The Hardest Part of Living Abroad Nobody Talks About

Tom Stevenson
2 min readMar 15, 2019
Photo by Jenny Hargis on Reshot

Whenever I mention I have lived abroad, the same reaction immediately spreads across a person’s face.

Their eyes widen, they become more high pitched than normal as they emit “Really!!” or “Wow! That must have been amazing!” from their mouths.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve encountered this same reaction.

The one common denominator among them is that the person showing amazement has never lived abroad themselves.

To those people, it appears to be an idyllic existence. Life in a foreign country must be like heaven!

What they don’t realise is it’s not.

Apart from the differing customs, language, food, things are much the same.

You wake up, go to work, do your shopping and go to bed. The only difference is the country you live in.

Once you become accustomed to living abroad, it can be remarkably hard to adjust when you return home.

The problem being…

Nowhere feels like home!

I’ve spent the last five years travelling and living in various places around the world.

Recently, I decided to stay in England instead of returning to Spain to work.

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