Dopers who've lived all over the globe: Why?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Just because.

I lived in Texas when I was a kid because my father was in the air force. Subsequent places (Japan, Hong Kong, Ireland, the US, Thailand) after that came via random circumstance, occasionally involving women I was involved with.

What’s it like? Well, living in another culture is frustrating and fascinating in equal measure. But never dull - you learn new stuff every day, or at least every week. The most striking effect for me is that it threw my own culture and way of doing things into a more objective light - I began to see how strange many things we Brits consider “normal” are (though different forms of strangeness are common to all cultures), yet how many commonalities there are between all peoples.

I returned to the UK after 13 years with the intention to settle down. It hasn’t worked out at all, and I want to up sticks again, probably for south-east Asia, or maybe South America, but like ruadh bought property and now feel stuck.

22

I grew up in the US. I studied in Russia for nine months, worked in Turkey for a year, and am now in Sweden. Russia was part of my stint at Georgetown since I majored in the language; Turkey came about because of a combination of factors (meeting what I first thought was a fantastic woman, and realizing I’d pretty much stopped being happy in DC) and Sweden came about because Turkey didn’t work out and I got back in touch with an old crush.

Thinking about it all, the only image I get that probably sums it up best is John Cleese as the cowby in the Arthur Pewty sketch: “A man can run and run…”

23

Besides my native USA, I’ve lived in Switzerland, Germany and Thailand. This was all for work reasons. This past year I’ve spent roughly half of the year in Germany but it’s been as business travel, not a move. Next year they want me to work half in Germany and half in Wales. It’s just part of the job.

I’ve also had to travel to Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, England, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Poland for work. Going to Canada was not much different than a business trip in the USA, although enough so that you didn’t think you’re in the US.

It doesn’t bother me much, although this year, with a lot of trips away from my kids, has probably been the hardest. In that respect, it’s a lot easier to bring the whole family along.

Of the places I’ve actually had a home, Thailand was the most different, but my wife is originally from Thailand, so that project was actually sort of a request. It was nice for her since she got to spend some significant time with her grandmother and grandfather before they passed away. It was interesting for me to get more of a perspective on what makes her who she is. And hopefully it gave my kids a taste of a part of their background, although they were both pretty small at the time.

I’d put Germany and Switzerland as somewhere in between. I’m pretty comfortable in both places in terms of shopping, getting around, etc., and can get by fairly well in German. Still, I never got anywhere near to feeling like a native in terms of belonging.

When I was a kid we moved all over the United States. I got used to moving on, fitting in, and adjusting to the new locations. We lived in California, Seattle, DC, Atlanta, and then Tampa. When I graduated college I relocated to Ohio then Maryland, then back to Ohio before moving overseas. We now live in Florida and have more about 6-7 years. For a while I’d get anxious if I didn’t move every 3-4 years. It just seemed like something that was supposed to happen.

The positives are seeing new places on a leisurely basis, getting an understanding that everyone is different but still essentially the same in what they want in their life and trying new things. The negatives can be the stress on you and your family and a lack of sense of belonging or a place that is yours.

In my experience it works best if you focus more on the positives and less on the negatives. Also, I’d say that living in Florida and hearing all of the people that have relocated their get into bitch sessions about how good it is back home, I try not to fall into that trap. Essentially that’s a release valve for the stress of being away from family and friends, but the people you’re with at the moment generally don’t want to hear about it.

24

Baudelaire put it well:

25

Have you considered renting out your properties? I have a good friend here who is English. He owns several apartments in and around London and has a private company manage them. They keep I think he said it was 10% of the rent as their fee and put the rest in his bank account after deducting for any expenses.

26

It’s where the work is, but I’ll happily admit that one of my reasons to choose Chemical Engineering over plain ol’ Chemistry is that the people who told me about Chemistry as a profession talked of “routine work, easy… stable…” whereas the guy who came to my school to talk bout ChemE talked of “challenges… flexibility… international positions…”. I discovered at age 3 that when I grew up I wanted to be like my great-aunt who’d just come back from spending 6 months in Argentina, Chile and Peru (this was 1971, when most people didn’t leave Spain except to go shop in Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal or France).

So I guess the real reason is “suits me.” I love it for the same reasons I love consultancy work: it allows me to get to know other cultures and to apply in one place things I learned in another.

My father had the theory that nomadism is actually the normal “way of life.” We don’t go from well to well any more, he’d say, but we go from job to job. In his parents’ youth, moving from a town to another for anything other than marriage was unusual; in his, it was moving between provinces; in mine, between countries. Now I’m 41 and there’s so many people from my hometown who live or have lived abroad that it’s considered normal.

27

Under the terms of the scheme I bought it on, I can’t rent it out. It has to remain my principal residence otherwise I’m subject to the penalties I mentioned above. And if I was willing to pay those penalties I’d just sell it outright.

The other thing is, I love my apartment. It’s quite large and very centrally located, and I’ve put my own personal mark on it through painting and other improvements. So I have a bit of an emotional attachment to it as well.

28

I grew up in little shit farm towns in Norcal. For whatever reason, I took Chinese at University. I went to Taiwan in 1982 with a one way ticket, $500 and the first time I had been outside of the US of A. Since then, I’ve been back in the US for 3 years (finishing undergrad and later an MBA). The rest of the time in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and a 2.5 year hiatus in Tokyo. It’s been a great ride. My youngest daughter’s special needs means moving to the Pacific Northwest sometime pretty soon.

