apply from six thousand miles away.

What LinkedIn is actually good for. What it...

Moving abroad is a privilege. I'm going to say that clearly and then spend the whole episode explaining what I mean by it — because I don't mean what you might think I mean.

I moved to Switzerland with less than $2,000 in the bank. I also had a relocation package, a transferable job, a university education, and a US passport. Both of those things were true at the same time. And I think that's actually the more honest version of this conversation than either extreme — not only rich people can move abroad, and also not everyone can move abro...

You've been using visa, permit, and residency like they mean the same thing. They don't. And it's sending your research in the wrong direction.

This week I'm walking through the vocabulary of moving abroad — not in a glossary kind of way, just in a these words matter and here's why kind of way. Visa vs. permit. Temporary vs. permanent residency. Citizenship vs. naturalization. Schengen vs. EU. Domicile. Leave to remain. All of it.

Because the more fluent you get in this language the clearer your planning becomes. And right now a lot of you are go...

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

I had cancer at thirty. I've navigated healthcare in two countries with that history, including a high-risk pregnancy in Switzerland that cost me nothing beyond my regular insurance premium.

This week I'm talking about what healthcare in Europe actually looks like — how most of Europe's systems work for legal residents, what makes Switzerland different, whether doctors speak English, and what to do about the gap between leaving your American coverage and getting onto a new system.

Also: if you've been telling yourself you can't move abroad because of your health situation — please listen to this one...

Here's the thing nobody says clearly enough: moving abroad is not opting out. You still file US taxes. You still carry that passport and get the face when someone finds out you're American. You still feel the dollar losing value in your actual bank account. You are still affected by what happens there.

This week I'm making the case for why your vote matters more from abroad than you might think ... and why five million Americans living outside the US not voting is one of the most quietly consequential political facts nobody talks about.

FVAP...

Nobody wants to talk about taxes. Until the IRS sends them a letter, at which point everybody wants to talk about taxes very urgently.

This week I'm giving you the heads up before that happens. The basics of what Americans abroad actually need to know about US taxes — why you still have to file even when you live somewhere else, why you probably won't owe anything, what FBAR is and why the penalties for missing it are genuinely alarming, and what to do about your state taxes before you leave.

This is not tax advice. I...

Someone I know just got accepted into a Master's program in France. She's in her thirties. She's moving in September. And she is not doing this because she couldn't think of anything else — she's doing it because it is one of the smartest moves I've seen someone make in a long time.

This week I'm making the case for the student visa as a legitimate, strategic, completely underrated pathway for adults who want to move abroad. We're talking about what a student visa actually gives you, why earning a local degree dramatically changes your job prospects in th...

This one is for the person who has been doing the work. Really doing it — hiring coaches, rewriting the resume, applying and applying and applying — and still not moving.

This week I'm talking about what's actually happening when the job-first strategy isn't working, why the problem is sometimes structural and not personal, and the questions worth sitting with honestly when you've been at this long enough that the effort and the results have completely stopped matching.

Also: the thing career coaches often don't say, why being on the ground changes everything, and why your first move...

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

This week I'm talking about what I actually learned navigating school systems abroad — the real cost of international school versus local school, what the Swiss tracking system at grade six means and why it matters more than most expat content will tell you, and the questions you actu...

You have the plan. You have the country, the visa, the number, the Tuesday Test results. You know this works.

Now you have to tell people.

This week I'm walking through every type of person you're going to tell about your move abroad — the Catastrophizer, the Underminer, the one who makes it about themselves, the Unsolicited Expert, and the rare and precious Quiet Supportive One — and exactly how to handle each of them without abandoning your plan or your sanity.

Also: the partner conversation, the people who won't come around, and what you actu...

You picked a country. Amazing. Now let's find out if it actually works.

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

This week I'm walking you through the Tuesday Test — five questions that tell you whether your country works for your real life or whether you...

Last week I made you cry. This week I'm giving you a break.

