Two Travelers

I am wearily walking toward the TSA pre-check line, weary from adrenaline depletion and ready to head home. I am an introvert, but I play an extrovert at conferences.

The airport staff member is checking our mobile boarding passes for the little green check mark.

Like an auctioneer, he’s rapping: Are you PreCheck? You are PreCheck? Yes? That way. Are you PreCheck? No? You’re normal? This way please.

I laugh, and eagerly show him mine, always proud to be anything but normal.

This jolts me out of my exhausted post-conference trance. This is the first time I see, in front of me stands a giant tree trunk of a man, showing his US passport to security, even though we are in a domestic terminal.

I am immediately mesmerized. Scanning up, first it’s the size of his muscular calves. Very strong legs. A tattoo above the back of his knee, of a red bowl with chopsticks. It’s small, maybe an inch, squared.

It strikes me, because his skin is white, he is white and I can tell that he wasn’t raised in Asia. He carries himself in a Western way.

I don’t know if it’s from China or Korea or Japan, but I know it’s a mark of a traveler.

Down his other calf I see a detailed tattoo of a Mexican Calavera (skull). A travel mark from the other end of the earth. I know both sides of the planet, too. And while my calves no longer have any defining muscle and I do not have a single tattoo, this man is feeling more like a colleague than a stranger to me.

Just two travelers in the PreCheck line. It’s been a decade since I hung up my 50L Osprey backpack. It’s actually on a shelf in my basement, the zipper is hard to open, still caked with the grime and dust of whatever happens under a long haul bus. The last time I wore it deboarding a bus from Lake Titicaca to the grand city of Cusco, Peru. I then left the pack at a local hostel, for a fee, so I could just bring my day pack on the five-day Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu.

This adventure was the last stop of my fifteen years living abroad, though it wasn’t supposed to be.

I was supposed to stop in Arequipa before heading off to go sandboarding down the dunes of Huacachina, Peru. You can’t do that with a broken ankle, though, can you.

The day after the trek finished, I broke my ankle on a funky step in my hostel and two days later I broke up with my girlfriend of 8 years. A few days later, an airport staff member is wheeling me through the airport in Cusco, and I’m headed back to live my native country, an act I had been avoiding since I graduated college.

Just two travelers, he and I, waiting to go through security. His proximity to me, his confidence, our being in the airport together for just one moment - it brings a part of my nomadness back to life.

He’s definitely still in the thick of it. He’s living and working on the road now.

I know this, because at that moment, it hits me: he is wearing a t-shirt and shorts. This is Boston in October. Where’s his coat? See, he’s coming from somewhere warm, and off to somewhere warm. He’s tall and very strong. He’s wearing a t-shirt and short, fitted shorts. He’s changing planes here.

That’s why he’s using his passport as identification. He never uses his US license, but is always brandishing his passport at every hostel, hotel, land border, airport and immigration office. He’s a full time traveler, marking his most meaningful stops in beautiful body art.

As I continue to take him in without staring, I realize he is drenched with sweat. Beads of it run down his shaven sideburns and he keeps tugging his shirt and shorts, airing himself off. He’s not out of breath, but he rushed here. He’s acting calmly, but he’s got a flight to catch, and soon.

As we inch closer to the scanners, he’s not huffing and puffing about how long it’s taking, but he’s attentive, estimating the timing as to whether he’ll make his next flight.

I want to talk to him. I want to know his story. I want to say, where are you headed? Where are you coming from? I used to be you. I used to do this, too. I used to flit in and out of America like it was just any other country and not where I was born and raised.

But I don’t. I’m quiet. ‘Real’ travelers get sick of answering those questions. My youthfully arrogant idea after a few years in the road was to make a laminated card with the answers to the five most typical questions people would ask: Where are you from (Chicago), how long have you been on the road (in total, 4 years as a nomad, over ten before that as an expat), where are you coming from, what’s the next stop, what’s your favorite country (Mexico, Cambodia, Portugal)? And the bonus: you travel full time? Are you a trust fund baby? (Nope, just resourceful and a happy minimalist)

If someone had something more interesting to ask beyond those five questions, then we could have a conversation. At one point, a bunch of my nomad friends and I who had traveled together in Chiang Mai, and Berlin, and Buenos Aires started calling non-nomads, ‘muggles’.

