Ask HN: Have you lived abroad for an extended period of time? Was it valuable?

7 years and counting. Italy to Germany. Not going back. Everything works. You get hired simply by having the right skills and coming forward - no need to &quot;know someone influential&quot;.<p>Weather sucks as bad as I had imagined (but this year&#x27;s being amazing so far)<p>Food was a nice surprise - way better than planned.<p>Cost of living is actually lower, opposite of what I thought.<p>People.... many are much warmer and friendlier than I was preparing for. Very nice surprise there too. Language may be harsh and many have this perma-grumpy air about them, but when they wish you a good morning you can see in their eyes that they actually mean it.

Back in &#x27;94 I was hired by Sony to be a developer for the first PlayStation, during it&#x27;s OS development. I was in Toyko for a few weeks with another role at Sony, which I quit due to personality conflicts with my American boss, but was rehired by Tokyo of Japan to join their OS team, and I spent 6 months doing crunch time with their OS development team - I was the only Gaijin.<p>That was the experience of a lifetime: total immersion in a foreign culture while having a serious duty to accomplish, plus a complete lack of Japanese language or culture. Luckily, in my previous Tokyo stint the PSX OS team met a series of game developers from various game companies around the world - a PSX preview series of meetings, where the Sony team saw first hand some of the odd personalities (goth &#x2F; 90&#x27;s super geek) the game industry had. So I, being a fairly normal dude, was given a lot of latitude with my lack of Japanese manners.<p>Overall, the perspective I gained was a great foundation for confidence to pursue my dreams. There is so much human activity, practically anything one wants to do can be found if one is willing to leave your culture for one pursuing that dream without the American infrastructure we take for granted.

US American living in Europe since 2009, this being at least my third time round depending how you count it. Originally from Northern California and have lived in different parts of Germany and in Budapest, Hungary.<p>It’s incredibly rewarding but also sometimes frustrating. If I can give anyone any advice, it’d be:<p>1. Learn the local language.<p>Nobody respects an expat who doesn’t make a proper effort to learn and use the language. You might still have local friends but they will, and should, think less of you if you lean on English too much.<p>2. Go back home regularly.<p>It’s easy to lose perspective, especially if you’re often confronted with distorted opinions (positive or negative) about the place you come from. I go back to California every six months, and I recommend going at least once a year, even if home is very far from where you live.<p>3. Stay humble.<p>It’s natural to form opinions about your host country but it’s important to remember you’re a guest, and that you don’t understand everything about the locals no matter how well you speak the language or how long you live there. That doesn’t mean you never get to complain about the obstinance of the Elbonians, just keep it light. And try not to tell people how to vote. :-)<p>4. Manage your expectations.<p>If you’re from the US and in tech you will most likely be making less money and have fewer career opportunities than at home. That’s ok: you should be aware of what else you’re getting from the experience and be satisfied with that bargain. Techies live pretty well everywhere, so avoid thinking about dollar figures or Gooface interviews. Unless you’re super into Gooface, in which case go where they have offices.<p>My life has been greatly enriched by “going international” and I recommend it to anyone with an open mind. I could imagine living in the US again, but I can’t imagine viewing that as a permanent arrangement.

South Africa to Seattle, almost one year.<p>The week that I landed my sedentary life ended. I don&#x27;t think it was necessarily the location (although the Seattliltes&#x27; active lifestyles are certainly inspiring) but rather an excuse to grow. This has had the expected knock-on effects, especially in terms of clarity of mind and mood. The important things just work here - I want to deal with 1st world problems (equality, rights, etc.) and not what I used to deal with (&quot;gee there have been many violent crimes in my neighborhood lately&quot;).<p>The bad has been friends. School and college are the best opportunities to make friends and it&#x27;s tough once you leave. I&#x27;ve been trying meetup.com, but it&#x27;s slow progress.<p>If you&#x27;re on the fence, I say go for it! Put yourself in the mindset of growth and make it happen when you land.

