How to Choose the Best Country for Your First Move Abroad
Earth
With over 197 formally recognized countries on this planet, how on Earth do you take that list and whittle it down to just a short, manageable number?
What is important to you?
When I was a kid, my father always used to tell me “Priorities, Jay, get your priorities straight.” So you need to ask yourself, what do you need from your future foreign country home? If you're anything like me, you're a single parent from the United States born and raised, which means obviously English is your first language.
You probably don't know a second language. Maybe you do. I'm lucky enough to know Spanish, but I would assume that your next home would have English as one of its official languages. And that's a sticking point for a lot of people. If you were to ask the average US citizen what countries besides the US speak English, they would think of Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and that might be it, maybe just a half-dozen countries.
But the truth is, there are over 50 countries that have English as one of their official languages. Belize is one. Belize is a small country south of Cancun, Mexico that used to be known as British Honduras up until 1973, when the name was changed to Belize. It became its own sovereign country in September 1981.
Obviously, assimilating to a new country is easier if you all speak the same language. That's why I recommend Belize and Canada as a couple of good first options for US citizens to relocate. Although with Canada, it's getting more and more difficult to immigrate there, and it's not a warm climate by any means.
But what if your country of choice speaks a different language, like Spanish or French or German? What's stopping you from learning a foreign language? Is it time? You don't need that much time. Thirty to 60 minutes a day. If you were to spend 30–60 minutes a day learning another language, this means in a full year, that's 180 to 365 hours of study.
In Spanish, that gets you into B1 territory, which is lower level intermediate. In plain language terms, B1 is enough to start a basic conversation, ask questions, get your needs met, get directions, make some small talk. You can't go that far with it, but it's good enough to start with.
I don't recommend going to a foreign country by yourself unless you're at least a B1 level in the language, because if you're less than that, it'll just be too difficult and awkward for you. And nowadays, there's no shortage of ways to learn another language. We know about Duolingo and that little owl.
If you are brand new to a language, I suggest starting with written materials like textbooks or workbooks. This is because you will need to learn the basic foundations of the language, and written materials are easy to digest and refresh your learning.
There's a ton of language learning apps and websites that are out there. Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, etc. Once you have a good foundation in the new language, you can try listening to podcasts and watching videos (subtitles enabled) in your second language.
ChatGPT, if you don't have it, get it. It's free. You tell ChatGPT, I want you to act as my Spanish tutor or French tutor or whatever you want. And then you tell it what you want to accomplish, like learn whatever part of the language.
And you can have an actual chat conversation with ChatGPT in a second language. It's fun. But like I said, yeah, all it takes is a half an hour a day. If you could swing an hour a day, that's great, but also if you're preparing to leave the United States, you have other things that you're concerned about, like getting your passport.
If you don't have it yet, I have a video for that.
Say you're decluttering, hopefully getting rid of at least 80% of the stuff that you only use 20% of the time. So an hour a day, devoted to language learning, that's probably the max I would expect you to devote. Everything else you got going on, all, everything else on your plate's going to take up a lot of your time.
What else is important to you? If you're a single parent with grown kids, you want to be able to stay in touch with them regularly, and especially in case of emergency. Like over the summer, my son called me when I was in Guadalajara. He called me on Facebook Messenger to tell me that his cat had died that morning.
His phone plan doesn't allow him to call internationally, so we used was Facebook Messenger. It worked fine. We used it several times in just phone calling mode without video.
So if you don't have a good international calling plan, if you don't have Verizon or T-Mobile or one of the major carriers, that includes Canada and Mexico in their plans, you could use an app like Facebook Messenger. There's Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp. WhatsApp is huge in Mexico.
It's big out here in the US as well. And those are encrypted apps if you're concerned about privacy, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp are the ones that come to mind right away. Also, don't underestimate email and the old good old Worldwide Web, those obviously work internationally. And you don't need a sim card.
You could just go to a public library, a university, a hotel that have Wi-Fi hotspots. And just bring a laptop with you, and you can connect and send email that way. Email. It's old school, but it works.