Looking at him, I am embarrassed by, and miss, the arrogance of those days. Even though I want to talk to my fellow traveler, I don’t want to be the person I used to avoid. I don’t want to be a Muggle, after all.

Now I notice the size of his backpack. It’s a carry on, but large - a 32L pack that the lightest-packing nomads use. Mine was 50L so I had to check my bag on planes. He’s carry-on only. He has no smaller daypack, either. I could be wrong. He could have a checked suitcase, but the size of his pack leads me to believe that he’s got everything he needs inside, and can take off anywhere on a whim.

He turns toward me and as he bends to put his passport away for the scanner. I see the head of a Buddha tattooed on his thigh, peeking out from under his shorts. So his tattoos are Korean and Mexican and probably Thai, then I see the bull tattoo on his inner calf, a part so muscular my body doesn’t even have that body part. It’s the bull tattoo I’ve always wanted to get since I was rammed by a cow in India. I assumed it represents time in Spain.

His tattoos are still spaced out, more bare skin than ink, but all on one leg. In time, this will become a full leg of tats. I find my heart aching, tugging at my soul when I focus on how much traveling left he has to do, how much space he intends to still fill with the permanent symbolic markings of his travels.

For now, we are two travelers, waiting for the scanner in the PreCheck zone, surrounded by relatively novice travelers: one doesn’t realize he’s still got his earbuds in, but can’t hear security telling him to take them out; one can’t figure out whether or not she is supposed to take off her shoes.

But the two of us, we’re ready. Everything is put away, we are calmly waiting behind everyone else holding us up. Even though he is playing it cool, I can tell he’s a bit anxious, overly attentive to minute movements of others that can add up to him making or missing his flight.

As we inch closer to our separation, my desire to chat surges, but I know in one minute we’ll both be through and he’ll saunter swiftly away toward his gate, off to his next adventure. He can’t appreciate the strangling stronghold nostalgia will have on him later in life, the grip of deep yearning to revisit a place and time that can never truly be recreated.

As I come back to myself, my current self, I think about my small talk now: the kids are always sick, pizza days are the best because you don’t have to pack their lunches, and, my favorite rebellious theory: stroller and car seat companies are some kind of secret racket (have YOU ever seen a TV commercial for either one? They don’t even need to advertise….).

This small talk is a far cry from the laminated questions on my theoretical nomad card.

I feel the far cry between the two of us travelers.

And just like that, he’s through the scanner (nothing beeps of course) and I’m next (smooth sailing) and I know there’s no way I’ll get to peek at where his plane is off to. I’ve got a wheely suitcase to push now, after all.

Off he goes. His two steps are my ten and in his ten steps he is now just a memory.

Guys like him were a dime a dozen in my life. They were the one gringo face on a bus of locals in Bolivia, or the one stepping out of the shared hostel shower while I awkwardly waited my turn. They’re the ones on the lava boarding tour in Nicaragua, or living in the expat-favorite Smith building just outside the city wall in Chiang Mai. They’re the ones taking the boat from Panama to Colombia to avoid the wild Darien gap (most of us just fly). They’re the ones you meet hiking the W trek in Chile or day-trading stocks from a hostel in the mountains of Guatemala.

I never felt connected to these strong, adventurous men back then, because when you’re splitting hairs, they felt so different to my experiences as a quiet, queer girl quietly working and traveling the world.

Today, I am a 44 year old mother with two small kids, a wife, a house and two cars, traveling for work. I have a suitcase that rolls and lululemon pants without an ounce of practicality. I keep my passport in a safe in a house that I actually own, not one I house sit while the owners are away.

But for those five minutes, we were just two travelers, with more in common than he can ever know.

In a sea of muggles, anything but normal. We’re nomads.

Just two travelers.

Forever.

The three main phases of life abroad

When you move abroad, you learn so much about yourself. At the same time, you are evolving into a new version of yourself. Who you were at the start of the first phase of your expat life is lightyears from who you will be once you move back home - even if you just go for a year.

The phases of expat life have a predictable pattern among all expats as we navigate our international life.

Managing your expectations

My purpose in writing this is simple: expectation management. I want to show you what to expect through these phases along the way. I have clients who dream for so long, that when reality hits, it can feel much more difficult than it really is.