Yeah (from US&#x2F;Indiana), living and traveling. I spent a year on a &quot;round-the-world&quot; air ticket, then a year teaching English in Korea, and then another year traveling by bicycle with a couple 2-month stops (studying Arabic in Yemen, Russian in Kyrgyzstan, Chinese in Taiwan).<p>And I&#x27;m not an &quot;adventurer&quot; in the normal sense at all. Just a computer dork who wanted to try different things. I actually hadn&#x27;t ridden a bicycle in a decade prior to the moment I booked a guesthouse in Krakow that just happened to be right next to a bike shop and I took it to be a sign. (I&#x27;d been salivating over other people&#x27;s bike touring blogs for a year or two but thinking I&#x27;m nowhere near &quot;adventurer&quot; enough to do something like that).<p>Did it change my life? No, not really. I&#x27;m back in software at US big corp and raising two ordinary kids in a house bigger than I need and griping about taxes. I&#x27;m also the oldest person I know at my level at work (age 42 at level 64 msft).<p>Would I rather be at a higher level at work and miss out on those experiences though? Not a chance. Do I wish I hadn&#x27;t come back? Oh sometimes, but oh well. Honestly being on the road is not all rainbows and unicorns either. There are plenty of days you&#x27;re sitting around wondering why you&#x27;re there in some guesthouse doing nothing and not back home &quot;changing the world through technology&quot; or something.<p>I mean, it&#x27;s a privilege. You&#x27;re presumably above average IQ and born into a wealthy country to less than horrible parents. It&#x27;s not an opportunity most have. But, we all live a few years and then die. So it&#x27;s a bit of whatever. Just try to spend some time doing what you enjoy. Don&#x27;t die wishing you had.<p>Some random person once told me when I was young, &quot;the purpose of life is to make memories&quot;. I still haven&#x27;t found anything wrong with that statement.

I&#x27;m much less anxious and more self confident since moving abroad. I now feel like I could fairly easily move to- and live anywhere I choose to, which is incredibly empowering. It&#x27;s also given me some new sense of perspective, and introduced me to some really cool people, foods, and customs.<p>I&#x27;m originally from The Netherlands; I&#x27;ve spent the past two and a half years in Prague, Czech Republic. I moved to Canterbury in the UK two months ago because I was becoming annoyed at not speaking the local language very well, and simply needed a change of environments. I&#x27;ll probably move somewhere outside of Europe in the future.<p>I think the destination isn&#x27;t all that important - I&#x27;ve mainly just gone to places I found interesting, and ideally had friends near. I&#x27;d absolutely recommend the experience, but do be aware that loneliness, isolation and stress are real issues many expats encounter at some point when moving somewhere new, and it&#x27;s not talked about as much as it should be. I&#x27;ve found it to be very much worth it though.

Went to China at 30, became fluent in mandarin, saw the unbelievable transformation of the nation, started 3 businesses, studied martial arts, met hundreds of new people, including well known luminaries, and met my wife and had a kid before I came back to the US after 8 years. The experiences there forged me into a much better person, with the skills to land a very rare job opportunity here in the states.

Yes. Mostly in different parts of Europe and Asia. Incredibly valuable.<p>For me, I think of myself as fairly open to people and cultures, but after stays in many countries I realized how closed my previous attitude really was. Meeting and living in many places seems to have helped me be much more open to differences in people, personalities and cultures.<p>If you stay longer than a long vacation, a very common experience (especially in countries with very large language&#x2F;cultural differences), is a weird phenomenon where you start to <i>hate</i> where you are and every tiny difference or minor inconvenience becomes meltdown inducing. And then you&#x27;ll get over it and settle into your new life. This psychological wall is a make-it&#x2F;break-it moment for many expats and some people simply can&#x27;t get through it and give in. Don&#x27;t! It&#x27;s very character building and upon reflection a huge growth opportunity that most people don&#x27;t get a chance to develop.<p>Finally, I think it&#x27;s given me a much better sense of perspective about how and where my home country compares to others in various ways - favorably and unfavorably. It&#x27;s impossible to convey this to people who haven&#x27;t experienced living elsewhere themselves, so it can a bit frustrating to come back home and hear the same ill informed opinions. Likewise, it can be frustrating to hear about your home country being described by ill informed people in the countries you are in.

