China is now the fifth country I’ll feel comfortable calling home – after the UK, Germany, America and Japan, each time the process of relocating has become a little easier. Whilst each of the moves was under very different circumstances, life stages the following tips picked up on the way might help smooth your next relocation:
- 1. You don’t need a job or apartment lined up to make the leap. Sure it might mean sofa-surfing or taking career diversions – these are the tangents that reveal and shape the new you.
- 2. International relocation is the ultimate excuse to have a brutal clear-out. Give away, sell or recycle everything that that you haven’t used or appreciated in the past year. Sure the odd item that didn’t make the cut will be missed – but this is easily outweighed by the pleasure of finding a new home for things and the psychological pleasure of letting go. In fact I’d go one step further and argue that the practical/emotional jolt that comes from ‘missing’ something helps reinforce its value, which in turn shapes future actions/consumption. Missing things is a Good Thing.
- 3. Heart first, then wallet: first figure out where you want to go, the logistics and money to make it happen will stretch and contract to your budget.
- 4. Never apply for a single entry visa when multiple entry is an option. Any additional cost is easily outweighed by the flexibility it provides.
- 5. If your reason for relocating is for a new job negotiate a moving allowance. Your new employer will show their love/respect by paying for the costs of your move: airline tickets; shipping or airfreighting your possessions; accommodation and transport for the first month and support in applying for the necessary permits are all standard fare and tend to be fixed depending on your base salary. For shipping I highly recommend Unigroup they turn up, pack everything, ship door-to-door and unpack at the other end. Since you’re wondering – shipping a 20 foot container across the Pacific (enough space for a minimalist family’s worldly possessions) takes ~6 weeks and costs ~4kEur.
- 6. Keep a digital scan of all your important documents and adopt an easy to remember naming strategy. Scanning documents is a pain in the ass, and scanning documents that have already been scanned but cannot be found is the equivalent of doing jail-time with a pretty face – painful. The benefit of having scans on hand becomes immediately apparent just prior to the move – when your stress level is at its highest and everyone wants a copy yesterday.
- 7. Backup your most important stuff to the cloud. Dropbox is ideal for everyday data, if you’re looking for something more heavy duty consider Amazon S3 plus an uploader like Transmit.
- 8. Maintain at least one bank account in the country you’re leaving, because frankly its a bitch to open accounts when you’re ‘abroad’ and at some point you. will. need. it. The exception to the its-a-bitch-to-open rule are the premium banking services offered by the larger banks geared up to service international clients – allowing you to set up an account prior to departure and pick up your new, local cards on arrival. (I use and am reasonably happy with HSBC Premier)
- 9. Take/capture your own identity card photos – this frees you from finding a working photo-booth in a hurry. Today’s home bubble jet printers with glossy photo paper are fine for passport photos.
- 10. And finally – once you’re settled, upgrade your residents status as soon as possible. In many countries your right to be resident and move freely in and out of the country become easier over time – assuming you complete the right forms. Should you wish to relocate to another country and re-enter after a period of time (not unreasonable given the network for friend and acquaintances you’ll build up over time) the process becomes that much easier. The lack of ‘residency’ (in its many forms) can also hamstring you if things go sour – for example if you’re in the US on an L1 visa you have 2 weeks to pack up and leave when the contract ends. Far better to control your own destiny.
What relocation tips would share?
13 Comments
I would add research things like mobile phone and data services ahead of time, and more or less the moment you land pick up a way to communicate and get online locally. You can probably just bring your old phone and pop in a new SIM card (unless you’re carrier locked, or going to Japan, or what have you), but be sure. Not having a local phone for even a couple days on arrival is a PITA.
Always remember that when you first relocated to a new city/country, the first year is about finding out the place and adjusting to the culture, the second year is when you’ve made enough friends to hang out with and the third year is the best as you truly enjoy the city/country!
Before you leave: Remember to bask in the once strange, now familiar pieces of the country you’re leaving for your next adventure.
Open your eyes a little wider, notice the details, the nuances of your walk to the grocery store, the familiar face at the dry cleaner. After the novelty of your new destination wears off and the real transition begins, it’s nice to look back and remember all that you accomplished, discovered and learned in the last strange place where you made yourself right at home.
Start living immediately like you never plan to leave.