In fact, a lot of my work as a relocation strategist revolves around expectation management plays a HUGE role in the overall happiness of expats. If you expect yourself to be speaking fluent French while smoking cigs off your glamorous veranda with a gaggle of French friends without a care in the world, then the disappointment you might feel when you aren’t progressing with your French language and are really only friends with other expats at first might be too much to handle. It might make you want to leave, rather than to dig in your heels and work at getting to that moment.

Knowing where you are in the cycle of expat life, and knowing where you might end up next, is a great way to manage your expectations and remain a successful, happy expat.

The first time you move abroad is going to be the most challenging, since you are changing your entire life for the very first time. Once you have the momentum of living a life abroad, moving from country to country is infinitely easier - and it becomes infinitely harder to identify with who you were before you took the leap.

There are three phases of expat life:
1. The first time expat
2. Becoming a serial expat
3. Repatriating (or never moving back home again!)

Let’s look at the first phase of your new life as an expat.

Phase 1: You Are A First Time Expat

When you first decide to move abroad, it can feel exhilarating, like you are truly taking your life into your own hands. After the initial adrenaline rush, you might start to feel overwhelmed. Where do you start? What do you do first? What do all the moving pieces look like?

Then you realize that while you are trying to figure out the details of moving your life to a foreign country, you are also uprooting your life back home. It’s the end of a chapter. And that takes a lot of work, too. It’s hard to build momentum toward your move when you’re simultaneously wrapping up the life you’ve been living in your home country.

That’s actually where the momentum is located. The life you’re moving away from has a lifetime of steam behind it that’s been building since as far back as your childhood.

Until your actual moving day, you find yourself on a rollercoaster — that part where you’re slowly climbing up a steep incline while gravity pulls your head and body backward.

And then, suddenly, you reach the top. have no idea how you’re going to feel on the next part of the ride aside from a vague sense that there’ll be ups and downs.

When you finally do get abroad, you start to run the track of expat life for the first time. This really requires developing a new way of thinking that is going to in part be learned by experience and in part a process of change within yourself.

From the outset, you’re going to be learning and yearning to adapt to a new culture around you. This is where our senses of identity, security, comfort, and community can become challenged. All at once you’re trying to navigate and assimilate into this new world.

At the same time, that very much heightens your awareness that you’re not a local and there can be an initial feeling of separation from the community. You’re also learning how locals view you as a representative of your home country through this process.

In addition to having those complex social and cultural experiences, on a much more pragmatic level you’re just trying to figure out how to live your daily life. The logistics of banking, setting up your utilities, adjusting to the currency, and getting a phone plan can take a lot of trial and error to figure out.

All of these aspects of your initial experience abroad can be incredibly humbling, challenging, and energy consuming.

As you push through the lessons of those challenges, the first phase of expat life starts to transition: it feels invigorating, uplifting, and fulfilling. You get the hang of your new life, your new lifestyle. The new feelings of being more mobile. You’re the kind of person who can move to an entirely different country.

In fact, you start to feel like you belong more to the international community than to the one you left back home - and that usually happens even if you’ve only been abroad for a year, but lived for decades back home.

Phase 2: The Serial Expat Blueprint

All the successes and mistakes we have during our first time living abroad create a blueprint for a life abroad. Now that you’ve been on the ride once, you can better prepare yourself for the twists and turns of doing it again. And while you might get the itch to leave the first country you moved abroad to, you also don’t feel like you want to go back home. After all, you know expats from your new circle of international friends, many who have come and gone on to new locations and got you thinking about doing the same thing!

At this point, you’ve built a set of skills that have fully prepared you to move abroad again. You understand the challenges, you know what mistakes to avoid. You know how to get to the good part faster - the fulfilling, invigorating aspects of living abroad.

The thrill of moving to another country might call you. More than that, when we go through such an impactful experience of adapting to a new life and culture, it also becomes an experience of figuring out our new, or true, identity.

After all, you’re seeing yourself in the context of a completely new background for the first time. For most of us, that reveals a lot of things that we may not have been in touch with before in our life at home.

Put all of that together and you have this growing desire to move from country to country to not only explore the world and challenge yourself, but very much explore your identity by seeing who you are in different places and cultures.

