Avoiding The Expat Trap

Why moving abroad means more than changing your address.

When Spain played France in the recent World Cup semi-final, I had a choice to make.

Living in Torremolinos, I could easily have watched the match in one of the many British or Irish bars, surrounded by people speaking English. It would have been familiar, comfortable and effortless.

Instead, my husband and I deliberately chose a small bar filled almost entirely with Spanish supporters.

For the first few minutes I wondered if we'd made the right decision.

Before long, the group sitting at the next table spotted my football shirt. With great enthusiasm — and even greater amusement — they explained that I was wearing entirely the wrong jersey for the occasion. There was plenty of laughter, a little gentle teasing, and then something rather unexpected happened.

During half-time they bought us a drink.

By the final whistle, after Spain's victory, they invited us to celebrate with them.

We had arrived as strangers.

We left feeling just a little less like foreigners.

That evening reminded me of something important.

Moving abroad isn't just about finding a new place to live.

It's about deciding how you want to live once you get there.

One of the easiest mistakes to make is what I think of as the expat trap.

Almost every town that's popular with foreigners has them: the familiar pubs, cafés and restaurants where everyone speaks your own language, serves the food you grew up with and understands every cultural reference without explanation.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

In fact, fellow expatriates are often among the first friends we make. They understand the frustrations of paperwork, language barriers and the strange mixture of excitement and uncertainty that comes with starting over. They have good advice too.

I've been grateful for those friendships myself.

The trap isn't spending time with other expatriates.

The trap is never leaving them.

Without realising it, it's possible to spend years in another country while remaining almost entirely inside the culture you've left behind.

You shop where other foreigners shop.

You eat where other foreigners eat.

You watch the television channels you watched back home.

You read the newspapers you always read.

You complain about the locals without ever really getting to know them.

After a while, you begin to wonder whether you've actually moved abroad at all.

You've changed your address.

But very little else has changed.

It's a little like arriving at an airport, collecting your luggage, passing through passport control, and then deciding to spend the next ten years sitting in the arrivals hall.

Technically you've arrived.

But you've never really entered the country.

For me, learning the language was never simply about ordering coffee or asking for directions.

It was about opening a door.

Every new word makes another conversation possible.

Every conversation makes another friendship possible.

Every friendship reveals another way of seeing the world.

That's why I believe language isn't the real barrier.

Curiosity is.

You don't have to speak perfect Spanish to smile at your neighbours, chat to the waiter, join a local celebration or watch football with people whose first language isn't your own.

You just have to be willing to feel a little uncomfortable for a while.

The reward is extraordinary.

Little by little, the country stops feeling like somewhere you're visiting.

It becomes somewhere you're participating.

You stop being a spectator.

You become part of the story.

None of this means abandoning the country you've left behind.

I will always be British.

I'll probably always miss proper cheddar cheese from time to time.

I'll always understand jokes that make no sense outside Britain.

Our past doesn't disappear when we move abroad.

It simply becomes part of a larger story.

Because the richest lives aren't built by choosing between cultures.

They're built by allowing ourselves to belong to more than one.

SIMPLY. BETTER. LIVING.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness... Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

— Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad