elf618

If you are considering a return to clinical medicine, there are many avenues. Not sure about panama or Vietnam but I'm aware of positions in Africa, the middle east and Australia/new Zealand actively hiring docs. There are probably more. Some are teaching, some more clinical. Also could consider one of the medevac companies perhaps, depending on your specialty. Pm me if you would like more specific ideas.

tentseller

It would be a great life enhancing experience for both of them.

In my consultations with international employment promotion/hiring the candidate with "previous" international living experience tends to out perform the ones without.

Who knows how globalized is the future workplace.

Donk2001

I know about the english language schools, but they run about 25k Euro a year. Thats about 65k for both kids in USD.

GetSetJetSet

From the U.S., moved to France in 2010.

jameschan2811

I love this thread. Very informative. Thanks a lot

rbphilip

How long would you be there? Learning a language isn't a huge deal. Even easier for 13 & 16 year old teenagers. I became functional enough to work in Swedish after 6 months of half-day courses and encouraging my co-workers to put up with my bad language skills, and I was a monolingual 27-year old.

Kids learning a language full-time should be good enough to be functional in school within 6 months. Especially since, in my observation, teenagers seem to communicate with grunts and a 500-word vocabulary..

In the "big" picture (i.e. slightly larger than a teenager can see) a 6 month delay in getting to college is in the noise. Especially for the 13-year old who will probably catch up completely if she works hard at it.

mandolino

Teenagers have an amazing ability in later life to blame you for the things you DIDN'T make them do.

You know: "if only you'd forced me to stick at learning the piano" "if only you'd taken that cool overseas job" even though they might have objected bitterly at the time.

tentseller

I can see it now, 10-15 yrs later: My dad could have relocated us to PARIS FR but he didn't!

deniah

International schooling is a standard benefit for global employees in my company.

As is a return-home travel expense. 2 Y-bucket RT fare cash equivalent for the employee (with some allowance for family also). That's a lot of free miles for the MRs

Nugget_Oz

Melbourne has the largest population of Greeks outside Greece. Generally South-east and East Asian cuisine is good in Oz. Mexican has one or two places and Italian is pretty good in Sydney. Norton Street in Leichardt is very authentic. However, other continental is cuisine is very hard to come by.

andreaborn

docmoney --

Reconsider Singapore -- it definitely needs a different perspective in this thread than invisible gave. Affordability depends on what you require and what you are looking for in the experience.

Housing: this is the tough one -- I left in 2009 and I'm sure it's gotten worse, but there are options which are perfectly comfortable. If you "need" to live in one of the expat enclaves and/or in a luxury condo, prices are super high since companies are paying. I lived centrally but in a small apartment building instead of a giant one, no doorman, only a small pool, but very nice. I know Americans who lived in HDBs. Since you are single, consider sharing with another expat. This site has an exploration of the options, with price ranges -- http://www.guidemesingapore.com/relo...cost-of-living

Food: Hawker centers are fabulous and as cheap as US fast food (but much better!), there are plenty of moderate restaurants for both western and asian food of all stripes, and buying food at local supermarkets and wet markets is cheaper than a normal US grocery store. If you try to eat mostly at upscale western restaurants or bought at a western-focused grocery, it will cost a lot. My husband and I absolutely spent less on food in Singapore than we do in California. Note that the food for which Singapore gets raves is not western, but local. Western coffee chains are pricy; local coffee (kopi) is cheap.

Similar thought process for drugstore items, clothes, etc. -- American brands are expensive, local brands or UK/Australian ones less so.

Public transportation is great and cheap -- even taxis are less than most other big cities. I took buses and the MRT (metro/subway) most places, and taxis several times a week.

As to the "lose your job, leave the country in 1 week and lose your security deposit" -- maybe there is some risk, but in general you and your employer determine a time frame for leaving that works for both of you, and you exit in an orderly manner. If you do have a time issue, you take a quick trip to Malaysia, come back in with a tourist stamp, wrap up your rental business, and get your deposit back.