Not only do you want to communicate with your grown children and your friends on a regular basis, but you probably want to visit the United States once, twice, three times a year for holidays and special occasions. You want to live in a country that's going to be very close to the US, and that's why Mexico and Belize are my top choices.
Same time zones as the US, you can get to any one of those countries by plane in the same day. I remember when I went to Belize in 2015 from Arizona, the whole trip was about six hours, including the one-hour layover in Dallas. So those are the best three options in terms of geographic proximity, time zone, similarities, and international calling plans, Canada and Mexico are the most common. Belize is a bit of an outlier, but you could still easily call Belize from the US and vice versa.
Other countries that are fairly close to the US, they're just a day trip away. There's Costa Rica and Panama in Central America. Costa Rica and Panama, I would say six to 12 hours, from the US, give or take. Depends on how many stopovers you have. If you're lucky enough to get a nonstop flight, I would definitely go for that if you can.
Other concerns are immigration. How do you get a visa? A tourist visa is probably the first step you'll take. You can go to the country to pay a visit and see what it's like in person. That's what a tourist visa allows. Usually as a US citizen when you fly to Mexico, they'll stamp your passport book and write 180D for 180 days in your passport.
Canada, I believe, gives US citizens 180 days as well. Belize is interesting. You get 30 days upon arrival as a US citizen. Every 30 days you renew that for an additional 30 days, for a hundred dollars, and you do that for as long as you’re there. Once you've been in Belize for a full year as a tourist, you can then apply for permanent residency. After several years as a resident, then applying for citizenship becomes possible. Immigration rules and laws are subject to change at any time.
So first is the tourist visa, and then you're going to want to get a temporary residence visa, which obviously allows you to live there for a longer period of time than you would as a tourist. Mexico allows you to be a temporary resident for up to four years. Belize, like I mentioned, is one month at a time.
And then after one year you can become a permanent resident. Mexico, one to four years. In Canada. I have no idea. I haven't researched Canada's immigration requirements, since I'm not going north. And then once you get your temporary residence visa, you'll want to get a work permit. This is an employer applying to the government and justifying to them why they need a foreigner to fill that particular job instead of a local resident or citizen.
So the work permit will then get you a work visa, which will go inside your passport, along with your temporary residence visa, I believe.
To get a local job, you're going to need to get in addition to a temporary residence visa, like I said, a work permit. To start your own business, you're going to need to do some research because it might be different procedures for being self-employed, starting your own company. Every country is different, of course.
The nice thing about starting a business, you are your own boss for one. Two, you get to control your customer base. Three, you're in a position to hire local talent, which would make the government happy there. The most important thing is, you can't take a job away from a citizen.
It's not fair to the country. It's not fair to the citizens themselves, and I'm sure your conscience would bother you if that were to happen.
If you're a native English speaker, that means you're in a unique position to obtain a TEFL certificate, TEFL, teaching English as a foreign language. 'cause who better than a native English speaker to teach English.
All you have to do now as a native English speaker is get certified. That's what I did in Guadalajara, Mexico last summer. I took the four-week course. It was 140 hours. Ten of those hours was actually teaching live in person. It was a great program. At about $1,300, it was pretty affordable. Once you get certified, you'll be able to teach English online or offline or both, and that's my plan.
TEFL program at ITTO in Guadalajara
Just get certified however you do it. You can get certified offline like I did, or you can do it online as well. Just go on Google. Look up TEFL certificate programs online and that should do it. And you also need to get a teaching experience, which that's why I went to school in person to get that hands-on in-person experience.
A reputable school will provide all the courses that you need as well as the opportunity to get some hands-on experience teaching, which is very important when you start looking for your first teaching job. There's a lot of competition out there.
You're probably also thinking about social opportunities, making new friends. I found it a lot easier to make friends in Mexico and Belize. People were just, they're more interested in you as a foreigner. For one. You're a novelty, and two, well, yeah, honestly, tourist dollars. You're bringing money into the local economy.
