7 Lies People Tell Themselves Before Moving Abroad

Changing countries is easy. Changing yourself is the hard part.

And Escaping the West Won’t Save You…

Have you ever stood in a sun-drenched plaza in southern Spain, backpack slung over one shoulder, thinking, “This is it. This is where I finally get my life together?”

I have.

Twice.

Once in 1998 and again in 2015, on the Camino de Santiago, no less.

Here’s the revelation! 

Neither time did I achieve spiritual enlightenment, just sore feet, sunburn, and a vague craving for churros I still haven’t shaken.

I’ve met people in Thailand who thought swapping their cramped NYC apartments for Chiang Mai cafés and mango smoothies would cure their burnout.

I’ve also watched them spiral, burned out all over again… just now with better weather and worse Wi-Fi.

You can flee the 9-to-5, your toxic ex, even your entire country.

But the bad habits? The identity crises? 

The low-level existential dread that creeps in every Sunday night whether you’re in France, Georgia, or Albania? 

Those fit neatly in your carry-on.

No visa required.

After over 25 years living, working and traveling outside the U.S., after countless “fresh starts” in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, and a brief romance with multi-month rolling stays in France, I can tell you this.

Relocation doesn’t equal reinvention.

It’s just you, in a new timezone, with a slightly different selection of bread.

In this article, I’m not going to sell you a fantasy. 

But I am going to share the 7 uncomfortable truths that follow you wherever you go.

Because sometimes the hardest part of the journey isn’t customs, visas or culture shock… it’s realizing you packed yourself along for the ride.

1. Burnout Doesn’t Care What Country You’re In

A former teaching colleague of mine left his job in LA, moved to Thailand, and proudly announced on Facebook that he was finally “free.”

One month later, I caught up with him over a video call.

He was sweating through a tank top, guzzling iced coffee at 3 a.m. Bangkok time.

Why? Because that’s when his New York clients were awake.

He had swapped his office cubicle for a beachside co-working space, but the 60-hour workweek came with him.

So did the stress, the sleep deprivation, and the complete inability to say no.

Different scenery, same panic, only with palm trees.

Oh, and no paid benefit package either…

What this tells us: If you don’t fix your relationship with work, all you’ve done is export your burnout.

But, with a worse internet connection and way more humidity.

2. You Can’t Relocate Your Way Out of Loneliness

There was a Canadian traveler I met in Kyiv who was convinced Ukraine would be her escape hatch from the social isolation she felt back in Toronto.

She was actually a Ukrainian Diaspora and joined every expat group, hit up language exchanges, and still wound up eating Vareniki alone on her balcony, scrolling through her feed of people back home living their “real” lives.

I’ve been there. 

You trade one type of loneliness for another.

Back home, it’s the routine kind. 

Abroad, it’s the kind that hits you in waves of “What am I even doing here?” when your Wi-Fi or electricity cuts out and no one answers your messages because they’re all asleep in another time zone.

What this tells us: New scenery doesn’t build connection.

Intentional relationships do, and those take more than a few shared beers in a local expat bar.

3. Cultural Confusion Doesn’t Disappear It Deepens

My first year in Ukraine was one long social experiment in being slightly wrong all the time.

I once gave an even number of flowers to my girlfriend’s grandmother.

You’d think I brought her a funeral wreath.

I asked a guy what he did for a living and got a death stare and the reply “None of your business.”

Oh, and let’s not even talk about trying to pay with a large bill at a corner kiosk in Kyiv.

The look the woman gave me could’ve made a sunflower wilt.

Once, I asked for butter and got handed a slab of salted lard.

Another time, I stood in line to buy metro tokens, only to be scolded for not having exact change.

Sure, I got better at reading the room, the receipts, and the unspoken rules.

But in the beginning, every errand felt like a pop quiz I hadn’t studied for, in a language I barely understood.

But what stuck with me most was the quiet erosion of identity.

You go from being someone to being “the American” with the accent and the wrong shoes.

What this tells us: Culture shock isn’t something you get over.

It’s something you learn to navigate… and sometimes, it reveals more about you than the country you’re in.

4. That Hustle Mindset? It Followed You Too

In Tbilisi, I met a guy who left his sales job in California because he was tired of living for commissions and KPIs.

He was proud of having “opted out” and was now freelancing remotely.

But, by the second glass of Georgian wine, he confessed he worked longer hours now than he ever did back in LA.

He just did it with better views and cheaper rent.

He wasn’t sipping wine in a vineyard at 3 p.m though.

He was panicking over invoices, chasing clients across time zones, and refreshing Upwork like it owed him money.

What this tells us: If you think you’re leaving hustle culture by leaving your country, you’re in for a very rude awakening.

Especially when your new office is your AirBnB and your boss is the voice in your head whispering “work harder.”

5. Debt Doesn’t Magically Vanish With a Border Stamp

During my CELTA course in Poland, there was a young woman who had come from the U.S. to “start over” teaching English.

What she hadn’t started over were her student loan and credit card balances, which were still draining her account each month.

Except now, it was draining it in Polish zloty.

She spent more time checking exchange rates than lesson planning.

Every unexpected charge from back home hit like a financial gut punch.

The only thing international about her new life was the debt collecting interest while she tried to live on $800 a month.

What this tells us: Your bank doesn’t care what continent you’re on.

Pretending debt disappears when you don’t look at it is like thinking calories don’t count just because you’re eating them in another country.

6. You’re Still You Just With a Better View

The first time I walked the Camino de Santiago in 1998, I expected some grand internal reset.

What I got was blisters, rain-soaked gear, and way too much time alone with my own inner monologue on repeat.

In 2015, I walked it again, older, wiser, and better prepared.

Guess what? Same outcome.

The view was incredible, the bread and wine restorative, but all my overthinking and unresolved baggage still made the trip.

It was somewhere between León and Astorga, feet blistered and halfway sick of Spanish tortilla, that it finally hit me.

I hadn’t found inner peace. I hadn’t discovered some grand personal epiphany.

What I had was the same old spiral of thoughts, just with prettier scenery and better bread.

Turns out, you can cross a country on foot and still be stuck in your own head.

What this tells us: You can move your body 800 kilometers, but if you haven’t dealt with what’s rattling around in your head, it’ll just come along for the ride.

No ticket required.

7. The Idea of Home Only Gets Trickier

After over 25 years of living outside the U.S., going “home” feels more like entering a simulation of a place I used to know.

The cereal aisle overwhelms me.

The small talk feels forced.

Oh, and don’t get me started on tipping culture.

I’ve lived in places where I felt like a visitor and visited places that started to feel like home.

But the more stamps I collected in my passport, the fuzzier that word “home” became.

It’s not a location anymore.

It’s a mood or a memory. Sometimes, it’s a park bench in Strasbourg overlooking a canal.

Other times it’s a babushka’s scowl in a Kyiv bazaar that makes you feel, weirdly, understood.

What this tells us: The longer you’re gone, the less likely it is that “home” will ever feel like it used to.

That’s both the freedom and the cost of a life spent moving.

What’s Still in Your Carry-On?

Escaping can be empowering, but only if you stop pretending your problems are all zip code-related.

You can’t outrun burnout, heartbreak, or an identity crisis just by swapping passports.

They’ll find you in Georgia, Ukraine, Albania, even in the middle of the Camino.

So what’s still in your carry-on?

Have you ever tried to outrun something by moving? 

What did you learn when it caught up?