This is often the next evolution of expat life. It can be really fulfilling and give you that dopamine boost when you’re able to develop global “street smarts” that allow you to move around pretty seamlessly. Many of the challenges you experience in the first phase of expat life fade into the background because you’ve already mastered them, in a way.

As exciting as moving around from place to place is at first, it can lose its shine after a while. You don’t necessarily have the opportunity to truly establish yourself, develop deep relationships, and a sense of “home.”

Even though becoming an expat helps you discover other parts of your identity, it can also muddy the waters. At this point, you’ve really shed your previous American lifestyle and identity, and become really good at being adaptable and living amongst any culture.

It’s easy to feel lost when you develop multiple international identities — you can quickly make a new place a home while, at the same time, not feel like you’re at home anywhere.

Phase 3: Repatriating

At some point, most of us end up moving back home, at least for a while.

For some who feel lost after spending time as an expat, repatriating can come as a huge relief and create a feeling of permanence that we might crave while living abroad. You touch back down to a very familiar place and it can feel very comforting and easy at first. Large cups filled with ice, dryers with dryers sheets, you get to have all the comforts from home you have missed.

But you might also have a difficult time transitioning back to life in America. Who you were is not who you have become, but those friends and family from home still see you as the person you were before you left.

After that initial warm feeling, the reality of being back sets in. This is when most people experience reverse culture shock. Everything you don’t like about American culture relative to the cultures of the places you’ve lived as an expat really sticks out to you.

Without the thrill of exploring new places and connecting with new people, there’s a noticeable absence of excitement in daily life. Things can feel very routine, mundane. The issues that made you want to leave in the first place are still there, but now you know you could be living somewhere else. And so many people around you approach a problem or issue from what feels to you like a one-sided perspective, but you have learned a more nuanced perspective, because you know that different cultures and people from different backgrounds often see the world very differently, and no one is necessarily ‘wrong’.

For me, the repatriation process was by far the most challenging aspect of expat life for me, personally. And I find that this is where my clients feel the heaviest sense of needing outside help. If you are looking for a repatriation strategy, contact me to find out how I can help.

As an LGBTQ+ International Relocation Strategist, I provide custom relocation and life strategies and coaching tailored specifically to expats, so you can get the most out of the life you want to live, no matter where it takes you.

About Jess Drucker

I am an International Relocation Strategist supporting LGBTQ+ folks, their families and allies to move, live and thrive abroad. I spent 15 years abroad, 10 of those years as an expat in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Germany and England, followed by nearly 5 years as a digital nomad spending weeks and months in over 40 countries worldwide.

Work with ME

Start with my book: How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do.

Pick up a copy of the Adventure Calls Global Relocation Guide.

Get personalized, custom coaching opportunities here.

Bringing Your Business Abroad for Queer Folks and Allies

The biggest myth about living abroad: 

You’ve got to be independently wealthy OR have connections abroad that will get you a job. 

The truth:

There are ways for almost anyone to move abroad, and the most mobile group among us is the independent entrepreneurs and the work-from-anywhere crowd. 

Back in the day, moving abroad did require either a lot of money or a lot of connections. If you didn’t have either, it took a lot of guts. Today, between increased WiFi and broadband connectivity and an increasingly remote or asynchronous work culture, there is almost no reason why you can’t bring a job or a business abroad. 

That can come in the form of being an entrepreneur, a freelancer, a self-employed worker or even those looking to launch a startup from the ground up. 

A move may not be all business — maybe you’re looking to move out of the U.S. seeking  a lifestyle change, more balance in life, or to  immerse yourself into a new culture without sacrificing your business. 

Whatever the motivation, there has truly never been a better time to move abroad than right now. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies adapted to allowing more flexibility for employees to work from anywhere.

Reliable and strong WiFi connections around the world allow us to do business with anyone, anywhere. You can be in Nicaragua talking to a client who's in Japan and no one will bat an eye. 

So, can you just move anywhere as a business owner? Are there rules around where and how you move to a new country? And do you have to actually found your business in the country you move to or else live as a digital nomad? 

Let’s talk about the business of running a business abroad.

Taking Your Business Abroad

Step 1: Define the type of lifestyle feels best to you
One of the first questions I ask clients is this: how do you want to move around with your business? More specifically, when you think of moving abroad, what kind of a life do you picture? 

