When you decide to move abroad, it’s tempting to do a little bridge burning before you go. It can be satisfying (if childish) to say the equivalent of “Take this job/relationship/country and shove it.” But remember, you may want to come back to your job, or, even better, to freelance for your former employer while abroad. Think of the job you’re leaving not just as something you’re giddy to be rid of, but a source of invaluable contacts (among your peers if not your bosses).

Lifehacker has a short article on how to leave a job gracefully, with an interesting thread of comments from people who’ve left jobs well and (more commonly) with some clumsiness. I know I’ve been guilty of clumsiness and bridge-burning—it seems to go hand-in-hand with being a serial relocator. Most of us tend towards one of two poles: the smoother-over, who never wants to make any kind of break or change, and the bridge burner, who’s always itching to strike that match.

Over the years I could have used some of the following tips, adapted from Sandra Naiman’s book “The High Achiever’s Secret Codebook: The Unwritten Rules for Success at Work”:

1. Give two weeks’ notice. Both your past and future employer will consider it a plus.
2. Explain that you are leaving because of growth opportunities, not due to dissatisfaction, even if it’s not true.
3. On your last day, write your boss and colleagues a thank you note about how much you enjoyed working with them.
4. Offer to train your replacement, and if possible, be available after you leave to answer questions.
5. Make sure your work is caught up before you leave and write notes, when relevant, to guide and inform your replacement.
6. If you have external customers or colleagues outside of your company or organization, work with your boss on how to transition them to your replacement.
7. When telling customers or external colleagues you are leaving, say only good things about the company and your experience there.
8. Let people know you only want to leave the job, not the relationships you have built.

by Rhiannon Davies

A global survey conducted by Gallup between 2008 and 2010 (which interviewed adults from 146 countries housing more than 93% of the world’s population) reveals that 630 million people from around the world would love to move abroad if they had the chance.

That’s quite some statistic!

It proves that the world has become a much smaller place, and one so many more of us really want to explore in-depth.

So, if you have a yearning, burning desire to move abroad and explore new horizons, here’s how to realise your dream in 7 easy steps.

Step One – Identify Your Country Choice Carefully

You may have been seduced by the sunshine in your latest holiday haunt, but fine weather is not sufficient reason to commit to a brand new life living in a given nation.

Your chosen country needs to tick many boxes – can you legally live (and work) there, is it safe, is it affordable, is it culturally and linguistically accessible?

Research a chosen nation very carefully before you commit to calling it your new home abroad.

Step Two – Tie Up All Loose Ends

Don’t just jet off at the drop of a hat.  For one thing it will make it much more likely that you’ll have to return at a later date to tidy up your affairs.

It’s much better if you plan carefully before leaving your current country.  Cancel services and rental contracts, inform the tax authorities of your decision, say proper goodbyes to family and friends and make sure you won’t have to return home in a hurry to cancel something silly like a newspaper subscription!

Step Three – Remember That Money Matters!

Money makes the world go round – what’s more, money is the key enabler to ensuring your success living abroad in a new nation.

You need to be able to afford the transportation costs overseas, you then need to be able to afford to set up a new home.  Going forward you need to ensure you can afford to live a decent lifestyle based on the local economy in your new country.

Think about how much you have saved up, how you have your money invested, whether you can work locally and if local wages will be sufficient to enable you to live at least a decent quality lifestyle abroad.

Do NOT ignore the many financial aspects of relocation – getting money matters wrong accounts for the majority of expats who have to give up their dream and head home.

Step Four – Don’t Burn Your Bridges

No matter how happy you will be to tell your boss to stick his job, and no matter how glad you will be when you never have to see your neighbour/ex-spouse/work colleague again…keep in mind that you may one day decide to return home!

Even the most dedicated expats can sometimes change (or be forced to change) their mind about their permanent relocation overseas.  So, don’t burn your bridges back home…just in case.  [Read more about not burning bridges as you plan your escape.]

