Hoyt Ag said:
MouthBQ98 said:
They have romanticized living abroad as they only see the positives in most of the social media they gorge themselves on. They have a lack of knowledge as to what it is actually like. You are often relatively poorer as things cost more in general, and you get less for your money, and for all the positives living elsewhere, there are many subtle negatives and limitations that don't get highlighted.
I know a few that have tried to move abroad and all came back, some came back as better people, but most came back as the same and disgruntled person because it didn't work out. They see the instagram shots of living in Bali, Thailand and Europe and have this fantasy that it is so simple to move there and find work and live this glamorous life. It works out for such a select few, I would venture less than 5% make it a long term reality. But even if it short lived, they soon realize there are struggles there too. Traffic, finding stable income, visa requirements, cultural differences, missing family that doesn't visit, etc. They are basically trading one struggle at home for another abroad. They will never comprehend how good they have it here in the USA.
With that said, I will be a slow traveler when I retire in the not too distant future. Probably share 6 months abroad and 6 months in the US. Not because I hate my country enough to leave permanently, but we live in an insanely big world and I want to see it all. Also, cost of living abroad in many places is substantially cheaper as a slow traveler, rather than being in the US. I have seen most of what I want to in the US and enjoy other cultures. But I will always love my country and have a home base here to come back to.
Yeah most people packing up and moving overseas from the U.S. are because they've saved up a lot of money and can live cheap and comfortably abroad. I met some older English men in 2024 when I was visiting Thailand who did this, for obvious reasons. Thailand is crazy cheap.
I also have a good buddy who is in O&G and rotated down in Rio de Janiero. I when to visit him and one day when we were bar hopping on Impanema beach he introduced me to a couple of guys who owned this bar there. They were backpacking across South America from Cali back in the mid to late 2000s. When they made it to Rio, they fell in love with the place after a few days and decided they did not want to go back to the U.S. & paid this moving company some money to ship all of their belongings down there. Leased out a small area a couple blocks off of the beach and turned it into a beach bar & the rest is history. At the time they lived in the flavellas which is dangerius but I guess they met the right people to be able to have their backs. Their bar plays a bunch of 90s & early 2000s hip hop.