Almost a year ago now, my husband and I decided to leave our life in London for the Middle East. A familiar story for many! This wasn’t the first time either one of us had made the decision to start afresh in our lives. So the idea of moving to a different country wasn’t novel for us. In addition, our group of friends were like-minded world explorers who also often chose home to somewhere far from their birth place.

Last summer marked my 10th year living as an adult in London, which made the decision to leave London an emotional one. However, I knew for myself, my time in London had come to an end and it was time for a new start. To help further this decision, a few other good friends were also making the decision to leave London behind for destinations further afield like Singapore, Scotland, Pakistan, and Brazil. Therefore I was in good company and had sympathetic ears to carry me through the process of relocating.

What’s more I was met with a lot of support from those that were staying put in London. My boss at the time supported my decision to leave saying “when an opportunity presents itself you’ve gotta take that chance, otherwise you’ll just end up wondering about what could’ve been.” Naturally I completely agreed, especially as I suffer from FoMo (fear of missing out). Everyone was so excited for our move which helped me get excited for new adventures and opportunities in a far off land.

Jet Airplane Landing at Sunset ca. 2000

It’s been almost a year on from that summer and as I’m getting ready to travel back to London in a few weeks for my summer holidays, I’ve been reflecting a lot on what has happened this past year. Interestingly, whilst I was recently in Dubai for work, I met up with two friends. One has resided in Dubai for 7 years and the other had recently moved to Singapore. It was great to catch up with my friends albeit slightly bizarre that it was with the backdrop of the Dubai Marina and not a pub or bar in London. However, one thing that struck me about our conversations was how similar our experiences had been of relocating and trying to settle into a country that was not our home. Although Facebook documented the best parts of our adventures, our conversations highlighted the struggles of what life was really like living as a foreigner.

And so it was with that conversation in mind that I wanted to start this blog. To meet like-minded people with similar experiences, to share stories of an expat lifestyle, dispel a few myths and to share my travels around the world. There is no doubt that moving to another country will be one of the most rewarding and amazing things you’ll ever do in your life but I don’t doubt it will also be one the most toughest things you do.