Bite your tongue and just be quietly satisfied that you’re in pursuit of your dreams whilst all those around you remain stuck in one place.

Step Five – Become a List Maker

There is an awful lot to practically organise ahead of your relocation; it pays to draw up a checklist so that no element of the relocation is overlooked.

List what you need to do in order to gain permission to relocate, assuming you need to apply for a visa to move to your chosen nation.

Detail all the loose ends you have to tie up at home such as handing in your notice at work and on your home rental contract, amending insurance policies, applying for a new passport for the family pet, and getting inoculations done perhaps.

List down the elements of your new life that you have to get sorted in advance of your move – such as finding a home to rent overseas, if only for the short-term while you settle in.

In spending a considerable amount of time dedicated to making your unique list, you will ultimately save yourself time and perhaps even money and delays, because you will be able to walk easily along the path to emigration by following the demarked stepping stones on your checklist.

Step Six – Be Adaptable

The people who find it easiest to settle in overseas have the most adaptable personalities!  No matter how well you plan your move, no matter how clearly you can visualise your new life, elements of your plan will change, and you will come across surprises and even challenges as you integrate overseas.

Roll with the changes and embrace the challenges; become adaptable and flexible if you want to thrive in your new environment.

Step Seven – Set Your Sights and Commit

With your checklist written and your mind clear about the country you want to live in, set your sights firmly on achieving your dream of moving abroad.

Those who set goals in life are statistically far more likely to achieve their ambitions – fact!

So, see moving abroad as your goal, set your sights on making it happen, and marvel at how the elements of your life will stack up and come together thanks to your concerted efforts.

In no time at all you will have moved abroad and be living the lifestyle of your dreams.

Rhiannon Davies  is the editor of www.ShelterOffshore.com, a website dedicated to those living abroad.

Dear Miss Move Abroad,

I plan to move to Panama next year and wanted your advice on how best to bring my possessions with me. I want to bring my cars, my appliances, and most of my furniture. I plan to ship a container from Miami to Panama, but hear that getting a container through customs can be a headache. Any advice?

Canal-bound

_______________________

Dear Canal-bound,

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read:

DESIRE

ACQUIRE

DISCARD

REPEAT

We all live within that cycle, but we can resist it if we put in some effort.

My advice to you is to pare down. (If you know now that paring down for you is as likely as rock-hard abs for Santa Clause, then skip to some concrete advice on shipping to Panama).

But why lug your old life with you to a new country, especially when you have to pay so dearly for the privilege? And you will pay–thousands of dollars for shipping, high tariffs (duties on imported goods), and time and energy navigating the bureaucracy.

The easiest way to bring your possessions into Panama is as checked luggage on a flight. But most people–even adventurous souls who decide to pick up and move to another country–have a lot of stuff that they’ve accumulated over the years.

If you’ve lived in one place for a while, I’ll bet that you’ve been meaning to purge your belongings–to have a garage sale or take a few trips to the Salvation Army drop-off station.

It feels good to pare down, and a lot of people who move abroad do so in part because they want to simplify their lives.

You can start simplifying long before you make the move, by thinking carefully about what possessions you can’t live without, then selling or giving away the rest.

“I thought about selling all my favorite things, all the great stuff I’ve collected over the years, and I just couldn’t do it,” says Mary Ann Jackson, who moved to Costa Rica in 2004. “But I wasn’t going to lug it all with me, either. So I gave it all away to friends. Now I can visit my stuff in their houses.”

But ok, if you want to ignore my advice and still bring all your stuff to Panama in a container, then here’s some practical tips on shipping to Panama, courtesy of Our Man in Boquete, a German-born jazz-loving former airline pilot who relocated to Panama in late 2009.

Photo of skateboarders in Panama City by David W. Smith.

Dear Miss Move Abroad,

My question may be long-winded because I’m sorting out many issues about my decision to move abroad–to Israel.

