LIFE ABROAD CAN BE AMAZING
Just Don’t Confuse The Fantasy With Real Life
I write blunt, funny, practical stories from 27 years abroad for Americans who still want the adventure, but don’t want fantasy, overconfidence, or one bad assumption turning it into an expensive lesson.
Hi, I’m David, an American who has spent 27 years living, working, and traveling abroad. I’ve lived through two revolutions in Ukraine, a pandemic lockdown in Georgia, long stays across Europe, and the quiet daily absurdities most relocation gurus never mention.
On Expats Planet, I write about the real adventure of life abroad: the freedom, the culture shock, the strange victories, the mistakes, the characters, the lessons, and the moments where a country teaches you something you didn’t know you needed to learn.”
Choose Your Path
Some readers are here for the free stories. Some want the more personal version behind them. Others are seriously thinking about life abroad and can already feel the little voice asking, “What am I missing?”
Read My Free Stories
Start here for expat life, travel stories, culture shock, strange moments abroad, and the practical lessons hiding inside the funny parts I usually didn’t appreciate until later.
Join The Expat Backroom
Get the story behind the story: the part I held back, the lesson underneath it, and what I probably should have noticed sooner.
Build A Smarter Life-Abroad Plan
For Americans who want the adventure, but can feel the fantasy getting ahead of the plan.
Life-Abroad Tools
These are practical guides for Americans who still want the adventure, but would rather build the backup plan before life abroad starts testing the fantasy.
The Expat Autopsy
A blunt guide for spotting the hidden patterns, weak assumptions, scams, and quiet mistakes that usually look harmless right up until they start costing you money, confidence, or sleep.
Best for: Americans who want the adventure, but don’t want to wait until the honeymoon stage ends to find out what they should have noticed earlier.
The Expat Contingency Protocol
A practical thinking system for the question most people avoid because it makes the dream feel fragile: What would I do abroad if all my plans went to hell?
Best for: people with a location, timeline, overseas plan, or current expat situation that feels exciting, but not fully pressure-tested yet.
The Bulletproof Expat Bundle
Get The Expat Autopsy and The Expat Contingency Protocol together and save $25.
Spot the hidden patterns that can make life abroad go sideways, then build the backup thinking most people wish they had before things got out of hand.
Best for serious planners who want the dream, but also want the ugly questions answered before they become real problems.
Why This Exists
Life abroad can be incredible. I know because it’s changed mine.
It can give you freedom, perspective, reinvention, better stories, stranger days, and a much wider sense of what life can be.
The trouble usually starts when people confuse the dream with the plan. A beautiful country still has landlords, banks, visa rules, paperwork, cultural blind spots, awkward surprises, scams and systems that don’t care how excited you were when you arrived.
That’s the space Expats Planet lives in.
It’s for Americans who still want the adventure, but want the dream grounded enough to survive real life.
Experienced Perspective, Not Relocation Theater
I don’t sell residency packages, tax plans, investment schemes, offshore structures, or “move here and everything will be easy” fantasies.
I help you think through the assumptions, risks, tradeoffs, and strange little failure points most people ignore because everything feels exciting, possible, and “probably fine” until it isn’t.
Disclaimer: I am not a relocation specialist, tax or financial advisor, immigration lawyer, or residency consultant. I provide practical perspective based on 27 years of living, working, and traveling abroad.