Soon I get to talk on a podcast about what it’s like to work abroad. You may think I’m going to talk about eating good food and how great the healthcare is. You would be wrong.

There are some reasons to work internationally but there are MANY reasons to sit tight

Consider it the quintessential “is working abroad right for you?” interview.

The answer is, as always, it depends.

Leaving your overtly racist country for a covertly racist one where you have no voting rights: not a great idea.

Moving with/because of someone else, not because you personally desire to live abroad: def not a great idea.

Working abroad to get international experience on your resume: a good idea

Working abroad so your unborn children have access to affordable schools, health care, and you have better parental leave: good idea

“Expats (desirable)” decide to move to a new country for many of the same reasons as “immigrants (undesirable).” In a time of rising paranoia re: mobile, global workforces, it’s not uncommon to get impacted by xenophobic policies meant to “discourage THOSE people.”

I have had long arguments with citizens in train cars voting against my best interests in the Netherlands. Your hosts decide your future, not you.

Maybe you don’t know what that’s like because you’ve ALWAYS been the host, ALWAYS had a say in things, no matter how small.

Definitely try a country on and learn to read the newspapers before you go all in. Argue with randos. See the ugly. Is it ugly you can live with? Is it less ugly than where you are?

It is a vast privilege to look at your current situation and think “the solution might be to table flip my way to another country—yeah, they surely have this figured out.”

It can also come from a place of deep assumptions about other cultures and one’s own importance to them.

I tried to make this jump to another country only to find new flaws, unaddressed flaws, in every place I landed in.

Now I see this as my own personal journey to find a place to call home, even if that place turns out to be the USA, for all its problems.

Everything is problems