Here’s my background:  At 26, after completing two degrees in software and engineering-related fields and working full-time for just over 2 years, I quit my job in San Francisco and bought an around-the-world trip ticket. My friend and I traveled from February through July last year. Nearing the end of my trip, I asked myself what things in my life I wanted to do—thing that if I didn’t do, I would regret on my death bed.  One of them came up as living abroad.

Back from the trip now, working freelance, and living at home, it seems like the perfect time to tackle this dream.

I have been to Israel four times in my life, speak enough Hebrew to get by, but have no relatives there, and just a few friends, none terribly close. I always love it every time, and even tried applying for a Fulbright to move there a few years back.  I’ve done all my research on job opportunities (they exist for people in my field) and the benefits the state offers to Jews who would like to move there. They actually pay you to move, roughly $4500 over the first 7 months, free health insurance until you get a job, and 5 months of Hebrew classes, just to name a few of the benefits.  It seems, by the facts, that this should be a relatively easy decision. But it’s not.

What’s nagging me is whether I am running away from a good thing in the States. I have a great education, and lots of well-paying job opportunities. Though I have a free spirit and crave adventure, I’ve learned this year that stability is really important to me.  Needless to say, the transition home has been very difficult for me as I haven’t yet gotten my independent life back.  So one of my concerns is how long it will take for me to really get settled in Israel, and if it’s a process that I can withstand mentally.

The next concern I have is that I’ve been far away from friends and family for a while, going to college out-of-state and graduate school on the other side of the country. This gives me the independence I need to be successful abroad, but also makes me wonder if it’s a good thing to continue to endure the stress it takes to create a new life each time and to be lonely until the new friends become great friends and pillars of support. Ever since kicking off the process to move to Israel in August, I’ve addressed these concerns each month, to great distraught.

Finally, as a seasoned backpacker and solo female traveler, conquering coco huts in 3rd world countries with the best of them, I find myself torn between my material pleasures and my constant challenge to prove that I can live on less.  Moving to Israel would challenge me and my bank account (while their economy is thriving, Tel Aviv is one of the most expensive cities to live in when you compare the rent to the actual salary earned). When I’m feeling empowered and idealistic, I know that it’s worth it. But when I’m feeling a bit more realistic, I wonder who I feel I need to prove to that I can change my life so drastically. And I do have student loans that I need to continue to pay….

I grow jealous of people who have lived abroad and can speak other languages, but I crave my stability and would like my older friends and close family in my life more.  I feel this yearning to be in Israel, yet this body-encompassing lament that I will do it alone, and feel lonely constantly in debating this decision.  Sometimes I wish someone would tell me to stop being foolish and stay, or visa versa.

Did I just pour my heart out to a stranger?  Any advice would be much appreciated.

Torn between the heart and dreams

_______________________

Dear Heart & Dreams,

Your letter got me thinking, and when I think, I write. But although my reply will no doubt be even more long-winded than your question, I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’ve been in your place, wishing someone would make a hard decision for me. But (as you already know) no one but you can make this call. If I tried, you’d protest that I didn’t have the full picture. And you’d be right. The full picture only takes shape in your own heart, and maybe only in the wee hours of the insomniac morning.

For me, decision-making is infinitely more mysterious than rationally weighing pros and cons. I’ll be obsessing for weeks, maybe even months, and then I’ll see or hear something—a line in a book, a scene in a movie, a snatch of overheard conversation in a café—and suddenly the decision in made. (Note the passive voice—as if the decision is out of my hands—a good strategy when pitching the move-abroad idea to employers and mothers).

I like Steven Johnson’s idea that good ideas (and decisions?) come from the collision of various small hunches, some of them residing in different minds. Here’s a cool animated video of that idea.

But back to your letter. As I read, I found myself nodding, thinking, yes, that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Or rather the cruxes, as there are many axes on which the move abroad question pivots. I’ve got a few decades on you, and yet I must report that the issues don’t really change as you get older. As a serial relocator I confront similar questions each time I make a move.

