Why expats move abroad: What makes people start again somewhere else?

Nearly a quarter of a million people emigrated from the UK last year. In this blog, we dig into the reasons why expats move abroad,

Key points in this article

People move abroad for many reasons, including career opportunities, relationships, lifestyle, family, adventure and retirement – and often for a combination of these.
A “better life” means different things to different expats: higher income, lower living costs, more freedom, better weather or simply more time to enjoy life.
Remote work and digital nomadism have changed expatriate life, making it possible to live internationally without a traditional overseas job assignment.
The reason someone stays abroad may be completely different from the reason they originally left, as relationships, communities and priorities evolve.
Whatever the motivation, becoming an expat also brings practical considerations, including visas, housing, finances and access to suitable healthcare abroad.

Do all expats move for the same reasons?

There is rarely that one specific reason why someone moves abroad.

Ask ten expats what brought them to another country and you may hear ten completely different stories. An irresistible job offer. A relationship. Better weather. Lower living costs. Adventure. A childhood dream. The feeling that life had become too predictable at home. Or simply an opportunity that appeared at exactly the right moment.

Sometimes the move is meticulously planned. Sometimes it begins with a two-week holiday and ends, several years later, with a home, friends, pets and a life in a country that was never supposed to become permanent.

What these stories have in common is the decision to build at least part of a life somewhere else. So why do people do it?

A better life – and whatever that means to you

“Looking for a better life” sounds like an obvious reason to move abroad. The interesting question is what better actually means.

For one person, it is earning more money to support a certain lifestyle. For another, it is needing less money to live life well.

Someone leaving London for southern Spain may happily exchange a higher salary for sunshine, a smaller city and dinner outside in November. A family relocating from a country with expensive housing might be looking for enough space for their children. A retiree may want warm winters and a slower pace of life.

Quality of life is intensely personal.

It can mean safety, healthcare, education or career opportunities. But it can equally mean living near the sea, having more time for family, spending less time commuting or simply enjoying everyday life more.

This is one reason traditional measures such as salary do never seem to tell the whole expatriate story. People often move because they have begun measuring success in life and what represents a successful life differently.

Some expats move abroad for love

Not every expat chooses the country per se. Sometimes they choose the person.

International relationships have always created expatriates, and modern work, travel and online dating have made relationships across borders even more common. Eventually, someone may have to move for the relationship to survive.

That decision can be exciting, but it creates a particular kind of expatriate experience. The person following a partner may arrive without their own professional network, friends or even a strong personal connection to the destination.

The same applies when one partner accepts an international assignment and the rest of the family follows.

On paper, the reason for moving is somebody else’s job. In reality, everyone in the household becomes an expat. Children start new schools. Partners rebuild social lives and careers. Families learn a new healthcare system, language and culture together.

A move made for somebody else can eventually become a life that feels entirely your own. But that transformation often takes time and a deliberate choice to make it work.

Others move for their careers

For many expats, the original motivation is professional.

An overseas assignment can mean a promotion, international experience or access to an industry that offers better opportunities elsewhere. Teachers, engineers, healthcare professionals, academics, finance specialists and hospitality workers are among the many people whose careers can take them across borders.

There might also be the added financial attraction.

Some international positions come with higher salaries, housing allowances, private healthcare, school fees or favourable taxation. A few years abroad can therefore accelerate savings or provide experience that would be difficult to acquire at home.

But career-driven expatriation has changed.

The classic model involved an employer sending an employee and their family abroad for several years. That still exists, but it now sits alongside remote workers, freelancers, entrepreneurs and people who simply decide that their career does not have to determine where they live.

For some, the question is no longer Where can I find a job?

It is Where do I want to live if my job can come with me?

The rise of the “Why not?” move

Then there are people without a dramatic reason at all.

They have always wanted to live abroad. An opportunity arises. And they think: Why not?

Perhaps they studied in Italy and never quite forgot it. They fell in love with Thailand on holiday. They have spent twenty years saying they would like to live somewhere warm “one day”.

Eventually, one day arrives.

Remote work has made this type of move far more realistic. A person whose income is no longer tied to a particular office can experiment with living in Lisbon, Bali, Mexico City or somewhere they had previously experienced only as a visitor.

Some will stay for six months. Others will still be there ten years later.

Not every international move needs to be part of a grand strategy. Curiosity is a perfectly legitimate reason to change your life.

Travel can turn into something more permanent

There is an important difference between travelling through a country and living there.

Travellers tend to experience highlights. Expats eventually discover where to buy light bulbs, how electricity bills work and which supermarket stays open late.

Yet travel is often what plants the seed.

Someone spends a month backpacking through Southeast Asia and starts wondering what ordinary life there would feel like. A diver returns to the same Red Sea town year after year until maintaining a home elsewhere begins to seem less logical. A winter escape to Portugal gradually stretches from six weeks to three months and then six.

The attraction changes.

It is no longer about seeing somewhere new. It is about imagining yourself belonging there.

That transition from traveller to resident is one of the less predictable routes into expatriate life.

Families move for their children

Adults sometimes relocate because they want their children to grow up differently.

That may mean access to international schools or better educational opportunities. It can mean a safer environment, more outdoor life or the chance to grow up speaking several languages.

