10 Ways You Know You’re a Perpetual Expatriate

by Chantal Panozzo

So you’ve lived abroad for a good amount of time. Maybe for a year, maybe for three, maybe for ten. But how do you know when you’ve reached the point of no return? In other words, when do you know you’ve become addicted to expatriate life?

Actually, it’s not that hard to tell. Here are 10 Ways You Know You’re a Perpetual Expat:

-People ask where you’re from and you finally have an answer. You say, “It’s complicated.” And you like it that way.

-The thought of moving back to your home country makes you cringe because that would be boring.

-You no longer talk about what’s bad about your adopted country, you focus on what’s bad about your home country.

-The thought of going on a “permanent contract” no longer scares you. It just means you’ll have to find another place to live.

-You think it would be great to have multi-cultural and multi-lingual children.

-You enjoy the challenge of figuring things out and feel that you would be bored otherwise. A country with four official languages and many more dialects, bring it on!

-You enjoy your status of being different. It makes you feel special.

-You feel like you are leading an exciting life even if the reality is lots of packing and unpacking.

-You are addicted to travel. You travel more in one year than most of your friends back home do in a lifetime.

-You feel a thrill thinking about where you could go next. And it never includes the place you came from before.

-You want to read more about this topic. Andrea Martins, co-founder of ExpatWomen, wrote an article for the Telegraph about why some of us become addicted to the overseas lifestyle. Enjoy.

Are you addicted to living abroad? Why or why not?

Chantal Panozzo is a writer in Switzerland who has written for a variety of publications on two continents. She’s the author of One Big Yodel, a blog about life in Switzerland and moving abroad, and also discusses living abroad as a freelancer at Writer Abroad.

Tags: expat life, living abroad, moving, overseas lifestyle, Switzerland