The question of how moving abroad affects your relationships is perhaps the thorniest of the issues you raise. I know that when I return after extended travel or living abroad, friends and family are not so quick to let me have my old place in their hearts. Even if they were supportive of my move, their lives have moved on while I was away. They’ve adjusted to my absence, and it may be years before they really believe that I’m back.

And, like you, each time I go I ask myself if I’m running away from ‘real life’ and wonder how many more starting over’s I have in me.

I don’t have answers to these questions, but I do know that each question is a world onto itself, and that even the way we frame the questions betrays an array of assumptions that (for me) are revealed and sometime subverted by brushing away all my fears and making the move abroad.  Let’s take the ‘running away from real life’ question. Is our idea of real life so narrow that it can’t include interruptions of the proscribed life path—school, more school, work, family—that so many of us are on, or think we should be on?  Are we running away or are we lurching towards a life that is far my real than our habit-bound workaday existence, where daily repetition has dulled any sense of wonder or possibility?

Reading the particulars of your situation, I was struck by how you seemed to be trying to talk yourself into (or out of) something. I, for one, have never been paid to move anywhere, and there are often meager job opportunities on offer where I end up. You, on the other hand, would be paid to move to a country you already know you enjoy and where there are jobs in your field. The timing for you seems perfect, as well. With no apartment and no fixed job, you don’t have much to extricate yourself from. You didn’t mention anyone you’d be sorry to leave behind, so I’m assuming there’s no significant other. If there is a sweetheart in the picture, then you’re not telling me (or yourself) the whole story. Sometimes we want that sweetheart (or potential sweetheart) to hold us back from a radical move, to prove that they really care.

Another thing about timing: Often the 20s are considered a time to get travel and living abroad “out of your system,” after which you will presumably settle down and never stir again. But for those who are drawn to new experiences and new cultures, the ‘right time’ will come again and again, at various turning points in your life. Throughout my life I’ve been drawn to travel or living abroad when I need a new perspective, when I feel mired in the everyday, when things are closing in and I can’t see the forest for the trees.

If you’re having serious doubt about a move to Israel right now, it’s not as if this will be your last chance. You could even move to Israel, spend a few months there, and then decide to come back to the US. Would that be so bad?

If we look at the urge to move—to hit the road, get the hell out of Dodge, start fresh—not just as an individual impulse but a global one, we might say that it’s time to stay put and to stop running. Time to stop burning fossil fuels on our own personal long-distance quests. Time to face up to who and where we are, time to get our own house in order.

On the other hand, in most of nature, stasis is not an option. Animals roam far and wide to find food, shelter, and mates. Humans add to that the search for work, for recreation, and for that ineffable quality of brand-newness that reminds us that we’re alive and that the world is, despite all the fiber optics connecting us, a very big place. Big enough to get lost in.

And as the writer Andre Gide says: One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

Sincerely,

Miss Move Abroad

Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s ubiquitous travel memoir, is now a movie starring Julia Roberts as Gilbert. If the trailer is any indication, the film emphasizes the glib aspects of a memoir that teeters between messy real life and staged epiphanies. In the film, our first glimpse of Roberts/Gilbert, reacting to the prophecy of the requisite toothless holy man, shows a flash of Robert’s patented self-satisfied smirk. This doesn’t bode well for the film, which opened August 13.

Here’s the trailer:

For those three or four people who’ve never heard of Eat, Pray, Love, suffice to say that it’s self-realization and travel porn for the thinking woman.

Despite my reservations, I won’t be able to resist seeing the film anymore than I could resist reading the book. Critics were less than kind. Maureen Callahan called the book “narcissistic New Age reading.” Lev Grossman said the author was “trying too hard to be liked.” Grace Lichtenstein said the only thing wrong with the book is that “it seems so much like a Jennifer Aniston movie.”