Do you want to spend a few months out of the year working from a beach? Do you want to officially live in a country that offers great schooling opportunities for your children? Do you want to take your startup idea to the next level? Do you want to run an online business or passive income business and move where your profits stretch further for a better lifestyle? 

Step 2: Define your business type and style
What kind of business do you run? Are you a freelancer or do you run any agency with multiple steady clients? Are you a small business owner who makes products? You might also be an artist, author, or a musician.

The type of business you run and the way you operate it can be an important factor in determining where you can move to. If you’re a freelancer who wants to hop around to different countries as a digital nomad, you’ll be less constricted by visas and be able to move more freely. Of course, you’ll only be able to stay in a country for a limited time and won’t be settling in one place, which is fantastic if that’s what you envision for yourself.

If you’re looking to settle down in one place and develop your new life abroad there, you’re going to want to find that sweet spot of a country that really interests you that has visas that allow you to run your business, and, for the majority of my clients, one that is also LGBTQ+ friendly.

Step 3: Determine the available business visas in your desired country.
Different countries around the world offer a variety of visas for business owners. The key is to determine whether you can secure a visa that allows you to run your business while being an official resident in your desired country. If you can obtain residency and a work permit that allows you to run your business, you can officially reside in that country. If your desired country doesn’t have a visa that fits your needs for residency, then you can consider a different country, a different visa, or a different length of stay. 

Favorable Visa Types for Business Owners

Of course, when it comes to favorable visas for moving your business abroad, a lot of that depends on the country you’re moving to and the work you’re looking to do. In general, nations around the world have common visa types to start your research.

Digital Nomad Visas

With digital nomadism on the rise, a number of countries have adapted to be more friendly and welcoming to this transient lifestyle. Of course, traveling entrepreneurs have been living as digital nomads for years, staying only for the length of their tourist visa issued on arrival, leaving for the next country when it expires.

Without an official visa, you’re usually limited to staying in a country for 30-90 days before having to move around again. It’s great for remote freelancers who want to explore the world and maybe feel out where they want to settle long term.

However, many countries — like Thailand, Costa Rica, and Malta — have started an official digital visa program that allows you to stay up to a year, and is sometimes renewable up to five years. In most cases, you’ll need to prove a minimum monthly income and show that you have clients outside of the country.

This allows you to settle in, live officially and run your business without leaving every three months or when your tourist visa runs out. If you have children, they can also attend public school in the country and legally reside as well. 

Passive Income Visas

Along similar lines, many countries offer a passive income or retirement visa. This may not seem like something a business owner would apply for, but this visa type has become very popular for relocating to countries like Spain and Portugal due to the requirements.

You are not required to be retired, instead you are required to have a certain amount of money reliably hitting your bank account each month from your home country. In a previous era of relocation, this was usually a pension, hence the ‘retirement’ visa designation.

Nowadays, it is just about the reliable monthly income that a business brings. Your spouse gets a visa and your kids get to attend school. Even better, and what distinguishes this from a digital nomad visa, these visas can lead to resident status and a path to citizenship. 

Business and Startup Visas

For those of you looking to build businesses abroad or develop a start-up company, there are programs that encourage and support that. The requirements for these visas are very different depending on the country.

Generally, these visas best serve people with developed ideas that have some investment backing or a sponsoring organization (like an incubator or venture capital firm).

Read my blog post on the ten most popular LGBTQ+ friendly expat countries to explore even more options.

The sweet spot: LGBTQ+ and business-friendly countries

Now’s the point when you look for that sweet spot of countries that are LGBTQ+ friendly while having favorable conditions for the type of business you do. This varies depending on your personal situation, but here are some of the most highly recommended options to consider.

You can read more in-depth info about the top countries for LGBTQ+ expats here.

Puerto Rico

As a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico is an exciting and increasingly popular option for Americans because you don't need a visa to live there. That also makes navigating the logistics of working there much easier and more straightforward. Another bonus that makes Puerto Rico particularly friendly to entrepreneurs and freelancers is that you don’t have to pay income tax while you’re living there.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands has a very interesting opportunity only for American business owners called the Dutch American Friendship Treaty (DAFT). Basically, as an American you can move to the Netherlands on a tourist visa, apply for the DAFT, register a business, and deposit €4500 into a Dutch bank account. You’ll receive a residence card that is good for two years and renewable for more. The residence card allows you to bring your partner and family with you, and they can also legally work and study in the Netherlands. Your business doesn’t even need to be previously established, and can be any type of business - from button-making to graphic design.

