The Secret to Expat Happiness

We’re not entirely sure we should publish the following information for free - after all, there are companies out there making millions from selling their closely guarded and exclusive secrets.  But regular readers will know, we share everything with you, from our opinions to our findings…and so this article will be no different!

In our many collective years of living as expats in various nations around the world, and in our many collective experiences of meeting, making friends with and also hearing from expats around the world, especially now we run Shelter Offshore and represent a portal to the expat world, we, the team at Shelter Offshore, think we have stumbled upon the holy expat grail – namely the secret to expat happiness.

There have been surveys that suggest that the secret to a professional expat’s accompanying partner’s happiness is successful integration, that the secret to an expat child’s happiness is learning the language and that the secret to a retiree expat’s happiness is all about getting their finances in order.  None of these surveys have any synthesis however, and none are able to present as whole and holistic an overview of which elements and ingredients are needed to ensure that anyone who makes the life changing decision to up sticks and move abroad manages to settle down and live as happy a life as possible.

Having conduced a bit of a vox pop amongst expat staff members, friends and acquaintances it seems that there are three essential ingredients to having as happy a life as possible – and actually, these three ingredients apply to non-expats too.  Without one or more of these elements in your life, you’re going to feel there is something lacking, and if you’re living abroad, the feeling will become intensified as feelings of isolation are often poured on top of the situation if you feel you have no one to talk to.

The first element is all about accommodation.  If you move abroad and your dream is to live in a villa overlooking a bay or with beautiful mountain scenery for example, and actually what you end up with is a poorly constructed, leaky and not very well insulated box on a building site, chances are your attempts to be happy will be regularly overshadowed by your substandard accommodation.  And this is a situation that all too many expats find themselves in.  In many of the most popular overseas hotspots with British expats – from Cyprus to Spain and from Florida to Australia – build standards can be very far from what we might expect in the UK.  In the worst cases, people buy a dream home off plan and they are delivered a poor imitation of a home.

We have heard no end of horror story from expats living far and wide across the globe who have been ripped off by builders, lied to by estate agents and who’ve been naïve in assumptions they’ve made and with contracts they’ve signed.  It’s actually rare to find an expat happy with their property purchase choice.

So what goes wrong?  Is it all about people’s expectations?  Not entirely, no…but expectations do come in to play.  One needs to look at the standard of build that is the accepted norm in the country of choice and accept that what you see is probably nothing more than you will end up with.  If you don’t like it, you’re not going to like your new home.  And we Britons think we have it bad – how must Germans feel when they move abroad considering the high standard of basic average build quality in Germany!  Other things that go wrong include the fact that in popular holiday and expat hotspots there are greedy individuals and there are sharks and both sets will play on the greenness of newly arrived expats and those searching for a new home in the sun.

To achieve a state of happiness with your overseas accommodation therefore, a lot of research, caution and realistic expectations have to come in to play.

The second essential aspect for expat happiness is having something to do all day long.  Whilst this may sound like a million miles from what you want to achieve because you’re contemplating expatriating to escape the hectic nature of your thankless 9 – 5 corporate existence, please take it from us that after about 2 weeks of just lying in the sun by the pool of your brand new villa you will be bored out of your mind!  There is a difference – a gulf in fact – between living a relaxed way and pace of life and actually moving abroad and having nothing to do all day long!  Therefore, if you’re going to be living overseas you will either need a job or a hobby or interest that actively takes up your time and keeps your mind working.

If you don’t find something to keep you occupied you will either become housebound and go crazy staring at the four corners of your garden, or you’ll end up like so many expats who start drinking at about 11am and only stop when they can no longer see straight enough to get the ice out of the freezer compartment!  Again, trust us – we’ve seen it over and over again and it doesn’t matter in which country you’re living, expats who are bored and have nothing else to do start to self destruct!  Don’t become a statistic – keep active.  If you can’t find a job, volunteer, if you can’t volunteer, learn the language, if you can’t learn the language, teach English, and if you can’t teach, join a group or committee and spend time with like minded people at least putting the world to rights!

The final essential element for expat happiness is finding friends.  Unless you’re currently a house bound recluse, (and if you are, why are you thinking about moving abroad), you probably have at least a handful of friends, family members or acquaintances with whom you regularly interact.  These people keep you sane believe it or not!  Without them you would be talking to yourself or the cat and desperately starved of some form of adult communication.  When you move abroad a feeling of isolation can quickly become heightened as you leave behind not only all that is familiar about your surroundings, but all that is familiar about your friends and family too.  You have to stop this feeling from becoming overwhelming by making a very active effort to get out and about and meeting people.

If you’re restricted by language then join a class immediately where you will a) benefit from learning essential linguistic basics and b) meet others with whom you can begin to share time and elements of your life.  You can also try mixing with other expats until you get a good language grounding which will then enable you to meet and potentially befriend far more people.  Do not sit at home and expect others to come to you – how will they know you’re there?  You have to be very proactive, overcome your reticence and reluctance and go out there and smile!

As you can see, the secret to expat happiness is actually incredibly simple – however, in every country in the world you’ll find people who have relocated there and who are desperately miserable living alongside other expats who are happily enjoying their great new life.  The main differences between such people are detailed above.  Get the basics right and you will have the foundations in place for the continued development of a very positive future for yourself and your family.  Good luck…and stop putting off that move!