I agree with all of those critics, and yet I tore through Eat, Pray, Love, reveling in Gilbert’s incisive descriptions of far-flung locales and internal states, spouting select quotes to my friends, and giving the book as a gift to more than one (woman) friend. Gilbert is compulsively readable, and if afterwards I felt a little queasy about the fast food feast I’d just wolfed down, in the midst of the meal I thought I was absorbing valuable nutrients.

And the film? Well, Javier Bardem plays Felipe, the Brazilian guy Gilbert falls for in Bali. I’ll go just to hear how a Spaniard tackles a Brazilian accent.

Dear Miss Move Abroad,

I want to move abroad. How should I proceed?

Ready & Willing

Dear Ms. R&W

You may be willing but you’re far from ready. How to proceed, you ask?

Proceed by dreaming. Dream a little dream of you, abroad. Are you meandering along a beach or striding across cobblestones? Is it hot and humid or is there a hint of snow in the air? Are you headed for your Spanish class or a new job? Dream long. Dream deep. Write it all down.

Then map your dream to places that actually exist. Do some research on those places, and get back to me.

In other words, you’re not quite far enough along in your dreaming to ask for advice.  Consider, too, that people who thrive abroad are resourceful and know how to think for themselves. Sure, everyone needs help. But to get it you need to have moved far enough in imagining your plan to at least ask the right questions.

Painting by Marc Chagall: ‘Over Town’

It’s the last day of your vacation. Far from being ready to go, you find yourself wondering: What if the flight home leaves and I don’t?

If you seriously consider what it would be like to stay behind every time you travel, you may be a closet expatriate for whom a week at the beach or 10 days in Europe just don’t cut it anymore.

You find yourself dreaming longer-term dreams: a top-floor apartment in an old-world capital. An open-ended stay in a ramshackle village on some forgotten coast. Opening a bed-and-breakfast in a mountain town.

More and more of us are doing it. Between 1966 and 1996, the number of Americans living abroad grew from 70,000 to 4 million, according to the U.S. State Department. By 2006, the number was an estimated 6.6 million. And those are the official counts. Other expats are living under the radar, having dropped off the map.

If you’re past the dreaming stage and want to check out a place for its long-term potential, here are some tips on how to do it.

Stay put. If you’re thinking of moving to a particular place, you’ve probably been there at least once or twice. This time, choose the town or city you liked best and stay there. Rent a villa, find a cheap hotel with a kitchenette or stay with friends.

If you dash around too much you’ll never get a sense of the country’s rhythm. And rhythm is all. It may be love at first sight, but if the beat of the place doesn’t move you, this affair won’t last.

Do everyday things. Forget the monuments, the guided tours or running those Class IV rapids. Instead, get a haircut. Do your laundry. Go with the woman next door to pay her electric bill. Shop for food and make dinner. Gossip with the man selling fennel root. Take in a church service or go to the all-you-can-eat fundraiser for the town’s fire department.

If these activities are difficult because you don’t speak the language, that tells you what you would be up against if you moved there without some language study.

Sit and watch. Find a good perch at the center of it all, and stay there. Have some props — a drink and a book — to make you feel less conspicuous. Practice the lost art of noticing. Does everything shut down between 2 and 5 p.m.? Does the town consist mostly of older women, the men and younger people having fled to the city in search of work? Is it so hot that people work the edges of the day, leaving the midday for naps in the shade?

Take photos of mundane things. The state of the roads. Highway signage (or the lack of it). The prices on menus. What’s available at the local market. The lines at the bank. The cleanliness of the beaches or streets or fields. The smiles or scowls on locals’ faces. The wildlife and insect populations.

Back home, these shots will remind you of the quality of everyday life in your dream destination. Memory plays tricks on us, and once you get home the trip will soon be shrouded in a fog of generalization. We tell friends the trip was life-altering, but we have forgotten (or altered) the particulars. This will help.