No frameworks, no heavy stuff, no seventeen-step process. Just the honest, slightly unhinged truth about why you're overcomplicating this — and the only three things you actually need right now to move this whole situation forward.

Spoiler: it's not a perfect plan. It's not a fully funded savings account. It's not a remote job and a signed lease and a detailed spreadsheet.

It's a country, a visa lane, and your actual number. That's it. We're covering all three and then I'm se...

I found out I had breast cancer at thirty years old. That's the real reason I moved abroad — not the job offer, not the adventure. The diagnosis that made one day stop being an option.

This week I'm telling you the actual story. The cancer. The friends I lost. My best friend of twenty years I haven't spoken to in eleven. The moment every single time I say goodbye to my mom at the airport. The weight of being far from home when things go wrong.

And then I'm telling you why I'd do it ag...

Everyone on the internet has an opinion about how much money you need to move abroad. Most of them are wrong — or at least, wrong for you.

This week I'm giving you a simple formula to calculate your actual savings target based on your specific situation: where you're going, which visa you're using, and how long you need to float yourself before income kicks in. Because your number is built from those things — not from a Reddit thread and not from what someone else paid to move to Barcelona in 2019.

I'm also getting into why the...

Moving abroad means making trade-offs. Every single person who has done it has had to make them — there is no version of this where you don't. The goal isn't to avoid them. It's to make them on purpose instead of by accident, because the accidental ones are the ones you end up resenting.

This week I'm breaking down the two trade-offs that trip people up the most — do you move now with less money or wait and keep saving, and do you ship your stuff or sell it all and start fresh. I'm also getting into how to s...

Once people realize moving abroad might actually be possible, this is where things usually go sideways.

In this episode, I talk through the exact places I see people overspend when they’re scared, where they cheap out and regret it later, and how fear quietly drives a lot of money decisions during an international move. This isn’t about perfect budgeting or cutting everything fun — it’s about making trade-offs intentionally instead of panicking your way through them.

If you want to move abroad without burning cash, burning out, or resenting every decision you make along th...

There’s a moment in the move-abroad process that almost no one talks about — and it’s not the exciting beginning or the adrenaline-filled end.

It’s the messy middle.

In this episode of How to Move Abroad, I talk about the exact point where most people quietly bow out of their plans — not because they ran the numbers and the numbers said no, but because they didn’t run the numbers and let fear fill in the blanks.

We’re talking about money in a way that actually helps you move forward — not finance-bro...

Appointments and processing timelines are the part of moving abroad people avoid until it is too late.

In this episode, I break down the difference between document timelines, appointment timelines, processing timelines, and your real life move timeline. I explain why appointments are often the real bottleneck, how to plan backwards so you stop getting surprised, and what to do when you cannot get a slot.

I also share my Austria appointment adventure and the lesson it taught me about building buffer time and backup plans.

Weekly task included: the Appointment Map.

In this episode, I break down the documents that control your moving abroad timeline, including passports, certified birth and marriage certificates, background checks, income proof, and when apostilles and translations matter.

I also explain the three ways people get delayed (wrong document version, authentication requirements, and expiration windows) and I give you a simple weekly task.

Grab PreparedAF to make your document checklist SIMPLE!

Follow me on Instagram @iammistelle

Moving abroad is not expensive in one big way. It is expensive in dozens of small ones. In this episode, I break down what you should DIY, what is worth paying for, and where people waste money out of overwhelm instead of strategy.

We talk about how to decide based on risk, timeline, and complexity, which parts of moving abroad are safe to do yourself, and when paying for professional help actually saves you time, money, and stress. I also share common traps like paying for country selection before knowing your visa and buying courses without an...

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

What I cover

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

What we cover

Welcome to Season 2... and yes, the podcast has a new name. ABROADly Speaking is now How to Move Abroad. Same show, same feed, same me. I just got tired of pretending we’re here to “chat about life abroad” when what you actually need is a plan that works in real life.