The farther&#x2F;further u go (and for at least 2-3+ months, better 6-12+, relying mostly on your self), the more you will know about yourself and your compatibility with the new, and the old place. Things that have been protruding a lot, in your &quot;eyes&quot; (both as negative and positive) at old place might later seem negligible, and other things to become the true highest mountain peaks. Same for the the new place, but only after u move elsewhere&#x2F;back.<p>Note: &quot;farther&quot; is not just geographical notion, cultural distance might be a lot more overhelming. Think<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geerthofstede.com&#x2F;culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede&#x2F;6d-model-of-national-culture&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geerthofstede.com&#x2F;culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-ho...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hofstede-insights.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;compare-countries&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hofstede-insights.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;compare-countries&#x2F;</a><p>(Where to and from : .bg .au&#x2F;3.5yr .bg&#x2F;10yr .au&#x2F;3m .bg&#x2F;+, with few 1-3month stays in other places in asia&#x2F;europe)<p>And beware, after staying 3-4+years elsewhere it seems difficult to move back. Some psychological frontier i guess.. YMMV.<p>have fun

I&#x27;m half Swiss half Finnish, working in Colombia for a bit over 3 years now.<p>The first year was a semi-sabbatical. I was traveling while on and off working as a freelancer for companies back home. Needless to say, you don&#x27;t need many billable Swiss hours to have a good life in Colombia. So personally it was an incredible year. All the beautiful places, meeting tons of people, reading the books i didn&#x27;t found time for before and most importantly not being tied to daily business matters. But professionally I was stagnant for the most part. Because I wasn&#x27;t willing to commit too much time nor other things clients expect like availability or short deadlines, I was mostly working on rather trivial generic web development tasks. Code monkey work under palm trees. Also I realized being a Freelancer is not for me. It basically means you are running a business with everything that entails: Communications, marketing, legal, accounting, project management, etc. Many of those I don&#x27;t have particular interest in or patience for. The year aptly did what it meant to do. Taking a year off from 9-to-5 jobs while not having to spent savings. But career wise I was pretty bored by the end of it.<p>The last two years I have been working for a startup in Bogotá that is part of a company builder that creates businesses from scratch for the growing middle class in Latin America. While I don&#x27;t have that many exciting adventurous stories about my personal life to tell at the moment, I do thoroughly enjoy living here and work wise I have never learnt as much in so little time since I started my career 10 years earlier. Exclusively communicate in foreign languages. Vastly different market and mindsets than my country. Having to re-assess things I though where &quot;universal truths&quot; just because I saw them over and over again in Switzerland or similar nations. Balancing tech budget for cloud services whose pricing is aimed at rich western countries. Dealing with much lower end mobile devices and low quality networks.<p>So the whole 3 years have been extremely valuable personally and professionally in terms of experience and knowledge gained. Money wise less so. But I&#x27;m young enough and don&#x27;t have family to take care of, that this is not much of a worry for now.

I&#x27;m from southwestern Virginia, but I spent a month at a time for several years with my family in Italy in my teenage years, mostly in the same small town, and later lived in Lausanne, Switzerland for five years while working for the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Mind you, my parents are from the US, went to grad school in England, spent a lot of time on the continent, and my (homeschooled) education reflects that, so it&#x27;s hard to say the effect on me.<p>I think the most valuable aspect has simply been experiences and viewpoints that serve as counterexamples when I am thinking about how society is organized.

Russia to New York<p>I lived in New York for 5,5 months (the max period allowed on one continuous stay on a B1 visa in the USA).<p>Cons: I wasted ~3000usd on rent<p>Pros: I, never having been outside former Soviet Union, flew straight to another part of the world, without any connections, without friends, alone, with some money that only appeared to be sufficient to be spent on rent and food. I managed to rent a room (never done so before in my life), I tested if I could find a job in NY (yea, guys, don&#x27;t be hurt by this, this is illegal, and I never actually worked while staying in the USA, so i didn&#x27;t breach visa terms, I was only testing the possibility of finding work there - and that was very easy, I found a low-paid position on the second day of looking for it). I was amazed by how much people in America respect your privacy, talked to some people, developed a daily routine - not too sophisticated but still I managed to survive some 7000 or so miles from home, and it wasn&#x27;t too difficult and I came to one of the main conclusions in my life - the world is much smaller than I thought, and in order to fly anywhere and live anywhere you just need some rather humble amount of money. This &#x27;global thinking&#x27; replaced rather depressive &#x27;local thinking&#x27; framework I was thinking in previously and in that regard now I am happy that I have realized that.