(Well, give or take splashing out for expensive property when renting will do fine)
It’s undoubtedly the best way to get under the skin of a country, and to quickly shake off any temptation one might have to think one is a) still a tourist, or b) a closeted expat.
If lucky enough to be traveling with kids, their quick entry to a school also accelerates feeling like one is a stakeholder in the community. This is the one thing we *do* plan ahead.
Also I try in those first few weeks to capture – however best – as many things as possible that strike one as strange, quirky, or downright bizarre. After not very long even they can start to seem mundane.
(At least until the relatives come out to visit and you get to relive the craziness of what you’ve just done all over again, through astonished eyes… quite an enjoyble experience too, actually)
Me? England, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, India & Belize. Have fun in China – it sounds like you already are.
@janchip re:
#4 – get a multi-visa save passport pages. I really, really hate Kenya right and their full page single visas right now.
#6 – scan your passport critical documents and email it to your self under innocuous names. In many places like Mali, a photocopy of a passport and an official stamp at a local mayor’s office constitutes a legal ID. I’ve never had an issue with my Illinois Driver’s license though.
Some other tips:
- Do bring good kitchen knives and a quality frying pan or two if you like to cook. Maybe in Asia you can get this but in Africa your SOL.
- Digitize everything – music, photos, movies or just get it from the Internet later. It’s amazing how much you won’t miss.
All great comments, which I second and have used in my past transcontinental moves. I would only add *staging*, which I wish I had used in the past :-).
You don’t have to move all at once, if you’re “testing the waters”. You can only move all you need for…a year, for example: clothes, documents, some books/papers/documents. The rest stays in storage, waiting for a second call from you: “ship [fill the blanks]” …
:)
Great advice. In addition to HSBC Premier (which helps transfer your credit rating around, which is important because trying to do anything in a new country with zero credit rating is a total suck-fest), I noticed that HSBC has a new “Advance” account, which drops the minimum [global] deposit from $100K to about $25K, while retaining most of the important benefits.
Dealing with health care and finances are by far and away the biggest issues I’ve encountered moving internationally (after visas). Anything that can be done that makes those two things easier is worth it.
Can’t say i agree with
“1. You don’t need a job or apartment lined up to make the leap. Sure it might mean sofa-surfing or taking career diversions – these are the tangents that reveal and shape the new you.”
As most countries I am interested in moving to require you to either have a job or be entering school in order to get a visa to move to the country and then work there.
For example, I am a US citizen. I cannot just pack up and move to the UK without having either a job lined up or being enrolled in a school there, or marrying a UK citizen. Otherwise I can only get the 3 month visa.
Is this information wrong? Has anyone successfully relocated to the UK from the US without first having a job/school/partner there?
Some interesting comments.
K: – my feeling about visas is first figure out how to get into a country – typically on a tourist visa, then using the network of people who are on the ground going through similar experience – figure out how to stay. Its not that much of a leap of faith.
It’s kind of a huge leap of faith if you can only get a tourist visa to stay for 3 months, then to move your stuff over to another country ($) only to be kicked out 3 months later. :(
Remember Apostille for important paper documents such as birth certificate and diploma. This certifies for the purposes of the Hague Convention that the document is authentic and is required for those nations that do not recognize the notary public stamp. In the US, your state’s Secretary of State handles this. In China, the apostille’s official red wax stamp, raised paper embossing, signatures, and so on are essential as chops to get through the bureaucracy. In China, there is the work permit and exam at the quarantine station, but also two separate “residence permits,” one a sort of visa extension in your passport, the other a photo ID like a driver’s license, with your new number and new Chinese name (you have one, don’t you?). So plan on about four long trips to the Public Security Bureau offices for all this.
Great list!
These are good guidelines for a *very specific* crowd of people. Some of the things on the list are harder to achieve without the proper social network and/or revenues.
Another issue is when you are a (not legally married) couple, it becomes very hard to move from one place to another. There is a challenge for getting a job for one person, it becomes even harder when you are two… individuals.
The “money in bank” is a luxury that not many have. I’m not saying it is not doable, but it can become a very hard challenge. Even more if the type of job you will get after the move is not generating a lot of revenues, making it even easier more difficult to move.
I would rephrase the item 2. Indeed being light is cool. Some people are already super light, because they do not have money. The way I would phrase it is that it is all about a choice of life style. What you invest in physical property (aka object) is both a burden for your next move and less money for moving.
But at a high level, these are good guidelines.
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