Expatify

Travel & Expat Lifestyle Magazine

Lessons to be learned from a lifelong serial expat

KL575

We’ve discussed many times how there are two main branches of expats moving around in the world. There are those of us who are choosing to move to (or from) a place for social or lifestyle reasons, and there are those who move because their job moves them there. I suppose a third group would be those who move because someone else’s (parent or spouse) job moves them there, and they have no choice but to come along.

Within that third group you can find Apple Gidley, who is currently living in Houston, Texas, but first moved when she was 1-month old and has “located” 26 different times in 12 different countries. Her father was in the oil business, so they kept moving to oil-rich countries rather than big cities, and she met her future husband in Papua New Guinea, who also seems to move around due to being in the oil business.

Since I’m not an involuntary expat, it’s hard for me to speak much about that condition. I could imagine it would be very stressful for many people, depending on the new location, so it must be quite difficult even under the best of circumstances. Fortunately, Apple Gidley has written a new book about her situation called ‘Expat Life: Slice by Slice” and she shared some insights in a recent article in the Telegraph.

It’s all down to attitude

One of the take-aways I get from reading the interview is that moving with the right attitude is crucial. She says she found each new place to be an exciting challenge rather than a problem to be solved, and that certainly helped the overall experience. I’m sure the locals can sense if someone feels frustrated before they even arrive, and helping them settle in must be harder as a result.

On the other hand, I don’t think it’s as easy as telling yourself “I’m going to have a positive attitude about this!” and it being so. It must take a strategy and some work, and probably a good social structure elsewhere to keep things moving in the right direction.

Get plugged into the social scene as soon as possible

Another interesting point she stressed is that he deliberately tries to get involved in the local social scene right away, not just the local expat scene. After having lived in quite a few places myself I can see how important this is. I’ve made the mistake of just keeping to myself for weeks or months after I moved somewhere, and in the end I have to admit that the whole experience was at least slightly depressing.

The greatest lesson I’ve learned from moving around the world is that it is about the people rather than the place in the end. You could move to a villa on the most beautiful private island in the world, but if you have no one to talk to the beauty around you ends up meaning nothing.

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