For internationally mixed families, living abroad may also feel completely normal. When one parent is German, another Italian and the children attend an English-speaking school in Egypt, the idea of a single obvious “home country” becomes less straightforward.

There are trade-offs.

Grandparents may suddenly be a flight away. Children leave friends behind. Parents have to evaluate unfamiliar schools and healthcare systems while helping their children adjust to another culture.

Yet children can also acquire something difficult to teach in a classroom: the understanding that there is more than one “normal” way to live.

Some people are moving towards something

A new country can represent opportunity.

More sunshine. A stronger career. A relationship. Adventure. A language someone has always wanted to learn. A particular lifestyle.

These are the easy motivations to explain at dinner parties.

But international moves can have another side. Sometimes people leave because something at home is no longer working.

The cost of living has become overwhelming. Career opportunities have disappeared. The climate feels unbearable. Political or economic uncertainty is affecting everyday life. A marriage has ended. Retirement has arrived. Children have grown up and suddenly there is nothing tying someone to the place where they have spent the previous thirty years.

In those circumstances, moving abroad can represent a reset.

That does not mean problems disappear at passport control. Loneliness, financial worries and relationship difficulties are perfectly capable of boarding an aircraft with you.

But changing countries can change the structure around your life. And sometimes that is enough to create room for something new.

Retirement can be the beginning, not the end

For another group of expats, the opportunity comes later in life.

Retirement removes one of the strongest geographical anchors most adults have: work.

Once commuting distance is irrelevant, a surprisingly big question appears. If you could live almost anywhere, would you still choose here?

For some retirees, the answer is yes. Others begin looking south.

Climate is an obvious attraction, but so are living costs, community and lifestyle. A pension that feels restrictive in one country may support a more comfortable life somewhere else. Coastal Spain, Portugal and destinations further afield have consequently attracted international retirement communities for decades.

Healthcare becomes particularly important at this stage. Living somewhere beautiful is one thing; knowing how you would access treatment if you became seriously ill is another.

The most successful retirement moves tend to account for both.

Digital nomads have changed what “expat” means

The stereotypical expat once arrived with a three-year employment contract and several suitcases.

Today, someone might arrive with a laptop and no intention of staying beyond March.

Digital nomads occupy the blurred territory between travellers and conventional expatriates. They may spend three months in one country and six in another while maintaining clients or employment somewhere else entirely.

Some deliberately remain mobile. Others eventually stop.

After years of changing apartments, SIM cards and time zones, one city begins to feel easier. Friendships develop. A relationship starts. They learn the language. Six months becomes two years.

This is why “expat” increasingly describes a spectrum rather than one particular lifestyle.

What matters is not whether somebody intends to live abroad forever. It is that, for now, everyday life is happening outside their original home country.

And sometimes people stay for reasons they never expected

Perhaps the most interesting expat stories are the ones in which the reason for staying bears little resemblance to the reason for leaving.

Someone moves to Dubai for a two-year contract and builds a business there.

Someone follows a partner overseas, the relationship ends, but the country has become home.

A traveller takes a temporary diving job and discovers a community they do not want to leave.

A family plans three years abroad and realises ten years later that the children barely remember living anywhere else.

This is something statistics about international migration struggle to capture. Moving abroad changes the circumstances on which the original decision was based.

You meet people you could not have anticipated meeting. Opportunities emerge. Priorities shift. Places become familiar.

Eventually, the question changes from “Why did you move abroad?” to “Why would you leave?”

The practical side of starting a life abroad

However romantic the respective reason for moving, expatriate life eventually becomes practical.

There are visas to arrange, bank accounts to open, homes to find and unfamiliar bureaucracies to navigate. Families need schools. Employees need contracts. Everyone needs to understand what happens if they become ill.

Healthcare deserves particular attention because arrangements that worked perfectly at home may no longer apply after relocation.

A travel insurance policy can be suitable for a holiday, but people who actually live abroad generally need to understand the healthcare system in their destination and whether local or international health insurance is appropriate.

International Private Medical Insurance (IPMI) is designed specifically for people whose lives cross borders. Depending on the policy, it can provide access to healthcare across several countries, including hospital and outpatient treatment, telemedicine, mental health support and other services relevant to internationally mobile people.

Global Health specialises in international health insurance for expatriates, families and globally mobile employees. For someone who expects to move again, multi-country cover can also provide continuity instead of requiring an entirely new healthcare arrangement after every relocation.

Insurance is unlikely to be the reason anyone dreams of moving abroad.

But once the dream becomes everyday life, knowing that healthcare can move with you makes one part of that life considerably simpler.

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Why do expats really move abroad?

For money. For work. For love. For sunshine. For their children. For adventure.

Sometimes because they are running towards an opportunity. Sometimes because they have reached the end of something else.

And sometimes there is no better explanation than: I wanted to see what would happen.

Perhaps that is what makes expatriate communities so diverse. The people living on the same street in Hurghada, Singapore, Lisbon, Dubai or Mexico City may have taken completely different routes to get there.

They do share one experience, though. At some point, each of them looked at the life they knew and decided to try living it somewhere else.

For some, it will be temporary.

For others, somewhere else eventually becomes home.