In the new format, every episode ends with one weekly task because collecting information isn’t progress, and we're done with 'next year' energy.

In this kickoff episode, I’m talking about the thing that keeps most people stuck: the 47-tab spiral. It feels prod...

If you’ve been pacing around your house trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to take with you when you move abroad, this episode is the sanity you need.

We’re not talking about “decluttering.”

We’re not talking about “sparking joy.”

We’re talking about what actually needs to go in the boxes when you move your entire life across an ocean.

This is the straight-to-the-point, no-Pinterest, no-fantasy guide to choosing what comes with you, what stays behind, and what you should absolutely stop feeling guilty about letting go...

This episode is not a pep talk.

It’s not a motivational countdown to midnight.

It’s not a “new year, new me” vision-board moment.

This is the real conversation most people avoid at the end of the year — the one where you look honestly at your life and admit whether it’s actually working for you.

Because the holidays have a way of showing us the truth: who we’ve become, what we’ve outgrown, and what we’re still pretending we’re okay with.

And if you’ve been telling yourse...

Everyone thinks they can “just Google” their way through a move abroad… until they’re eight tabs deep in contradictory visa articles, three breakdowns into Reddit threads, and somehow watching a YouTube video from 2014 about moving to Spain that hasn’t been accurate since Obama was in office.

In this episode, I’m breaking down why Google cannot and will not give you the roadmap you think it will. We’re talking outdated info, missing context, bad advice, and the reasons the algorithm has no idea who you are, what you qualify for, or what country won’t immediately reject your poorly formatted resume.

If you’re stuck in “I should be able to figure this...

Last night, the U.S. crossed a line that a lot of us have been quietly watching for years.

A nationally framed “Patriot Games” competition — one high school boy and girl per state, competing in an athletic showdown — sounds harmless on paper. But if your stomach dropped when you read that headline, this episode is for you.

In this episode of ABROADly Speaking, I’m talking about why moments like this aren’t isolated, why they feel eerily familiar, and why so many Americans are experiencing a low-grade panic they can’t quite explain. This isn’t about pa...

In this episode of ABROADly Speaking, I break down why most people who say they want to move abroad never actually do — and why it’s not because they “don’t make enough money.”

We’re talking about paying yourself first — not in a Pinterest, envelope-stuffing, aesthetic-budget way — but in a real, grown-adult way that actually funds your future instead of reacting to exhaustion, convenience, and emotional spending.

If you keep telling yourself you’ll start saving after things calm down, after you do more research, or after there’s money left over (spoiler: there never is), this epis...

This is the episode where I say the quiet thing out loud:

You’re not thinking about moving abroad because you want adventure or aesthetics or to live your “best life in Europe.” You’re thinking about moving abroad because something deep in your body has realized you can’t keep living the way you are now.

This isn’t escapism.

It’s Maslow’s hierarchy.

Your foundational needs aren’t being met anymore — safety, stability, belonging, identity — and your nervous system is trying to move you toward someplace where you can actually breathe.<...

Today we’re talking about money.

Not budgeting tips. Not “stop buying coffee.” Not manifesting abundance under a full moon.

We’re talking about the sentence everyone throws around when they think about moving abroad:

“I just can’t afford it.”

And we’re going to look at whether that’s actually true… or whether it’s the excuse that feels safest to say out loud.

Because sometimes? The math is the math.

But a lot of the time, “I can’t afford it” really means:

“I’m overwhelmed. I’m scar...

Today we’re talking about money.

Not in the “stop buying coffee” way (absolutely not), but in the real, strategic, let’s-actually-do-this way.

If you’ve been waiting to hit a “perfect savings number” before you move abroad… this is your episode.

Because that number you keep chasing?

It’s probably not based on math — it’s based on fear.

Which means it will always move.

Which means you will always feel like you’re not ready.

In this episode, we break your move abroad into three actual financ...