Malta 

Malta has a digital nomad visa that allows you to live and work in the country for a year and renew it for longer. The island country is very favorable and open to expats and it's super LGBTQ+ friendly. Malta was the first country in Europe to pass gay marriage rights, and leads on trans rights as well.

Portugal

Over the past 15 years or so Portugal has become a very open and friendly place for foreign expats, including LGBTQ+ folks. The D7 visa, aka a retirement visa, is a fantastic way to move to Portugal and work there no matter what kind of work you do. You simply need to prove you have a steady passive income when applying and you’ll receive a two-year renewable residence permit. Your spouse and kids can live, work and study in Portugal as well. 

Spain

Spain has friendly options for remote workers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who make their money from work outside of Spain via its Non-Lucrative Visa (NLV). This is very similar to Portugal’s D7 visa. After one year on the NLV, you can apply for a work visa if you no longer want to run your business and want to look for a day job. You and your dependents can also participate in Spain’s school system on an NLV.

Germany

Germany allows foreigners to arrive on a tourist visa and look for a job during that time. As an American, you can stay and travel in Germany visa-free for up to 90 days. Even more interesting for business owners, however, is the Artist Visa that’s unique to Berlin and Hamburg. If you qualify as someone who works in a “liberal profession,” you can apply for this visa, which is usually awarded on the spot at your interview in Berlin or Hamburg.

Mexico

Mexico is becoming an increasingly popular spot for LGBTQ+ expats because of the quality of life, cost of living and welcoming attitude towards queer folks. It’s easy for business because of its proximity to the U.S. and the fact that it shares the same time zones. In Mexico you can get a residency card for one year (Temporary Residency / Residente Temporal) or a 10 year residency (Permanent Residency / Residente Permanente), which really allows you to settle down long term. You can work on this visa and run your own business without much trouble. 

Chile

Chile is farther away than Mexico in terms of flight times, but has the same benefit of sharing time zones with the U.S. It's a relatively LGBTQ+ friendly country and has several exciting visa options for small business owners, freelancers or entrepreneurs, including the Startup Chile program, which offers startup capital to successful applicants to base their startup in Chile for at least six months out of the year. 

Costa Rica

LGBTQ+ friendly and familiar with American expats, Costa Rica has a freelance visa and a newly introduced digital nomad visa as well. You can build a small business from scratch or work remotely, and do it with a high standard of living, quality healthcare and a lower cost of living than back home. 

Thailand

Thailand offers very LGBTQ+ friendly communities and the potential for a high-quality of life as an expat. It has become a popular landing spot for digital nomads traveling in Southeast Asia. The affordable cost of living and ease of settling down and even starting a business in Thailand make it an attractive option for many. You can apply for the new digital nomad “SMART” visa and run your business legally from here for extended periods of time. 

About Jess Drucker

Jess is an International Relocation Strategist supporting LGBTQ+ folks, their families and allies to move, live and thrive abroad. She spent 15 years abroad, 10 of those years as an expat in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Germany and England, followed by nearly 5 years as a digital nomad spending weeks and months in over 40 countries worldwide.

Work with Jess 

Start with her book: How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do.

Pick up a copy of her International Relocation Guide. 

Get personalized, custom coaching opportunities here.

Fitting in and being out as an LGBTQ expat

As we approach PRIDE season, I started thinking about what Pride means for LGBTQ expats living abroad. 

My little secret

First, I’ll let you in on a little secret - Pride season and I haven’t always been the best of friends. I didn’t really understand what Pride was meant to represent in my life, and it always felt like a forced, performative acceptance of my being gay. 

I realize now that was primarily because, as an expat for 15 years, I was almost entirely focused on assimilation, ie fitting into local cultures and not standing out.

“Passing” was my goal. I celebrated being mistaken for a local.

If I’m honest, so was “passing” as straight, or at least, not standing out as gay. At first, this was from a few years living in Central America. As an elementary school teacher, I didn’t want the very Catholic local parents to view me as a danger to their children, and I stayed very much in the closet. After that, no matter where I moved, it became a habit to keep my private life very private.