I&#x27;m Italian, from a very small village.<p>I had two 6 months period in the US and they definitely reshaped my way of thinking and gave me a more pragmatic approach.<p>Now I&#x27;m living in the UK, mostly because London has a way better job market. This is giving me the opportunity to live in a truly international environment, to work on more interesting problems and with a better compensation. The Brexit debacle is also giving me more perspective on why being part of the EU is good and how having really bad politicians is not only an Italian problem.

Moved from U.S. to Netherlands 6 months ago, and will stay for at least another year.<p>I moved for work, and I gained a cool new project to work on and new adventures, but didn&#x27;t have my family, friends, or any familiarity of the culture.<p>It quite accustoms you to leaving your comfort zone, which is powerful and awesome. And it forced me to really value my relationships, and I found myself deliberately making an effort to catch up and keep in touch with some friends that I really valued.

I was born and raised in the Suburbs of Chicago. I lived in the city through University. I studied abroad in Luzern, Switzerland, where I met the woman I would later marry. I moved back after my degree, first to Schaffhausen for a spell, then to Bern.<p>I’ve worked for a number of agencies across the country, and I’ve also freelanced quite a bit. I have a studio down by the river with some good friends of mine, where I build various apps and platforms with the various web stacks. I’ve been lucky enough to make some cool things with some cool people.<p>It’s pricey here. I’ve taken up work at a startup here in town to cover my costs. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning Swiss German and its various dialects – I’m told I still have an eastern accent from time to time. The river is beautiful during the summer.<p>I do think about Chicago often. I miss it dearly. The startup scene is burgeoning here, but it’s still Switzerland. Bern is somehow too nice to leave. Small government, applied correctly, is a lovely thing. We pay through the nose in taxes, but the system is there for you when you need it.<p>Still, I’m a stranger in a strange land. And simultaneously at home. A part of my own cyberpunk novella with mountains.

There is a general principle that exposing yourself to new environments will improve your perspective, whether it is spending time in a different country or spending time with a different socio-economic group.<p>It is of utmost importance that you do this at least once because it will show you the things you considered constant but aren&#x27;t. And after having that experience you might be more open to understanding other situations.

Grew up in California, after college moved to DC. 2 years into that, I decided the path I was on wasn&#x27;t for me, and moved to South America to study Spanish for a few months. Ended up loving it in Buenos Aires, and lived there for about 9 months. I interviewed at startups there, but the pay was so low relative to other countries, that I couldn&#x27;t stomach it, and ended up finding a job in Amsterdam. Was there for 4.5 years, and really loved it. My girlfriend at the time really wanted to live in London, so we moved, and I ended up getting a job at a SV-based BigCo. When we split, after 4 years, I figured it was time to try the US again.<p>So almost a decade in total! Hard to say if it&#x27;s &quot;valuable&quot; as honestly it just felt like life. I have dual citizenship though (US &#x2F; Euro), so moving around was much easier than for some. I am really glad I took advantage, and do believe it opens you up in a unique way.<p>You learn how to get along with people from all over, get good at identifying accents (like making friends just because you can tell that person is from Manchester, and not just English), and hopefully pick up a language or two. My Spanish is thankfully still pretty good, but my Dutch is awful.<p>I&#x27;m in NYC now, and while I am enjoying it, I can definitely see myself moving again. Maybe Australia, or somewhere else in Europe? Gets harder with kids I&#x27;m sure, but I know people from oil households who moved around a lot (Nigeria, Bahrain, Norway) and are still normal, well-adjusted adults. Itchy feet? Who knows. But a big benefit of working in tech is that the job doesn&#x27;t really change, regardless of where you are. It&#x27;s much harder for friends of mine who are lawyers, or even doctors (building a practice is very local), to consider moving internationally.

Yes, five years and counting, and it has been a great experience.<p>I presume that HN being more USA-centric makes the question interesting; but I feel that if you ask people in most other regions, the answer would be &quot;obviously yes&quot;.