Just generally, people are more open and friendly, I found in Latin America, compared to the United States. People are much more closed off, and they seem a bit more standoffish in the United States than outside.
And also I noticed, the United States here, it's like we, we live to work. Where in other countries it's the opposite. They work so that they can live, and they're not always on. It's not workaholic like it is here in the States. People take a lot more time to spend time with their family and their friends in Mexico and other countries, I've noticed.
But what if your chosen country speaks a different language than you? You're gonna start learning the new language, ideally, before you arrive there. There's an old saying, buy a toilet plunger before you need it. So you want to start learning a foreign language before you move to that country. You want to get a running start, like I mentioned earlier, if you can get yourself to B1 level, you're in good shape.
It depends on what language that is, how many hours that's going to take you. Not to mention your study schedule and your habits. If you have a half an hour a day versus an hour a day to spend on language learning, that's going to be a factor.
So not only should you learn as much of the new language as you can before you get there, learn about attitudes of the people there towards foreigners, are they welcoming? Are they just tolerant or some somewhere in the middle. Now the United States government is fundamentally shifted with our new administration, attitudes towards Americans and other countries are going to be changing, and they've already started to change, like up in Canada, for example.
So you want to be cognizant of that and be aware of that. When you travel, you're a representative of your own country. So you want to act accordingly. Be a good example. Always remember that. And even if you're a beginner in a foreign language, Google Translate will help you smooth out the rough spots, 'cause you just can't learn everything you need to know.
You just, you gotta meet a threshold level of understanding of the language. And then use Google Translate or DeepL. Those are both AI language translators. They're both very accurate and reliable. All you need is either a good cellular connection or a good Wi-Fi signal. And one thing I notice is if you're in a weak Wi-Fi area, if the Wi-Fi is really weak where you are, turn it off. Download the dictionary before you go to Mexico or France, wherever you want to go. Download the dictionary first. That way, you could translate offline and not have to rely upon cellular or Wi-Fi connection. That's something I learned the hard way.
As for social opportunities, I said WhatsApp is huge, especially in Guadalajara, Mexico. You can join groups on WhatsApp, and if you join enough groups, your social calendar can get filled pretty quickly. A nice thing is there's apps for all sorts of different purposes. There's meetup.com, it's big in the US, it's big outside the US.
You could join groups for dining, solo people who don't want to eat or drink alone. You could find people to drink and eat with, not that there's anything wrong with dining alone. I do it all the time myself.
And honestly, based on personal experience in Mexico over the years and last summer, I find it nearly impossible to get bored in a foreign country because there's a lot more social opportunities and so much more to see and do. And you got that novelty factor too, being in a foreign country on foreign soil maybe the first time in your life.
That too is interesting. The most mundane and boring things like getting your laundry done at a laundromat are different and fascinating when you do them in another country, I found out.
2. Finding employment or starting a business abroad
Once you've put together your short list of two or three countries that you're interested in, you want more than one because you just, nowadays, countries change pretty quickly like the United States.
You want to have a couple of options lined up instead of just one. And once you've got your list put together, you need to do some more research on employment visas, procedures for starting a business there if you're interested. Also, you want to have a basic understanding of tax laws. Once you've been in a country more than 183 days a year, that triggers their tax laws.
You become a tax resident of that country. So that's something you need to definitely keep in mind. And the United States will tax you worldwide as long as you're still a US citizen, no matter what. There is one way around it, the foreign earned income exclusion, FEIE, but it's got pretty strict requirements.
But, you want to get an accountant who's familiar with expat issues and if you can afford one, an attorney would give you legal advice when you need it.
The one trap that US citizens fall into is FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. If you have a foreign bank account and that balance has more than $10,000, US equivalent balance, at any point during the year, you have to report that bank account to the IRS. I think that's how it works.
Even if that $10,000 happens for just like one minute, maybe you did a big sale, and then you use that sale to pay off a debt. Well, even if your balance went over $10,000 even briefly, that's enough to trigger the reporting requirements. I would just say report the foreign bank account regardless and just save yourself the headache and the possibility of a six-figure fine for failing to report. Crazy how draconian the US tax laws are, but they are what they are right now.
