Where to?
I love the idea of either travelling going from place to place every 3 to 6 months, or moving to somewhere like Spain for a couple of years… or anywhere relatively close and sunny 
What about you? Are any of you living the dream? Perhaps you’ve been tempted? Interested in hearing from you!
I have been an expat all my adult life .
I moved to South America when I was 20 and then lived in the Far East for over two decades . From there I went to the Middle East them back to Central American and finally to the carribean .
Now we are back in the uk and it feels weird it doesn’t feel like home .
We are thinking of moving to Spain
My wife and I are very much family people. Always have been, always will be. We have always enjoyed our foreign holidays but are always glad to get back home as we miss our extended family. While we would love to live somewhere the sun shines every day it will never happen. I’ll settle for a few weeks away each year.
Nope. I’m quite happy where I am thanks, Azz.
Never been a roamer. 
We have roamed too much it’s difficult to settle .
Nope much too many things to do in this country for us.
I did, 50 years ago. Glad I did and yes I am living the dream.
Though it took a couple of years to realise it. I originally went to Australia because it was, in my mind, £10 for a two year “holiday”. I had just finished my apprenticeship with GPO Telephones, I loved travelling and Australia wanted me.
Spent the two years working for half the year and travelling for the other half (give or take) mostly hitching up and down the east coast from Northern Queensland down to Melbourne and Adelaide, made great friends, met interesting people, saw the Australia of the 60s etc etc (mostly dirt roads in those days).
The two years was wonderful but I returned as I had planned and worked as a Technical Officer in the PO Tower in London (I was there when the IRA bombed it). In 1971/2 (ish) I decided to take the hippy trail across Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan to India and Nepal. Spent a year having far too good a time travelling. When I ran short of money in Calcutta it was a choice of flying back to the UK or going on to Australia (those were the archaic days when you could only take £50 out of the country and Britons were the poor men of Europe).
As it happened I got a really cheap flight to Sydney because I thought I could earn more money there than in the UK.
When I stepped out of Sydney airport I had an epiphany, I suddenly felt like I was “home”, it was the oddest feeling.
Funny thing was that I hadn’t particularly missed Australia while I was back in the UK even though I had such pleasant memories of my two years there. However when I returned to Sydney this time I immediately wanted to stay … the beautiful weather, the open spaces, beautiful city etc
Worked for a while and saved sufficient money, flew back to the UK, sorted out my affairs, voted NO in the EU referendum, endured the three day week and the power cuts before going back to Australia to stay.
Have only been back to the UK twice since and each visit did nothing to change my mind about wanting to live in Australia. If anything my first visit to the dismal Thatcher’s Britain made me realise what a good move I had made.
BTW that is very much the truncated version of a long time ago. The full story involves working in other places and travelling with family and kids.
Fair play Bruce,
I wouldn’t mind living in Aus tbh - getting too old now though and they don’t make it easy.
I’ve also always had a thing about living in one of the southern states of the USA - Texas maybe for example.
Again, dragged my heels for too long
We are looking at retiring in either Hungary or Slovakia.
Won’t be for some time yet though…
I’ve never fancied living anywhere else, I love Dublin town too much, spent all me life here and had a great time, the people are priceless. My two children moved away when they were in their twenties, stayed away for a few years then came back to settle in Dublin, we did not encourage them to return in any way, they both got married here and have children, I think they just love the place too. The future is looking bright here, things are happening fast now for the young folks in Ireland, a lot of big companies expected to move here in the near future, The education standards are very high here with the result the school leavers are highly educated and prepared to take up skilled jobs in every sector.
Interesting note. 50,000 British people have applied for Irish passports since the referendum in Britain. The population here is 4.5 million at present.
Wales Pembrokeshire
I love it but fear I am too old to move now.
It is also too far for me to drive to see the family these days.
Azz
Are you married!?!
This is not a dating forum / website Rhian.
Behave yourself…
I´ve been an ex pat for some years now. We´ve spent a month or two in various countries around the world, occasionally for me it was for work, but other than that holidays. Never package holidays, I like to explore off the beaten track.
Life changing events spurred us to get moving, so we went to live in East Africa for almost 3 years, taking our two little dogs with us, they loved it there. We had some incredible experiences, not all good, learnt such a lot, met many lovely people both locals and other foreigners. We did however already know many people from previous visits there. It isn´t an easy place to live, but it´s one hell of an experience.
From there we moved to Spain, bringing the two little dogs with us. Again they settled happily until their demise, but by then they were old, they had exciting lives though.
We have lived happily here, have many friends of many nationalities, we´ve seen very many changes, all of them for the better. Mr Clumsy´s health improved 100% once out of England, the asthma attacks and constant chest infections went practically to zero. We talk to family and friends in England and other countries via Skype and we are often like a hotel with family and friends visiting. Our oldest friends live just up the road from us, friends from Africa also moved here a year after us and our next door neighbours in England live just about an hour´s drive away from us.
I just wish there was the same wildlife here as there is in Africa, apart from malaria mosquitoes of course. So yes, we are happy being ex pats.
I have a place in Spain…just waiting for the rightn time and I’m off.
I have a plan(dream?)to buy a sailing boat(40’ish)and cross the Atlantic towards the BVI’s…then mooch around for a year or two.
Just me, the boat and blue water …flying my kid’s out for holidays aboard.
Heaven.
I have never wanted to live anywhere else . I love Scotland too much . I even get homesick going on holiday . Any more than a week away and all I want to do is go home no matter how nice a place it is and how fabulous the weather .
Yes. We have always fancied moving somewhere sunny. I really love Cyprus, hot, friendly and they even drive on the left. I’m not sure whether it will ever happen but it’s not off the table. How this Country performs over the next few years will probably be a big factor in our decision.
In the years we might have considered moving to another country, we had two young families to merge and look after. Not much thought was given to anything other than that …and work.
We couldn’t consider moving to another land now because of physical problems. Never mind though, we have a comfortable bungalow with everything in it to make life as comfortable as possible. It’s situated in a reasonably pleasant area with good places to visit all around. That will have to do.
It´s interesting reading the above posts. As I have mentioned, it was life changing events that prompted our move, if the event hadn´t occurred, in all probability we would have carried on for more years, going to work, and talking about what we would do when we retired.
It was when my closest friend, who had just driven me 250 miles, was later that same day taken very seriously ill, brain tumour diagnosed. During one of her lucid moments she said to me “whatever you are planning to do, do it now whilst you can, if you hadn´t ducked when you did that little arrow would have hit you and not me”. Those words have never left me, and the thing is, she was right. After her death 8 horrendous months later I was a very different person. I took her words to heart and basically that was it, I wanted to do what we had only talked about. At that time we could afford to do it and so, with my son´s blessing, who said “mum just go for it, you might never get another chance”, so we did. We took a big leap into the unknown, had some incredible experiences, a real adventure and we have very few, if any, regrets about taking such a huge step.
Nah, staying put, strange, but when you’ve put up with something long enough, the urge is to hang around and watch the Sh.t hit the fan.
I was late going abroad on holiday 27 years old
But from that first holiday in Spain I said I am going to live here that was 1976
Bought our first apartment in 1986 and have never looked back
Moved house more times in Spain than in England
Made loads of cash doing so
Have lived here now 10 years all our friends moved from Leeds here and we have met loads of new friends from all over the world
life is great and the sun shines and the golf is great as is the NHS