At 18 I spent a year living in the UK and a few months in Italy. I remember being depressed after leaving Italy and landing back at Gatwick through a blanket of thick clouds.<p>It was a super valuable experience overall and in many ways I came back to the US with a newfound appreciation for this country.<p>If I could do it over again I&#x27;d go somewhere way more outside my comfort zone (non-English speaking). Probably Japan or Korea.

I’m currently in my final week of a semester exchange program in Singapore (from Midwest USA). Even though I’m a student I might have a little different perspective.<p>As background I’ve already traveled quite a bit with 15 countries and 45 states so I knew a little what I was getting into.<p>I generally have loved to travel, but this 6mo period has actually made me find some limits and has been pretty tough. I really found some things that make me very uncomfortable culturally and realized I can’t live anywhere I want like I thought I could. I’ve ad some not as good experience here due to several factors, but I’d do it again even knowing that. You really find your limits and the world opens up a lot more. One of the major things for me is even though you can make friends anywhere, if I lived abroad longer I’d have to go where I know at least a friend or 2 already to help me establish roots there. Friends really make or break wherever you are.

British National here: Making use of the EU&#x27;s freedom of movement, I lived in Finland but after a 3yr stint back in the UK (London) I now live in Sweden and have for the last 3.5~ years.<p>I feel like I haven&#x27;t assimilated as much as I should but! to answer your question: it was&#x2F;is very valuable, to see how other peoples approach life, to see subtle differences between how people handle things commonly- you pick up life tips that make being human a little easier. Simple things that are obvious in retrospect.<p>However, I&#x27;m not sure what the alternative would have been if I had stayed in London.. Without a frame of reference it&#x27;s hard to know if it&#x27;s was &#x2F;more&#x2F; valuable than the alternative.

I lived in China for a year right after my undergrad degree at Iowa State, taking a manufacturing QA job in Shenzhen on a whim.<p>It was valuable in that I formed lifelong friendships. A few others had also done the same and being in this unique boat --- no language skills, first time in China, first job ever --- formed really tight bonds.<p>I also learned enough Mandarin that I can comfortably roam China on my own, even 6 years later, when I went for two weeks this January.<p>Oh, and this is how I got into building software as well. We built our own ERP system for manufacturing audits.

Yes and Yes.<p>I&#x27;ve written a bit about it here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jacquesmattheij.com&#x2F;a-western-kid-living-in-communist-poland" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jacquesmattheij.com&#x2F;a-western-kid-living-in-communis...</a><p>Later followed by a 5 year stint in Canada that I&#x27;ve yet to really write about and another 2 years in Bucharest, Romania.<p>Original base is NL.<p>What&#x27;s been good&#x2F;bad about it could fill a book, and it changed my perspective on life in so many ways that each and every day it still surprises me.<p>For one thing: in every country people take stuff for granted that elsewhere is hard to impossible to achieve or come by. Those things are simply &#x27;normal&#x27; and nobody thinks twice of it. And elsewhere in the world people are dying or hardly able to function for lack of those &#x27;normal&#x27; things.<p>Remember this whenever you turn on the light, up the heat, open a tap and clean water comes out or go out to vote on election day.

From Sydney. Before leaving at 19 I had already been sent on business to India, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. Following that, I have since lived in China on and off for 18 years, in at least six cities. In that time I also spent one year each in London, LA, and Bangkok. Lots of travel. Chiefly, moving to China as a young person allowed me to afford to invest time in developing my skills and provided a platform for me to gain experience launching a business from scratch with limited capital in a foreign environment, while learning a language. The key challenges have been finding mentors and maintaining a professional network with all the moving around. I&#x27;ve had amazing experiences: long distance cycle touring in many countries, the Tunisian revolution, sailing trimarans at night on vast Himalayan lakes at 2000m altitude, months solo in India, made documentaries, the great art museums Europe, the US and the Chinese imperial collection (with some background to appreciate them), studied ancient history and slowly built a small art collection, etc. Met my wife. Now running the most interesting venture of my life, for which everything prior - linguistic, cultural, business, technical, financial, personal - has prepared me. It hasn&#x27;t been all rainbows and unicorns but I would definitely do it again.<p><i>Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming &quot;Wow! What a Ride!”</i> ― Hunter S. Thompson<p><i>The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.</i> ― Saint Augustine