Get a maid to come in once or twice a week, for much less than in the US.

I found Singapore very fun, and they do a *lot* of things right. It's easy and efficient, yet still exotic. Although Chinese heritage is the dominant culture (with of course a British overlay), they do a good job of celebrating Indian and Malay cultures as well. The mix is great.

I'd be happy to answer any additional questions!

chx1975

My travels consisted of a vacation in the summer... up to the faithful year of 2005. Then I became involved with an open source community and in 2006 february we had a conference in Vancouver. Well, on 2008 september 1 I have immigrated to Vancouver Between the two, for about 1.5 years I have lived out of, basically, two suitcases with occasional short visits to my home in Budapest. Remarkable were the two months in Israel in Sefad and Eilat. If not Vancouver, I'd want to live in Israel.

Fun? Sorry, can't say, what's fun for me is not fun for you. (Unless you consider a code sprint fun.)

Affordable? Vancouver housing is outrageous. It's not even funny. Israel is better, although Jerusalem and parts of Tel Aviv is eye popping. Anything involving human labor in Israel is much, much cheaper than North America.

Safe? I live in the West End of Vancouver and you could walk around with a pot of gold in your hands (although it's much more likely to meet people who leave the "of gold" at home). Of course, don't go to the DTES, but that's shrinking. I hear that these years even in Surrey you might not get your car stolen :P Now, Israel... Israel is safe. I know, I know. But still. Israel is, in general, very safe. So says Wikipedia: In Israel, street crime is rare. Of course it's rare. You can look at this two ways: one, there's a common enemy... two, there is a 180 000 strong army standing in a country with an area of roughly New Jersey (with significant portion of it being inhabitable desert), and it very well can happen that after picking someone's pocket and running away you bump into a soldier on leave (with a loaded rifle in their hands -- see http://pics.blameitonthevoices.com/0...n%20israel.jpg this). You need to be batshit insane to do petty crime in the middle of an army barracks, essentially.

Leviticus

Huge difference! An expat never really tries to assimilate, always intends to return home or move on, and generally stays on a temporary visa or residency permit.

Fraport

I moved from Canada to Germany nearly ten years ago. It was hard at first but now i can't imagine going back.

Fun: Far more relaxing here, people know how to "clock out" of work and leave it there. Its even got a name: Feierabend

Affordable: Getting better. Clothes and food used to be expensive, now clothes have become cheaper here. Food has always been cheaper for me here because of the forced life style change (i.e. there's no 200 choices of gigantic boxes of chocolate cereal that goes stale because you over bought, and I don't have as much access to fast food and eating out as i did back home). Cost of living is higher, but cost of childcare is much lower.

Safe: Was very safe for a while, its getting worse near where i live (border town, crime increasing steadily as we have a lot of riff raff crossing here from some of the EU countries that aren't doing so well.

I wanted to start a thread like this to get all the expats together and share experiences, problems, solutions but wasn't sure if it was warranted. Glad to see someone else had the same idea!

Fraport

I've pondered this so many times in my head - esp when i see FB statuses from people back home, in Canada or the US, complaining about "foreigners" or "immigrants" not speaking english well enough. I kindly point out to them, hey, thats me and they are shocked by the revelation.

On a lighter note, the semantics/perspective thing makes me laugh. I remember landing in Frankfurt years ago and came off a huge US Airways flight with hundreds of americans. The customs booth back then (and still is) has very little space between it and a railing, and its gets packed and confusing. There were all these americans standing in the "EU" line up and there was a man calling out "Foreign people over to this line" to get them to move to the non-EU booths and no one moved. There was a bit of a clueless staring thing going on, with this dude calling this out, then pausing to look at the obvious americans, and them themselves looking around to see which of their neighbours in line would change lines. My husband and i were killing ourselves laughing, and then finally the guy clued in and called "NON EUROPEANS OVER TO THIS LINE" at which point they all realized that it was THEM that were the foreigners.