You just need to be prepared ahead of time.
Once you've identified your chosen country and chosen cities to live in, then you need to start doing some job hunting. Ideally, boots on the ground, hitting the pavement old school way. If you could go to the door, interview potential employers in person or looking where you got your TEFL certificate, if you're TEFL certified like me, your school will likely have resources to help you find that first job.
And once you do find that first job, they make you an offer and you accept. That's the point where they apply for a work permit on your behalf, and then they need to justify why they need a foreigner to fill the job instead of a local.
The nice thing about starting a business is you get to pick and choose your customers, and you do not have to limit your customers to just one country. In fact, it's smart. If you have customers in different countries, you never want to put all your eggs in one basket, as they say.
For those of you who are single parents and empty-nesters like me, over 40, you have substantial career experience. You've worked in likely more than one industry. You've got a lot of background experience that you could use to start your own service-based business, doing kind of the work that you've been doing as a white collar employee. But you just take your old employer and turn them into a client and find several more, a lot like them. And ideally, you could find similar countries and have them in different countries. That way you can get a variety of income sources and that way you could protect yourself in the future. If one country should have major issues with its economy or its government, you have other countries to fall back on as revenue sources.
As you're preparing to leave the United States, do a brain dump and write down a list of all the skills you've acquired in the past 10 years, 15 years, or however far you want to go back. Write down all the skills that you did really well and that your former employers benefited from. That list of skills is what you could bring with you to another country.
You can import that. For me, it's teaching English, and I'm also a certified aromatherapist who can make some pretty good skincare products. So that's a unique combination I could deploy in Mexico or Belize, or wherever else I choose to go.
Thanks to Zoom and things like that. It used to be Skype calling. Now it's Zoom. You could train anybody anywhere else on the planet. As long as the internet connection is good enough, you can coach somebody over iPhones or Motorola phones, Android phones. Now, we're not tethered to desktops anymore.
We got these mobile devices and Wi-Fi and Zoom. It's a lot easier to coach and train people than it's ever been before.
But before you arrive in your chosen country, make sure you research internet access. What type are you going to get? Wi-Fi is going to be over coax cable. Will it be fiber optic? Would it be satellite, or plain old telephone service? You definitely need to do the research ahead of time to figure out how that country deploys internet, so that way you can get a running head start when you get there with your business, or at least be walking when you hit the ground.
3. Narrowing down your options
Now that you got your short list of, ideally three to five countries that you would consider living in full-time or part-time in the future, each of the countries on your list of three to five need to meet all or most of your chosen criteria. These criteria are subjective. Only you know what's important to you.
One way you could do this is assign your subjective criteria a point system. A point for English as an official language, a point for being a neighbor of the United States. A point for easy residency. You get the idea. Your subjective criteria subjected to point totals so that way whatever country racks up the most points is your number one country, second place, third place, and so on and so forth.
My top 5 countries ranked by personal criteria
Until you've got all the countries figured out where they stand. For me, Mexico is number one, proximity to the US, “hablo Espanol,” I have a TEFL certificate that can get me a job there, and I can get back to United States in a hurry from Mazatlan, for example. So that's why Mexico is rated number one for me.
For you. It'll be different.
And now, once you have identified your countries of choice, you have to figure out where in the country you want to live. Ideally, I recommend living in cities because of all the amenities that are available. You'll have access to social opportunities, goods and services that you need on a regular basis, and so on and so forth.
Much easier to get those in a city than in the countryside.
Also, I found in Mexico, if you live in a major city, you won't need a car. Their public transportation is really user-friendly. It's more accessible and it's cheap. I wouldn't even want to drive in major Mexican cities anyway. It's too nerve wracking for me.
And so if you want to know my short list of countries and cities, there's Mexico, Guadalajara, and Mazatlan are my top two choices there. There's San Ignacio, Belize, Ambergris Caye in Belize, but not Belize City. No, you don't want to live there. Costa Rica, the only city I know of is San Jose and Panama has Panama City, David, and Boquete up in the highlands.
