What Interviewing 15 People Taught Me About Moving to Another Country
Honest lessons about global mobility, belonging, and what it really costs to stay, to leave, or to start over in a world shaped by borders.
When we talk about moving abroad, the conversation usually changes into a predictable, highly aesthetic script. We talk about white-sand beaches in Costa Rica, sipping espresso in a sun-drenched Spanish plaza, or starting fresh with a backpack and a dream. It’s a fantasy sold to us by Instagram algorithms and curated TikTok travel logs.
But over the past few months, I’ve sat down with 15 different people who actually did it. These weren’t vacationers; they were “Roamers”—people from the US, Russia, the UK, the Philippines, and beyond, who broke down their old lives and tried to piece them back together on completely foreign soil.
They were corporate professionals fleeing burnout, military veterans navigating trauma, young graduates broken by local housing markets, and people running for their lives from sudden geopolitical collapses.
After listening to hours of raw, unfiltered stories about their triumphs, bureaucratic nightmares, and late-night panics, I realized that everything we are taught about moving abroad is slightly wrong. If you are standing at the edge of a major geographic leap, here is what interviewing 15 real people will teach you about what actually happens when you cross the border.
1. Nobody moves “for adventure” (Even if they think they do)
The biggest myth of the expat lifestyle is that it’s driven by wanderlust. When you dig into the true catalyst for a move, it is almost always structural. People don’t leave comfort; they flee unsustainability. The American Roamers I interviewed didn’t pack up because they hated their country; they left because the “American Dream” was actively breaking them. They cited crushing healthcare systems, astronomical childcare, a toxic hustle culture, and an overwhelming sense of economic displacement.
Roamer 1, a former NYC luxury realtor, recounted negotiating a high-stakes deal from a hospital bed while her premature baby was in the ICU. It was this exact moment of systemic burnout and subsequent medical bills that forced her to flee to Costa Rica.
Similarly, British Roamers described an acute generational exhaustion. Roamer 15, a young UK graduate, found himself stuck in his childhood bedroom because he couldn’t afford rent in England despite finishing top of his class and securing a prestigious management track. He realized the traditional playbook handed down by the previous generation was broken, prompting his move to Australia’s Gold Coast.
Whether it was a 2008 economic collapse stalling a career in Spain—Roamer 13, or the sudden outbreak of war destroying a translation business in Russia—Roamer 6, people move because their home country failed them.
2. The invisible “Scaffold Drop” and the mental health tax.
There is a highly predictable psychological arc that every single Roamer experienced, and it usually hits around day 30 or 60.
When you first arrive, you are bothered with logistics and trying to soak everything in. But eventually, the institutional hand-holding ends, and what I call the “scaffold drop” occurs. The realization sets in that you don’t just live in a postcard; you have to navigate real, mundane life with a fraction of your usual cognitive tools.
Roamer 2 recalled waking up alone on her first morning in France to a heavy “hangover” of disorientation, feeling like a helpless five-year-old child while trying to figure out a local tram ticket machine.
Roamer 3, moving from Kazakhstan, went into a deep depression during her first year in Poitiers, France, when the supportive bubble of her initial restaurant internship vanished and she had to face real student life.
Roamer 9, a former social worker from Texas who moved to Madrid, explicitly noted that days 31–60 are characterized by an overwhelming wave of isolation and panic as the reality of starting over sets in. You don’t just move your body to a new country; you drag your history, your traumas, and your habits with you. If you move to escape yourself, the new country will rudely introduce you to exactly who you are the moment the honeymoon phase fades.
3. The power dynamics of passports and the predatory “Fixer Economy.”
We like to think of the world as a global village, but the interviews painted a starkly unequal picture of international mobility, divided cleanly by the lottery of your birth passport.
If you possess an EU passport like Roamer 5 (moving from France to Spain) or a US passport like Roamer 8 (moving to Mexico City), moving often feels like an administrative annoyance or simply “moving towns”. You can execute border runs, exploit tourist extensions, or rely on economic arbitrage to live comfortably off seasonal work.
