The world we live in has gotten smaller in many ways over the last few decades. As it has become easier and faster to travel long distances, at the same time it has also become a lot easier to communicate between places that are a long way apart. There are people who aren’t even in their fifties who can remember a time when if someone in Las Vegas wanted to speak directly to someone in London, they’d have to keep it pretty short to avoid a sky-high phone bill. We have more of the world open to us now. As a result, many people are looking into the idea of taking their lives international. With it being easier than ever to start a new life somewhere else, this is a good chance to look at the pros and cons of the idea.
Pro: You can broaden your mind and your experiences
This can be in an in-depth, serious way, or it can be something a lot more flippant. Traveling means you can learn a language in the best possible way, by immersing yourself in its culture. It means you can see and better understand the way that commerce works in a country where everything is different from your country. Or maybe you just want to walk the same streets as the stars of your favourite movies and TV shows. All of these are valid ways of enriching your life by moving out of your comfort zone. Is it important to other people if you find a great pizza that can only be bought in Plovdiv? Probably not, but it matters to you.
Con: You will get homesick
It happens to everyone, in a bigger or smaller way. Once you get to grips with the fact that you can’t wake up in the morning and just text a friend to go for coffee, you can start to feel like this whole new life is a big mistake. You can always find new friends and look for advice on dealing with homesickness in places like Digital Nomad World – but it would be a lie to tell you that you’ll always feel like you made the right decision. Sometimes, you’ll feel less than certain. One promise we can make: it goes away with time.
Pro: It’s hard to get bored
If you’re in a new place and you feel listless and bored, go for a walk. Go in a direction you haven’t gone in before, and stop when you see something you haven’t seen before. It could be a shop, a restaurant, a park or anything. Give yourself over to a new experience. The world is filled with different ways of doing things. When you’re in a new place, taking the time to acclimatize to and understand the way things are done there will be excellent mental exercise, and you’ll probably come away from the experience with a few new friends.
Con: It takes so much planning
If you’re going to live somewhere new, it’s not a change you can make overnight. There is a lot of planning involved, and if you’re not the only one moving then that planning is multiplied. There are so many strands to your life where you are that you don’t really think about until you have to: making medical appointments, setting up utilities, redecorating, opening a bank account, and so on. When you start a new life somewhere else, you need to do all of these again, and sometimes in another language. It’s not that hard to do, but there is a lot of it to get through, and it will be boring.