Thanks for the great article. I am one of those people who believe that there is a whole new world out there if you’d just venture out. Most people around me are either discouraging or pessimistic when they hear me talk about working overseas, but having read your article, I finally see their comments as what they really are: mere excuses! Thanks for giving me more courage.

But I do have a favor to ask: can you give me some advice as to how best to start? Do you really, like they say, take a plane to wherever you want to work, get the local papers and start searching for jobs? Coz’ I’m not exactly the richest guy around, and I find it hard to imagine taking my tiny amount of savings and flying overseas, only to end up penniless and jobless, maybe even with no money to fly back!

Most pleased if you’d offer some advice, thanks in advance.:)

I’d *like* to think that the delay isn’t about making excuses so much as it is Girl Scouting – getting/being prepared!

:)

A final point to make with regard to this particular excuse is that when you unburden yourself from the ties that you’re allowing to bind you to your old life, when you free yourself up and embrace your dreams, you leave the stresses of your current life behind and you move to somewhere of your choosing where the pace of life is ideally more laid back and the climate is ideally beautiful, you may very well find you feel a hell of a lot better than you did

Oh you MAY feel better if you move. LOL on that one. You may feel great if you don’t move.

According to a well-respected international survey of expatriates conducted by HSBC, a leading bank of the world, expatriate professionals earn on average 25% more than their peers back home.

OK which country did you survey and which professions? You can’t make more in Panama than you did at home. You probably will not be able to get any job. Unlike the US other countries do not like ex-pats taking jobs away from locals.

Finally, even if your family would never move to join you permanently abroad, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will come and visit and stay for prolonged periods of time and embrace the life you’ve steeped yourself in very willingly.

DEFINITELY NOT SO.

“I couldn’t do what you’ve done, I’d just be so lonely.”

THIS MAY BE THE ONLY ONE I AGREE WITH.

Stop limiting your own path in life. If you truly want to move abroad you will move abroad. If on the other hand you’re a lily-livered, timorous beastie, (i.e., a wimp), why are you even reading this article? Accept your lot in life, try and be happy with the choices you have made, stop blaming others for your position and stop judging or envying people like me. I have chosen to embrace my dreams – and I am no one special – in other words, if I can do it, anyone can do it. You just have to want to do it. If you don’t want to expatriate, stop pretending like you do – if you do want to expatriate, EscapeArtist.com shows you everything you need to know to make your dreams come true!

I AM ASSUMING YOU HAVE A GOOD PAYING JOB THAT ALLOWS YOU TO WORK OUT OF YOU NATIVE COUNTRY?

BOB

I’m still laughing at you Americans!!! I live in the BEST country on earth… I can go to the doctors for free, have surgery on my knee twice for free, get paid money from the government just for having a child & is in addition to my salary, and my son gets the worlds best school for only a few thousand dollars a year so why the hell would I go anywhere???

The good ol’ people of the US of A made their bed so I say lie in it, don’t go to other countries just because yours is messed up from your own stupid mistakes!!!

Our immigration numbers per year are higher than any other country.

There are so many loopholes in our immigration system.

You can come here as a ‘student’, but work while you ‘study’ – and end up as a resident!

It happens all the time.

There are so many people originally from China and other Asian countries that did this.

So why shouldn’t Americans get in on the act.

If you are Hispanic or African American, with a good work ethic, you will not be a second class citizen in Australia!

You just have to love this country as your new home.

So, here I sit, mid-50′s, underemployed, not even any money to go to school to get retrained, suffering from several chronic illnesses that wouldn’t hold me back as long as I can obtain the necessary medications to keep going, and crying every time I read an article in Escapeartist.com, because I feel I am being left behind and can’t do anything about it.

So, Susan, what advice do you have for someone like me? Is there any chance for me to escape? What steps should I take to get to the exit door?

Thanks for any advice.
Jeff W

No college education, although that hasn’t slowed me down any.

Skills I have, just not an over abundance of them in any particular area…

Still, the move will happen… the nest egg is building… I’m less than a month from 45… hoping to be living abroad before I see 55… sooner if I can…

I can’t move overseas because I don’t have a college degree and I am basically an unskilled worker. No country is going to take a college dropout with few skills, especially if he’s pushing 50, like me, and might become a burden on their social security system.

You got college? You got experience? And you “can’t” move? Sure. You’re a trained expert in your field—you can find work anywhere. If you can’t, you can build a business. You’re a trained expert.

I learned too late that you don’t just “become a grown-up, then get a job.” And, even though I finally figured out what I want to do with my life, with the economy the way it is now, it’s all I can do to find a job after over three and a half years of unemployment.

So, much as I want to travel the world and never come back, for me, it’s all just a pipe dream. And, it’ll probably be that way for the rest of my life.