Originally I am from Eastern Europe, and I lived in the UK for a while. Positive: I stopped smoking soon after I moved, as the price of cigarettes in UK was crazy high. Negative: I gained some weight, as I very much enjoyed local chickens, burgers, bacon, beer.<p>Jokes aside, it helped me to improve my English, see other ways of living, experience different work culture, and learn that very indirect, not straightforward way British people communicate.

For me, the value came from learning the customs of the others. Challenging what I took as obvious opened my eyes to the lines along which societies can vary.<p>One example was to see different ways universities operate in respect to undergraduate students, for example the amount of socializing they are, incidentally or on purpose, forced into. The differences in prestige boils down not to the level of teaching, but to opportunities students are given, becoming a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.<p>Living in another country means that sooner or later one will crash into beaurocracy and the health system, which works differently everywhere, giving appreciation to things that one might have hated before.<p>And finally, there&#x27;s the pure &quot;feel&quot; of the place. Admittedly, it&#x27;s possible to live in places with different &quot;feels&quot; without going abroad, and get most of the variation, but it&#x27;s even more pronounced when the demographics, general approach to the world, weather or legislation are different.<p>In the very least, moving around helped me understand what is important to lead a happy life. Totally valuable.

Orig based in Arkansas where I grew up, now I live in Colorado. I&#x27;ve done a lot of stints diff places: - A year in Cairo. - A year in Melbourne. - A year in Dublin. - 1.5 years in Europe - 6 months in South America<p>The good IMO opinion is everything, the only downside is building a community and meeting people takes a lot of energy. But looking back I think it takes a lot no matter where you live, it is just easier if you are there all the time.<p>How did it change my perspective? I am a lot more confident in general as I realized I can navigate a huge swath of different cultures and challenges. Knowing you can land just about anywhere in the world and take care of yourself is a good feeling. What else? I see a lot of what other countries are doing well and doing not so well at, when I go home it helps me see what we could be doing better.

Moved from the west coast of the US to France for a year. I would unreservedly recommend living in another country for an extended period of time, preferably before you&#x27;re 30 or 35. I was in my 50s when I did it, and it was a little too late. My ability to acquire language skills was much better when I was younger.<p>I think the most valuable lesson I brought back with me was that I sometimes speak in vague sound bites. I didn&#x27;t notice before living in France because everyone around me seems to do the same thing. I&#x27;m not going to call it &#x27;an American cultural trait&#x27; but it might be. Noticing that has inspired me to focus on clarity in my thoughts and communication.<p>Other useful lessons: people are pretty much the same all over; ease of travel between EU countries is so much better than when I backpacked around Europe in the 1990&#x27;s; a lot of things we take for granted in the US are full of incomprehensible friction in many other countries (e.g. opening a bank account). And vice versa, to a smaller degree.

11 years and counting. Born in Germany, I&#x27;ve been to the US, UK, Spain (and short 3 months in Mexico), now again in the UK. It has absolutely been valuable, though I feel the question does not really apply to me as I always felt I had to go abroad. Everything has good and bad parts, but the one thing I can say for sure is that I am much more &quot;alive&quot;. The thought that I might have stayed in my home town (Hamburg, which is one of the nicest cities in Germany) for my whole life truly horrifies me.<p>However, now with wife &amp; kids priorities change significantly. We are planning (though it is not sure we will do it due to wife&#x27;s job) to bring our kids to Germany while they&#x27;re in school and then retire in Spain once they have grown up. Let&#x27;s see if that works out ;)

I’m currently in my 6th year living in Thailand, having grown up in South Australia and then spent a few years in the eastern states (of Australia).<p>I moved because my (then gf, now wife) had been away from her home (Thailand) for ~10 years and wanted to come home for a while. I worked for a remote company at the time, so it was no problem work wise. I’ve since started my own company and work independently but still remote, so no issues there.<p>The low cost of living is nice, but I definitely appreciate some of the western cultural&#x2F;lifestyle aspects more now that I’ve lived here.<p>I also appreciate things like government more now - people often claim Australia has become a “nanny state” due to regulations - Thailand is a perfect example of what can happen when government says “eh fuck it do what you want”. I realise that won’t mean much to those who haven’t lived here, but that’s the whole point of this thread, isn’t it.

