Top Virtual Mailbox Services for Expats Moving Abroad
If you’re moving to a new country, you’re probably wondering what to do with your mail when moving overseas. The solution? A virtual mailbox service. Virtual mailbox services let you manage all your postal mail from anywhere in the world. This post will examine three popular virtual mailbox providers: Anytime Mailbox, iPostal1, and Traveling Mailbox.…
Five Great Reasons to Rent Out Your US Home When You Move Abroad
Are you planning a sabbatical year in a foreign country? Consider renting out your home while living overseas. Yes, prepping your house for rental is yet another task on what may already feel like an overwhelming to do list. Done right, however, it’s worth the effort. Here are five great reasons to rent out your…
How to Keep Your US or Canadian Phone Number When You Move Abroad
In today’s world, your phone is an extension of yourself. You use it to keep in touch with family, do business, access email, and more. If you are planning to move abroad, you may already have anxiety worrying about how you can transition your phone from here to there. You don’t have to be anxious.…
Keep Your Mobile Phone Number After Moving Abroad
There are a lot of things you need to take care of before you move abroad, some of which you probably haven’t even thought about before. Have you considered what to do with your cell phone number? If you plan to return to the United States, you probably want to keep your current mobile phone…
The Challenges of Sending Money Overseas
When preparing to move abroad, there are a lot of moving parts, and many of them require sending money overseas. When you attempt a cross-border payment, you’ll likely find the process is a lot more involved than you expected. Knowing what to expect when doing cross-border transfer will help you send the payment in plenty…
Collect Mail While Living Abroad: Traveling Mailbox
If your family is moving abroad, you need to have a plan for how to handle your American mail. You need to be able to view your mail and respond to it when needed, which may sound impossible if you’re in Spain and your letter is in America. There are a number of services that…
Make Paperwork Easier with PDFFiller
If you’re a frequent traveler or planning a move abroad, you likely have a lot of paperwork you need to fill out. Whether you’re applying for your visa, filling out school forms, or countless other documents, it can be overwhelming. Typically, you need access to a printer and scanner to send paperwork electronically. That is…
Study at Sevilla Habla Language School in Seville, Spain
Are you relocating to Spain but haven’t reached your desired fluency in Spanish? Schools are available for foreigners to learn Spanish once they arrive in the country. Learning the local language is one of the best ways to feel more at home in your new home. If you’re moving to the Seville area of Spain,…
How to Stay Safe While Driving in Spain
Driving in Spain is a bit different than driving in the United States. If you’re planning a move to Spain — or even just traveling there — you’ll probably want to get behind the wheel of a car. Buses or trains will serve you well in metro areas, or even getting across the country from…
Buy Spanish Health Insurance in 8 Easy Steps
Are you applying for a residence visa to move to Spain? If you’re a non-EU or non-EEA national, you must provide proof of private Spanish health insurance on your visa application. This requirement includes Americans and other foreigners applying for the following visas: It can be daunting to purchase health insurance in a foreign country,…
Top Phone Tips for Expats
As more Americans act on their expat dreams, many are discovering a common challenge faced by expats around the globe – how to keep an active US phone number. There are many reasons expats would want to hold onto their existing American phone number while living overseas. Follow these top phone tips for expats to…
4 Ways Expats Can Feel More at Home
Moving to another country is a thrilling experience. There are numerous reasons why people move abroad. Some people opt to become expats because they found a job, while others move because of a relationship, i.e., a boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, or husband. You may be looking forward to the move, excited about a new country, new…
College in Europe vs America: 9 Ways They’re Different
Recently, I consulted with an American family planning a move to Spain. Specifically, we were discussing education options for their oldest daughter. She would be in 10th grade on arrival. Their main concern? How an international move during high school would impact her chances of going to college in Europe. College in Europe? The families…
Moving Our Family Overseas: Two Years of Expat Life in Spain
Moving our family overseas was something my husband and I had always talked about. Like, from when I was pregnant with our older child. Yet that vision lingered in the background for most of our kids’ childhoods. Finally, the time had come. Our sons were 8 and 12. Act now on our dream of moving…
Moving to Spain as an American Family – 7 Tips for a Smooth Transition
Moving to Spain as an American family will be one of the most formative experiences of your children’s lives. (And yours too!) And yet, your move abroad will present many hoops to jump through. Hoops unique to moving to Spain as an American family. Hoops that many EU expats might get to avoid. First off,…
How to Move Abroad as a Family: 7 Tips For Choosing a School
In the summer of 2015, my husband I pressed go on our long held dream to move our family to Spain for a year. We had no personal connections anywhere in Spain. No idea where specifically in Spain we should live. And we were, generally speaking, almost entirely clueless about the entire process, from immigration…
Living Abroad for a Year as a Family: How We Moved to Spain
My husband and I had always dreamed of living abroad for a year as a family. In fact, we’d talked about it before our first child was even born. And yet, this notion to move our kids to a foreign country had never really coalesced beyond the idea stage. Notably, we hadn’t even thought about…
How To Move to Spain from the US as a Family – Our Expat Story
Making the the decision to move to Spain for a year was easy. My husband and I had spoken of living in a foreign country with our children when I was pregnant with our first child. Yet our sons were 7 and 12 the first time we got them to Europe. That’s when it hit…
Expat Education: An Expat’s Guide to Choosing a School Overseas
Considering an overseas move with children? Grab a copy of Expat Education: An Expat’s Guide to Choosing a School Overseas by Carole Hallett Mobbs. Wherever you’re at on your expat journey, this book will help you understand the many education related concerns of moving your child to a foreign country. Expat Education — The Kinds…
Our 10 Biggest Mistakes Moving to Spain – And What We’d Do Differently Next Time
I’d never moved kids to Spain before. In fact, I’d never moved to or lived in any foreign country before. Truly, I thought I’d researched everything. Far more went wrong than right. These are our 10 biggest mistakes moving our family to Spain (there were far more!), and here’s what what we’d do differently next…
Your Child’s Personality and Their Move Abroad: 5 Factors Affecting How They Cope
Just as with adults, children moving abroad experience a sense of loss and period of adjustment. Loosely termed culture shock, each child or teen’s adaptation process will be unique to them. Understanding the variables that play a role in your child’s transition after moving abroad can help you set your family up for success.
First Day of School in Spain – A Family Expat Story
I thought dropping off my kids for their first day of kindergarten was scary. It was nothing compared to parenting them through their first day as American expats going to school in Spain. The curriculum at the Colegio San Francisco de Paula in Seville is completely bilingual. Half the core classes are taught in English,…
20 Culture Shock Symptoms Every Expat Should Know
Culture shock affects every expat at some point. Even if your move abroad is purely out of desire. Preparedness is key. Recognizing the emotional, social and physical symptoms of culture shock — along with tools to cope — will ease your transition and set you up for success in your new foreign home. Emotional Symptoms…
Our Epic Journey to Get a Spanish Non Lucrative Visa
The Spanish Non Lucrative Residence Visa I knew it was possible for Americans to legally live in Spain for a year. I just didn’t know that the visa we needed was called the Spanish non lucrative residence visa. It took me over a month to figure that out. It would take several more to figure…
How to Cope with Culture Shock – An Expert’s Guide
Moving to a foreign country may be one of the greatest adventures you ever pursue. Yet the excitement and planning of your international adventure can mask a much darker side of your move abroad — the emotional toll of culture shock. What is culture shock and why does it occur? Culture shock refers to the…
10 Files Every Expat Should Save to a Cloud Drive
Be ready for the unexpected. My top 10 files every expat family save to a cloud drive.