Ok, ok, a deliberately provocative title I know, but really, the expat experience today compared to even twenty years ago is so easy and don’t even talk about trekking to far off lands without so much as the promise of regular mail.

When I left my home country, twenty-three years ago, there was no Internet through which to book flights, cars, hotels etc. My sparkly, new husband rented an apartment for us without any input from me; you can imagine how the scene would have played out today. Photos back and forth, weeks and weeks of decision-making…. Sigh.

One thing that did bug me back then, was the trouble I had to get money when visiting the UK. Although there were obviously cash machines/ATMs, very few banks’ machines were actually connected the way they are now.   more ...

At first glance you wouldn’t notice anything odd about the title of this month’s column, until you realize that it’s June.

Not March. Not April. Not May.

It’s June, and Spring has only recently arrived here in the Netherlands.

Now I don’t know whether this is a result of global warming, a one-off year of wetter and colder weather than usual, or some sort of karmic retribution for collective bad deeds in Nederland.

Strike that last choice, considering others in places as disparate as Central and Eastern Europe, the UK, northern US and Canada have all been caterwauling in unison on this theme.   more ...

One of the good and bad things about living in the Dominican Republic is that there is very little imported fruit and vegetables – at least not where I live, so we can only eat things when they are in season. Now it is the mango season, which everyone looks forward to for weeks.

Traditionally in the Dominican Republic they say that mangos are in season after Easter Week – in practice it is during May, and the season lasts until August. The trees are everywhere and laden with fruit. Where I live, in the countryside, every house has at least one tree and we have planted 10. Although we will have to wait four to six years for the first fruit, it doesn’t matter as everyone shares and the neighbours are bringing bags of mangos around on a daily basis.

The mango originated in Southeast Asia where it has been grown for over 4,000 years.   more ...

I spent years cutting the mango in bizarre ways until I met Sam. We sat in plastic lawn chairs on the sunny balcony of a hotel in Tulum, Mexico, drinking coffee and eating mangoes.

I gave a clumsy yank on the peel and he burst out laughing.

“Man, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know, eating this mango.”

“Like that?”

I shrugged. At that time I was in a mango-peeling phase of making a few short slices at the tip and then peeling them down, as if for a stubborn banana.   more ...

Who are you?

My name is Jerry Nelson. I am a 57yo male from America. As a freelance photojournalist, I get to travel many different places and experience many different things. Much different than the life I would've had if I'd have stayed in the small mountain town in Virginia where I was raised.

Where, when and why did you move abroad?

2009 I came to Costa Rica. Following the break up with my fiance at the time, I just had to “get away”. While traveling so much is a form of getting “away”, I wanted somewhere that wasn't America; somewhere that people might appreciate the possessions they owned and appreciate the people around them.   more ...

Who are you?

I am Steven, a United States citizen, who is 28 years old. I have always dreamed of travelling and exploring the world, but until I moved one year ago, I had never even used my passport that I optimistically obtained when I was 19 years old. After receiving my PhD in chemical physics from a university in the United States of America, I decided that I wanted to do something more interesting than simply another post-doc or applying for a job that would start me on a career. Instead, I found short-term work with a German development firm, which would station me in Cairo for one year.   more ...

Contact Tom for a free, no-obligation discussion of your financial situation if you are a US citizen living abroad or a foreign national living in the USA.

Many US citizens living abroad have recently been contacted by their US brokerage firms to inform them that their accounts have either been frozen such that they can no longer change their investments or that they need to close their accounts entirely.

Even large brokerage firms and banks such as Fidelity and Wells-Fargo in many instances no longer want to deal with non-US resident clients through their US offices. Often there is little in the way of explanation, just a letter in the mail or a phone call from a broker who is following instructions and doesn’t really understand the issue.   more ...

Contact Tom for a free, no-obligation discussion of your financial situation if you are a US citizen living abroad or a foreign national living in the USA.

Many US citizens living abroad have recently been contacted by their US brokerage firms to inform them that their accounts have either been frozen such that they can no longer change their investments or that they need to close their accounts entirely.

Even large brokerage firms and banks such as Fidelity and Wells-Fargo in many instances no longer want to deal with non-US resident clients through their US offices. Often there is little in the way of explanation, just a letter in the mail or a phone call from a broker who is following instructions and really doesn’t understand the issue.   more ...

Living in a paradise that many see as a tourist destination does tend to increase the likelihood of visitors. As we have lived in such places for a while now, we’ve perfected the visitor strategy so that we balance the time we play tour guides with the time we must stick to our guns and continue life as usual (which for me includes chunks of time for writing and working on client projects).

The wonderful thing about having visitors is that we can then play tourists in our own town and explore new places and perhaps re-visit some of our favourites. Since our guests tend to vary in age and levels of ‘adventuresome-ness’ we do have to adjust accordingly.

A recent visit of my adult nephews triggered what I would call, in retrospect, the perfect Phuket day!   more ...

by Omaira Gill

Greece had never featured particularly high on my radar of places I wanted to visit. I found myself there in August 2004 after successfully applying to volunteer at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. But Greece is the home of interfering gods and the Fates, and they had other plans for me. What was to be a one-off two week trip ended up turning into a much longer relationship.

On my first day as a volunteer, I met my husband who was coordinating the centre where I was based. I returned to the UK and we stayed in touch. Our conversations became longer and more frequent, and the rest is history.

We managed a long-distance relationship for several years until it came to the crunch – who was going to move?   more ...