Why “Move Abroad” Has Become America’s Favorite Coping Mechanism

What happens when logistics replace judgment

There are a lot of things I didn’t fully understand about living abroad until I actually started doing it.

People say the same thing about retirement. You can plan forever, run the numbers, and read other people’s stories. But until you’re living your new life—until the structure of your days actually changes—you don’t really know what you’re in for.

When my wife and I decided to leave the United States, we didn’t frame it as leaving a wholly bad situation. We framed it as the challenge of taking an already good life and living it in a setting more conducive to a higher quality of life and our preference for real city living.

I wanted to resist the lure of familiar—and therefore overly predictable—surroundings.

After watching so many people around me, I knew that staying comfortable like that can be a recipe for decline. I wanted to work my body and my mind hard—and differently—enough to guard against an all-too-common slide into stagnation and bitterness. I’m convinced that’s difficult—and sometimes impossible—if you stay in the same environment, surrounded by the same routines and social cues.

It was never about having a perfect, stress-free life. I don’t think that’s possible either. It’s a fantasy that gets sold all too often in the move-abroad discussion. There’s a difference between feeling safe on streets free of day-to-day hostility and actually living your own life as it happens.

I get stressed in Spain just like I did in the United States. I lost freelance work in LA only a month before we made the move. I just lost freelance work in Spain exactly one year into the move. I feel the same pressure to succeed here that I felt in the U.S. But this time the stakes are higher—I’m older and finally living life in the type of physical and social environment that can sustain me into old age.

All of this comes back to two things, no matter the life change:

• Understanding the distinction between place-specific challenges and universal, life-specific ones—and having the enthusiasm to wake up each day ready to tackle them. Essentially, turning challenge into a good word.

• Asking the right questions ahead of all of the challenges and while you’re dealing with them. This requires a clear and realistic head as you anticipate the unknown and later experience what’s actually going down.

So we chose a place we knew we’d like. That part mattered. But we were never under the illusion that liking a place would make it easy.

And that—right there—that was and is exactly the point.

Every single day for the last four years, I have seen people ask questions about moving abroad. A clear and disturbing pattern emerged and persists.

Most of the questions people ask before they leave aren’t really questions. They’re confirmations.

They’re designed to prove—to themselves, more than anyone else—that they’ve already made the right decision.

Where should I live?
Which neighborhood is best?
Who should I hire to do my taxes?
Will it be easy to find an apartment?

These are distraction questions.

We treat the visa application like a quest and the apartment hunt like a battle. We complain about the bureaucracy because as long as we’re fighting a system over paperwork, we don't have to consider the reality of what lies ahead.

Put plainly—any adult has already faced all of the logistical stuff associated with moving abroad. No matter how much the Facebook groups scare you into thinking otherwise—and they did us—getting your Social Security card or renting an apartment follows pretty much the same protocol as it does in the United States. And, in Spain, it’s actually more efficient.

We can split hairs on the logistical stuff people go on about incessantly on social media and YouTube. And I’m not saying you don’t pay close attention to and seriously deal with these things—spotting differences from what you’re used to that might trip you up. Obviously, you do. And I did. But it’s a bit like driving your car on a new road at night. You know the situation—that’s on the autopilot of adult life—but maybe have to look twice at the specifics.

So those earlier questions matter. You need answers to them. But they’re not the hard part.

They don’t tell you whether you’re actually ready.

The fact that you can hire people to handle every one of those logistical questions should tell you all you need to know.

The harder questions—the ones people rarely ask—get at motivation instead of logistics.

For example:

• If Trump were overthrown tomorrow, would you go back?

• If Gavin Newsom wins in 2028, does the urgency disappear?

• If the U.S. swings back toward something resembling stability, do you suddenly feel “home” again?

And if that’s the case—what was the move actually for?

Then there are the questions that force you to confront uncertainty instead of fleeing it:

• What happens if Spain takes a hard right turn?

• What if far-right Vox takes power and implements a MAGA-style agenda?

• What if immigration policy tightens?

• What if public sentiment shifts?

• What if the political calm you’re breathing in right now evaporates?

• Do you move again?

• Do you keep chasing vibes?

• Do you keep reorganizing your life every time the temperature changes?

These questions aren’t meant to scare you out of leaving. I left. I’m glad I did.

They’re meant to check whether the move is a sober and clearheaded decision born out of your autonomy or a half-cocked reaction dressed up as resolve that borders on rebellion.

Because there’s a difference between choosing difficulty and outsourcing your judgment to geography.

Living abroad will absolutely change the conditions of your life. It won’t do the work for you. And if what you’re really trying to escape is internal—disorientation, anger, loss of trust, identity wobble—you’ll meet it again soon enough, just in a different language.

This newsletter exists to slow that moment down. Not to tell you what to do—but to help you ask better questions before the story becomes real.

That’s the work. Everything else is logistics.

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