Lived and studied in Scotland for 9 months (I am from Germany) when I was 22. Dunno if that counts as &quot;extended&quot;. It certainly helped me to become a bit more adult and a lot more independent and confident. 10&#x2F;10 would recommend :)<p>Positive side effect: I now understand Trainspotting without subtitles, which did it not before :)

I&#x27;m interested in hearing from those in the US who have spent significant time abroad as nomads &#x2F; not committing to any particular place for long. This website always inspires me to give it a try: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nomadlist.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nomadlist.com&#x2F;</a>

I grew up in the Canal Zone and spent a lot of time in Berlin. It was valuable to me. Gave me perspectives I wouldn’t otherwise have. There are downsides. Coming to the U.S. from the Canal Zone took a lot of getting used to. Going in the reverse direction is no different. However, English is widely spoken and American movies and TV are ubiquitous and this helps with coping to a new place.<p>Every place has its nuances. In Berlin if you walk on the sidewalk and 4 people are walking abreast toward you they will not make way for you. On whatever side you are walking the person closest to you will do a half turn and it’s expected you do the same.<p>I met a German in Turkey once who lived in a village for 20 years. He said he will always be an outsider there. Depending on where you go you may not ever feel part of the society.

in between undergrad and grad i did peace corps in rural africa (uganda). for two years i lived in a village 30km from the nearest flushing toilet. it was simultaneously the best and worst thing i&#x27;ve ever done. we in the west live in a theme park. it&#x27;s been about 5 years since i&#x27;ve returned and i still occasionally reflect on how many light years ahead we are when i drive down perfectly paved roads in my tiny little college town (let alone wrt metropolises like nyc).<p>ironically it inspired me to work harder to secure some wealth for myself and go into software (because to squander the opportunity would be an insult to all of the people i met that will live out the rest of their lives growing corn).<p>i&#x27;m a cofounder now and there&#x27;s a lot of commonality in at least the grit&#x2F;resilience necessary.

I was born and raised in Columbus, GA. I briefly lived in Germany as a toddler, but I don&#x27;t remember it.<p>My mother is a German immigrant and my father was career military. He retired when I was three years old and bought a house where I lived until I married and moved out. I graduated high school with people I had gone to kindergarten with.<p>I was married to a soldier for a long time. In my twenties, one of our stints was in Germany. We were there more than 3.5 years.<p>I got to meet some of my German relatives and got to be exposed to my mother&#x27;s culture. I had always felt I was missing something in that regard and it helped me feel whole.

Absolutely it was valuable. I&#x27;m Finnish, lived in China for a bit over one year (almost 20 years ago). It certainly changed the way I look at the world, was an invaluable experience, and I recommend anyone to take a bit of a leap. Most likely you will appreciate it. Since then I&#x27;ve had shorter stints elsewhere but not for longer periods.<p>I got paid better at the assignment than at home, learned a lot about how differently people think in other parts of the world; my two older kids started school there (in English) and gained excellent language skills. I&#x27;m very thankful for the opportunity.

Currently going on two years in SE asia. Midwest -&gt; North Africa -&gt; PVD&#x2F;NYC&#x2F;Boston area -&gt; SE asia.<p>Good: Cheaper cost of living, meeting people from all over the world, observing&#x2F;learning the ways of people and cultural feedback loops.<p>Bad: always takes some adjusting to, esp language.<p>Hasn&#x27;t really changed my perspective of various parts of life, even through the differences, people don&#x27;t really behave imaginably different esp wrt most going along with the status quo of their local environments.<p>Valuable? We all have different functions for evaluation of such when it comes to anything in our lives.

Absolutely. I lived in China and Spain, and am about to move once again. Those experiences have given me perspective on the world and on myself, gave me self-confidence when I was able to succeed in a foreign environment against international competition, built my character and drive. It ultimately gives me a non-negligible advantage over my peers when it comes to job-hunting. It does have downsides because leaving Family &amp; Friends is tough at times, homesickness, etc.<p>My personal 2 cents is, think about your motivations. Don&#x27;t do that just because of a calculation.