But for Roamers from the Philippines, Kazakhstan, or Russia, the process is a frustrating gauntlet of hostile interrogation rooms, frozen bank accounts, and arbitrary rejections. This artificial scarcity has given rise to a deeply entrenched, legally grey “Fixer Economy.”
Roamer 7, a teacher from the Philippines moving to Spain, detailed the heavy emotional toll of visa anxiety. She explained how scarcity forces migrants to pay expensive “fixers” up to ten times the official cost ($300 instead of $4) just to secure a mandatory appointment slot that the government website claims doesn’t exist.
Roamer 12 reinforced this reality in Spain, noting that the bureaucracy is so intentionally old-school and paper-heavy because simplifying it into a clean website would decimate the entire economy of “gestores” (local fixers). It’s a tax on the vulnerable, proving that global freedom of movement is still a luxury item.
4. The trap of financial arbitrage vs. cultural belonging.
Many people move to look for high-paying markets or ultra-cheap digital nomad hubs. But the interviews revealed a fascinating tension between financial success and genuine human happiness. Roamer 13 spent 15 years in Bergen, Norway, specifically because it was a place to make “fast and easy money” at three times the rate of her native Spain. Yet, after a decade and a half of flawless economic stability, she realized she only had one native Norwegian friend. She was financially wealthy but culturally starved, missing the warmth of a community where neighbors spontaneously spilled out into the streets at midnight. She ultimately chose to return to Spain, trading a higher salary for a sense of mutual neighborliness.
On the flip side, this economic disparity is causing severe friction. Roamer 8 in Mexico City highlighted encountering a rising wave of Gen-Z anti-American protests, vandalism, and gentrification backlash.
Roamer 12 in Valencia noted that wealthy foreigners arrive with “sacks of cash” from selling Western properties, driving up housing prices, and pricing out locals who are forced to live with their parents into their 40s.
If you move somewhere purely to extract value because your currency is strong, you will likely find yourself living in a wealthy, insulated, and deeply resented bubble.
5. The ultimate philosophy: “Pensati Fet” (Thought and Did)
If there was one golden thread connecting the individuals who didn’t just survive their move, but genuinely thrived, it was a radical capacity to pivot and an embrace of mortality.
The most profound realization came from Roamer 12. He nearly died of organ failure at a London hospital, waking from a coma only to find that his younger brother had suffered a parallel, fatal heart crisis. That trauma permanently shattered his tolerance for corporate commutes and rush-hour traffic. He moved to Valencia under the local philosophy of “pensati fet”—”thought and did.” When his new Spanish kidney faced rejection later on, he survived it because he had built an intimate, deeply integrated relationship with his local, non-English-speaking medical team.
We saw a similar situation with Roamer 11, a Trinidadian native who left the US for Mexico. He built a successful mobile wellness business by ditching standard social media algorithms, conducting his temporary residency interview entirely in Spanish without taking a single class, and simply letting his intuition guide his steps.
Furthermore, Roamer 14, a US Army veteran medically retired after an injury in Afghanistan, moved his family to rural Nicaragua based entirely on a random internet sidebar banner ad. He navigated political unrest, farm logistics, and chaotic visa laws by simply accepting the environment as it was, rather than trying to force American expectations onto it.
When you strip away the romanticized travel writing, moving to another country is essentially an act of controlled ego-death. As Roamer 4 who sold his construction business and truck in Denver to move to Mexico with just a backpack—beautifully put it: “It’s kind of like the suicide of my American life. You’re killing a chapter.”
You have to mourn your old identity. You have to accept the humility of not understanding the local dialect, standing in government offices feeling small and missing milestones or funerals across impossible time zones.
But for those willing to go through that, the reward isn’t a permanent vacation. The reward is a profound, unshakeable self-reliance. It’s the realization that home isn’t a specific set of coordinates you inherit at birth. It’s an internal alignment you build piece by piece, country by country, through shared meals, local hobbies, and the courage to jump into the deep end of the ocean and trust your arms to swim.