And finally, Uruguay is my fifth chosen country. Major city of Montevideo. I picked those five countries because they have English or Spanish as languages, and they're relatively close to the US, except for Uruguay. That's an overnight flight from the US.
4. Planning a scouting trip
And now once you've got your short list of three to five countries and cities in those countries that you would want to live in, what you need to do now is schedule a scouting trip because you're not gonna move there sight unseen. For the same reason you're not gonna rent an apartment or buy a house without a showing, and having your questions answered and seeing the place in person, of course.
But the thing is, how long should this scouting trip be? I recommend that it be at least two weeks long, a month if you could swing it. But I know most Americans with full-time jobs barely even get a week or even two weeks vacation time, and I wouldn't recommend using all of your vacation time for one thing.
So if you don't have large sums of time you can take off, you're going to have to make some sacrifices. You would have to do a shorter term scouting trip, like one city in one country in one week. That'll at least give you a surface level understanding of what life is like in that country, and you're not going to spend that time in a hotel.
No, hotels are kind of boring. You're by yourself. They're kind of sterile. No, you want to rent an Airbnb or stay in a hostel, which offers you a shared space. It's a shared space, but you have more social opportunities there. You can make friends more easily in a hostel than you could in a hotel or a motel, or you could live with a family.
That might be possible. Or if you could swing it, if you can take off more than a month off, take like an unpaid sabbatical from your job. That's what I did. If you have that option, why don't you try house sitting, stay in some family's house for a month or two months or longer if you can, while doing chores and errands for them.
You kill two birds with one stone; you got a place to live. You don't have to pay rent. Not only that, but you get things done for that family while learning about the city and the country you're in. That sounds like a win-win situation for everybody involved if you ask me. So a house sitting is an option if you are going to be there a long period of time.
And then you still need to do other research like Google Maps and Google Earth. You're gonna want to use those resources to get a bird's eye view of where you're going. When I went to Hermosillo, Sonora in February 2024, I used Google Earth and Maps extensively to scout out the city I'd never been to, and to find out how I was going to go from the bus terminal to my hotel room on foot.
Obviously YouTube videos, watch videos of where you're going. Guadalajara. I saw a lot of videos in Guadalajara before I went there for the summer.
The point is to get as familiar as you can before you get there. That's the point. Print out copies of everything you need. Print out copies of your travel itinerary, any maps you rely upon, because what if your mobile phone doesn't work when you arrive? What if there's a glitch? What if? Anything can happen.
So have reliable paper backup copies of everything you need before you go on your trip.
Go on social media to research your destination. Facebook groups are outstanding. There's Reddit forums. There's also International Living Magazine. In fact. If it wasn't for that magazine, I would never have heard of Belize. I wouldn't have gone there in 2015 by myself.
I mentioned this earlier. Use AI. Prompt ChatGPT. Tell it to be your travel agent and plan out your trip. It'll help you out quite a bit. It does all the heavy lifting for you, and it's free.
Bottom line is, live like a local for the limited time that you're there.
5. Applying for residency and planning your return
And now once you've done your scouting trip, you've returned to the United States, and you want to go back, then the next step is to apply for temporary residency. And ideally, that's done in your home country. I know for Mexico, you apply for temporary residency at a Mexican consulate in your hometown.
That's the next step in the process after the successful scouting trip. Apply for temporary residency, and then once you've got that accomplished, and you've downsized some more, then you're ready to move to the new country full-time.
You and only you know what's important to you when it comes to selecting a new home in a foreign country. You're going to have to do that soul-searching yourself. Write down three to five or six criteria that are important to you, like the English language, getting a local job, etc.
Assign a point system to your country so that way you can rank them best to worst. And then figure out what cities you're interested in. And then finally plan out that scouting trip. If you have any further questions I didn't touch upon in this blog, please put them in the comments below and I'll answer them individually.