I lived in Italy and a bit in Austria over the course of about 15 years.<p>It defined my life in many ways, not least of which marrying a woman from Italy!<p>I can&#x27;t recommend it enough - it gives you a much broader perspective on the world.

Valuable in what sense? For most people, it will probably be very valuable as an experience. But it might also hurt your career a bit, depending on what you are trying to do. Read the biographies of the most successful entrepreneurs, and I think you&#x27;ll find they were too focused on building their companies to spend a lot of time roaming the earth. The main exception would be people like Sebastian Thrun and Elon Musk who moved to the US as a way to pursue their ambitions.

I was born on an island in the Caribbean, lived in Australia for over 10 years then lived in Russia, Netherlands, UK for about 6 months each and now I&#x27;m in Germany.<p>I think that living in many different countries does change you significantly. It makes you more aware of subtle cultural differences and also about human psychology at a fundamental level. I think it also probably made me a bit cynical overall. It gives you a general feeling of instability.

Just yesterday I read this article that an acquaintance of mine wrote on her experience as an American who lived for a while in the UK and then went back to the states <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.girlabouttheglobe.com&#x2F;where-are-you-from&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.girlabouttheglobe.com&#x2F;where-are-you-from&#x2F;</a>

I became a Dad before I had the chance to fullfil my dream of going abroad longer.<p>My wife has done the opposite and spent most of her 20s as a backpacker&#x2F;work&amp;travel. She wants to go travelling again but my job &amp; financial situation just make it not possible to make the jump. Are there any other parents with long-term travel experience?

From USA. Lived in Canada for nine years. Does that count?

Yes, I have. 5 years in Spain. I was studying there and as someone who was born, raised and now living in eastern Europe, I can tell you that this was one of the most valuable experiences of my entire life.<p>First things first, I grew up in a large city that was torn by protests up until the late 90&#x27;s, despite the collapse of the soviet union. Even though I was a kid in the 90&#x27;s, I grew up with the idea that I&#x27;ll emigrate. And So I did the moment I got the chance in the mid 2000&#x27;s. I am not sure if things had changed at that time or I had but life was nothing like I would have expected. First off, coming from a poor country with no financial support is extremely difficult. Second, Eastern Europe is a pretty non-secular place so foreigners are not something you see every day. I wouldn&#x27;t say the foreign kids(as few as they were) in school were bullied in any way or left out but they were almost always pushed a bit off to the side. Something I did not experience in Spain. Students, professors, random strangers on the street - everyone, no exception was very friendly and welcoming, helpful and friendly. I did my last year of school there and at the time my country was not in the EU and I was an illegal immigrant by all means. I was concerned about this when I enrolled and I asked the secretary of the school if that is a problem. Her reaction blew my mind: &quot;We are not immigration services. We are an educational institution. What kind of animals do we have to be to say no to a kid that wants to study?&quot;. I truly had no idea what to say, I think I stood there for a good 5 minutes with my mouth wide open. For years I was trying to figure out where the catch was, but there really wasn&#x27;t one. I studied software engineering and I did extremely well, graduating second in my class by a tiny fraction behind the guy that was first. When I started university I was 18 and I had been writing code since I was 10 so everything was very natural to me. Which in addition made me even more popular since I could help the others and I gladly did. I guess one of the most valuable experiences was that I used to live in the south of Spain, which besides giving me plenty of opportunity to make Spanish almost a native language to me, also made English a native language due to the large British diaspora. 2 years down the road the Spanish couldn&#x27;t tell I wasn&#x27;t Spanish and the English couldn&#x27;t tell I wasn&#x27;t English. So on that front alone it was all worth it. I suppose I was never a fan of hot weather but I could easily picture myself spending the rest of my life there. However a few life changing events happened(lost my best friend, along a very bitter experience I had with a girl over there), so I figured the best way to cope with it was to move back home and start over. Was it worth it? Totally!

3 years and counting, it has been difficult but i would do it again in a blink.