29

I bought just before the peak, unfortunately, so my monthly mortgage payment far outweighs what I could get in rent, therefore I’d have to supplement it every month - and on, say, a Thai salary, that wouldn’t be feasible. Which is a damn shame because I’ve been offered a job in Phi Phi - not huge money at all, but hey, I’d be in Phi Phi.

30

I’ve lived in Germany for two years. One might say that the Army sent me there, but “Europe” was part of my enlistment contract, so it was a deliberate choice.

I’ve lived in various parts of Mexico for up to a year at a time over the course of the last 10 years. In fact, I’m here now. That’s work related, too.

I’ve lived in Canada for a year, too, but as I’m from Michigan, Ontario is my back yard.

31

I’ll give you €5 a week for it, that’s my best offer.

32

I’m a foreign aid worker, I’ve lived in:
Russia, Kosovo, Iraq, Indonesia and Afghanistan;and I’ve worked in about 15 other countries. I really enjoy the problem of trying to understand and work with people with radically different world views than my own. I’m getting a little tired and am thinking about going back to the states for a few years, but when I’m in the US for a bit, I start to get itchy to get out.

33

I lived in Australia, the US, the Philippines, the UK, Germany and New Zealand as a kid - my Dad worked for an oil company, which along with the military and the diplomatic corps was one of the triumverate of expats in the 70s and 80s.

As an adult I’ve kept the travel bug - have lived in NZ, the UK and now Australia, both for work opportunities (Wellington is lovely, but the salaries and the weather are both a lot better in Melbourne), and for the love of exploration. We’re keen on another shift in the future once we’ve completed our family (IVF is fairly cheap here) - either back to Welly, or perhaps a stint in Asia or Europe. Boy from Mars is from Italy, which would be fun.

34

I’ve lived all over the place, and some places I don’t really remember. I was born a military brat and my first move was when I was only a month old…I have been nomadic since then. My parents tried to spend my school years in only one or two places so that I had stability and they succeeded in keeping my in high school in Germany. Junior High was divided between Germany and Texas (but the same places back and forth so it always felt like coming home instead of moving abroad) and elementary school was just a jumble of places: Turkey, Germany, several states, back to Germany, Italy for a while, then back to Germany, etc.

When I married (first at 17) it was to a man in the Army. With him I moved all over the states, but stayed in the US. We divorced but the moving around had nothing to do with it.

My current husband is recently retired from the Air Force, but we married 10 years before his retirement. With him I have lived in 3 different states (including where I live now and had never been until he brought me here) and in Guam for 5 years.

Now that my husband is retired and there is not a need to move in a few years I am not sure what to do with myself. I am already getting tired of our house and of our town. I hate packing and moving our stuff, but I also kind of hate staying put for too long. Oddly, my husband doesn’t seem to have a problem with it…My solution thus far is to take frequent weekend get-away trips and also to thoroughly explore the state of which I am now (grudgingly) a resident.

35

sends a spritz over to Manila

36

I’m interested, though this may require a poll, if there’s a correlation between people who moved around with their family a lot as a kid, and people who can’t sit still as an adult. I note are a few military kiddos above (I moved several times between UK air bases before the sojourn in the US), as well as children of oil workers etc.

37

By my extended family’s standards, yes, we moved a lot; my mother’s family had also moved a lot (meaning they’d moved voluntarily between towns more than once). Of course, compared with a military family or with the engineer who was the foreman for the construction of the hospital we’d barely gone to the corner of the block…

38

The short answer is “work”. I lived in Germany for three years, Belgium for two years, Lisbon for two years, and Africa for three years. When I lived in Europe, my job was to travel to European capitals and perform security work at U.S. embassies. It was a dream job, I can tell you. My military career gave me the wanderlust bug, and it was difficult to stop doing it. Every two years or so, I’d get itchy feet and want to go somewhere new. My eleven years in Alaska, which ended recently, was the longest period I lived in one place in my entire life.

39

Somehow as a kid I knew I had to “get out” as soon as I could. Two days after graduating from college, I was on a plane to Luxembourg (Icelandic Air) and the woman next to me asked, “Where are you going?” and I answered, “To Europe.”
She looked at me and said, “Everyone on this plane is going to Europe - I mean, where are you going when we land?”
I thought for a minute and honestly said, “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Seriously - had no idea where I was going to go.
Got there, went to the money exchange and saw all the currencies from all the countries and just randomly said, “German Marks please.”
So off I went to Germany.

Worked and lived briefly in Munich, then moved and stayed in Berlin 14 years, teaching in Switzerland in the summers and traveling around Europe the entire time whenever I could. Loved every minute of it - really liked the fact that in a short trip, I was in a new culture, new language, new foods, new everything. The experience was amazing and of everything I have ever done in my live, this was most certainly the wisest. Plus, I met the love of my life while there and we’re still together.

I have often said, if I were King of the World, I would make it mandatory that everyone had to live in another country for at least a year; it makes you realize that not everything you know and do is “correct” and that there are many wonderful and exciting variations of life to experience.

40

I lived in England for three years in the early 80s. Husband was stationed there. And I loved every minute of it. I’d go back in a heartbeat.

I moved to Budapest in 2008 because Husband got a job here. And I absolutely love it here. Our children are grown with families of their own, so we don’t know where we’ll move from here, but odds are good it wont be back to the US. Maybe Asia somewhere.

When an opportunity presents itself to expand your horizons, you’d be a fool not to take it.