Talk to other expatriates. Find them in the market, at Internet cafes and on that traditional expat perch, the bar stool. Ask them when and why they came to be there and how it’s turning out for them. And then listen.

Try not to let your own excitement amplify their positive comments or mute their complaints. Nod when they say making the move was the best decision they have ever made. But also really hear it when they tell you it has taken three years to get permission to renovate the old castle they bought for a song. Or that they’re so starved for English they go out of their way to use the one bilingual ATM in town, just to savor the words, “Would you like a receipt?”

Wherever you go, do some of the very non-vacationy things listed above and you may come back knowing that, yes, you really do want to make the big move and soon. Or you may return with a newfound appreciation of home. Sometimes all it takes to value what you have is to seriously think about giving it up.

And consider what author Alain de Botton discovered on a trip to Barbados. “A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent,” he wrote in “The Art of Travel.” “I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.”

This article by Erin Van Rheenen first appeared in the Los Angeles Time.

Photo by Robert Doisneau, 1966

Recently, the Costa Rican Congress unanimously approved a law overhauling the country’s immigration policy. The new law is expected to take effect in early 2010.

Costa Rica is by far the most popular Central American country for Americans to buy a second home or to make the move and live there full time. Many in the latter group chose to become permanent legal residents of the country. The process for doing so is fairly simple (though often rife with bureaucratic delays).

The new law, however, increases the monthly income aspiring residents must prove to be given residency status.

For the pensionado (pensioner/retiree) category, you used to have to prove just $600 a month in pension income, from either the U.S. government or a private source (like the brokerage house that administers your IRA account). When the new law goes into effect, you’ll need to prove $1000/month in retirement income.

For the rentista (small investor) category, it was necessary to prove a monthly income of $1000 (usually a CD or annuity), guaranteed by a banking institution. When the new law goes into effect next year, you’ll need to prove a monthly income of $2,500.

For more information, see How do I get residency in Costa Rica?

I’m shopping for a netbook to take on the road, and I’m shopping hard. My last laptop, an iBook, did yeoman’s duty for 8 long years. I took it everywhere, and I used it so hard I had to paint the worn-away vowels back on with blue nail polish.

It’s time for something newer, and lighter. I thought I’d settled on a candy-apple red Dell Inspiron Mini 9, which I’d heard you could hack to run OS X. Voila! A cut-rate airbook that would work seamlessly with my new iMac.

But then Dell took that model off the market. And on looking into hackintoshing further, I heard that it can wreak havoc with the wifi and other functions. Not to mention that the “simple instructions” for hackintoshing are only simple for techweenies. Don’t get me wrong—I aspire to techweeniehood, but at this juncture have barely reached cocktail wiener level.

So I’m still looking high and low for the best netbook, a good (and cheapish) little soldier that will see me through airports and bus stations and rides in the back of pickup trucks, not to mention letting me blog from improbable places.

Everyone, it seems has an opinion. For your compare-and-contrast pleasure, here are 3 recent “Best 5 Netbooks” lists.
CNET’s top netbooks

1. Asus Eee PC 1005HA
2. Acer Aspire One D250
3. HP Mini 110
4. HP Mini 1151nr
5. Lenovo IdeaPad S10 4231

Lifehacker’s top netbooks

1. Samsung NC10
2. Dell Mini 10 (Lifehacker says this model is hackintoshable, but Boing Boing’s list of pc netbooks you can customize to run OS X says otherwise)
3. ASUS EEEPC 1000HE
4. Acer Aspire One
5. MSI Wind

Testfreaks’ top netbooks

1. Samsung NC10
2. Asus Eee PC 1000H
3. Tie between Asus Eee PC 1000HE & Samsung NC20
4. Tie between Samsung N120, MSI Wind U100, & Asus Eee PC 1000

Asus is looking pretty good to me right now, especially after I talked to my local computer repair guys and they said they were in love with the insides of the Asuses the took apart. (Asus porn?) “Really quality components,” they hubba-hubba’d. Who can argue with love?