Finding queer community wasn’t exactly easy for me, either. As someone with a tendency to live in smaller cities a bit off the beaten path, I didn’t really know how to join local queer events, and I had no idea how to find other queer expats, either. 

Underserved and poorly understood
Now that I coach and consult for the LGBTQ expat community, I realize just how many people share my experiences. The needs and concerns of LGBTQ expats are also just incredibly underserved.

A major goal of expats is to integrate with local communities, but integrating with local queer communities is complex. Depending where you move, the community may be underground or the local LGBTQ community may not actually feel comfortable with Western expats who can sometimes bring a “colonizer” mentality to local LGBTQ movements.

On the other hand, there may be a robust and welcoming LGBTQ community, which can really help you assimilate. And yet…sometimes you also really need your community of fellow expats to lean on during periods of intercultural confusion or homesickness that locals - gay or straight - just don’t understand. While hetero expats can be lovely, it’s the queer expats who understand the nuance and complexity of it all.

The nuance of LGBTQ expat life
As queer expats, we try to fit in, but also want to be out. 
When do we, when CAN we, come out to fellow expats?
Can we ever come out to locals?
Are we safer if we are honest rather than keeping it quiet and someone finding out?
Can we bring our spouses with us and will our families be recognized?
Can I be out at work? Will I be treated differently in my job?
Is it different for foreigners to be out than locals (often times, yes)? Will landlords or real estate agents hesitate to work with me?
Are there very specific places where I should live?
Are there gayborhoods? Is it necessary to live in one?
And are there only certain cities I can move to, or can I fulfill my dream of a quiet home in the countryside?  

Of course, our community knows how to operate with nuance in our home countries: we read your body language, and your actual language, like whether you tell us about how you have a gay friend or you are fine with whatever “lifestyle” we choose. We learn to trust our gut reactions regarding safety, or whether that person who just passed us was family (also LGBTQ).

We were practically made for expat life, since many of us have been operating from the outside of mainstream culture our whole lives.

LGBTQ folks have always lived abroad
And let’s be really clear: we LGBTQ folks have always moved abroad. Some go in search of a safer life; others toward a more adventurous one. 

Just look at the Americans in Paris in the 1920s and 30s, like Gertrude Stein, Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. What a time and a place to have been alive, surrounded by such incredible queer, expat excellence! 

We know about this queer American expat enclave because they were all writers who expressed themselves with a cohort of queer expats. They left their homeland and moved to a more accepting place. Not only did they find it, but they also made it, created it together. 

Thousands of others who were not famous writers also went abroad. Some went in search of a safer life; others a more adventurous one. 

So we go, and we enjoy the same rush of adventure and navigate the same uncertainties that hetero-expats face. We take with us our own culture’s feelings about queerness, and learn to adapt to another country’s same or very different attitudes as well. Always an on-the-job training, of sorts. 

The pride I feel for LGBTQ expats today

Today, as an LGBTQ expat coach and consultant, I feel a real sense of connection with the meaning of Pride. It is no longer forced on me. I am so proud of us, of the way we fight for our right to live freely, as who we are, with those we love. 

Homosexuality is criminalized in roughly 70 countries, punishable by death in at least six. And while it is being decriminalized in many countries, there are also many countries that seem very LGBTQ-friendly but haven’t enacted protections for the community.

We can’t just move where we want
I see the way that my clients have to filter their dreams through the lens of their queerness. Want to live on a tropical beach or the rural countryside? We need to look not only at the laws and urban attitudes, but whether or not you’ll have peace where you want to actually live.

And yet we still go.

We still live out our dreams and live our biggest, fullest lives. We won’t live small. It’s not who we are. 

For many LGBTQ+ Americans right now, it sure feels like now is the time to finally get out of here. With a judicial slippery slope threatening to take away all that we have worked for, and the rise of remote work and steady income from anywhere, the time is now to take that leap.

If you’re interested in that, I’m more than happy to help you with that dream.

I wrote the book on How To Move Abroad, a Relocation Guide to connect with on-the-ground specialists and I’ll coach you all the way through your journey.

LGBTQ Expat Coaching

How To Move Abroad Book

Global Relocation Guide