9 Popular Expat Opinions I No Longer Believe

After More Than Two Decades Abroad, I Realized Some of Our Favorite Expat Talking Points Simply Aren’t True.

The Biggest Surprise Wasn’t the Locals

After more than twenty seven years abroad, I expected the biggest lessons to come from locals I’d met across France, Ukraine, Spain, Thailand, Greece, Georgia, and Albania.

I was wrong.

The people who challenged my worldview most were other expats.

We’ve all heard them. Europe is healthier. Slow living fixes everything. You’ll never want to go home. Spend enough time in expat pubs or Facebook groups, and those opinions start sounding like unwritten rules.

Here’s the embarrassing part.

I believed most of them too.

Some lasted a few years. Others survived more than a decade before real life quietly tore them apart. Living in Kyiv, wandering across northern Spain, settling into Albania, and spending time in France and Georgia taught me something I never expected.

Expats can be just as guilty of repeating comforting myths as everyone else.

Quick note: When a story like this feels familiar, the real question may be bigger than this one situation.

Maybe you dream of moving abroad, or maybe you’re already abroad and having second thoughts.

“Is life abroad really for me?”

That question is closer to this story than you might think.

Now, let’s commit a little heresy.

Here are nine popular expat opinions I no longer believe.

1. Living Abroad Automatically Makes You Healthier

After my first few months in France, I came home lighter without trying.

Fresh bread. Cheese. Wine. Pastries. Somehow, I was eating things Americans are told to fear and still losing weight. Walking everywhere certainly helped, and those tiny portion sizes made American restaurant meals look like competitive eating contests.

I figured I’d discovered the secret.

Then I started paying closer attention.

Plenty of people still smoked. Café terraces often filled with cigarettes before the coffee even arrived. Late dinners, wine, and the occasional three course lunch weren’t the picture of health I’d imagined.

Spain and Italy taught me something similar. Walking was part of everyday life, yet I met people who hadn’t exercised intentionally in years because their morning bakery run or evening gelato passeggiata counted as their workout.

Turns out, geography doesn’t magically replace good habits.

Moving abroad gave me better opportunities to eat well and stay active. It didn’t force me to make better choices. That part was still my responsibility.

What I No Longer Believe: A change of country won’t save you from bad habits.

2. Americans Work Harder. I Don’t Think It’s That Simple Anymore.

Expats love talking about work life balance.

Spend five minutes in an expat Facebook group and someone will tell you Europeans have life figured out while Americans are trapped in an endless hustle.

I used to nod along.

Then I met freelancers, small business owners, English teachers, and entrepreneurs across Thailand, Ukraine, Albania, and Georgia.

Many of them worked ridiculous hours.

Teaching by day. Tutoring at night. Running online businesses on weekends. Answering emails during Saturday morning coffee.

The job looked different.

The workload didn’t.

Work culture changes from country to country.

So do salaries, expectations, and opportunities.

Plenty of Americans abroad work longer hours than they did back home because they’re building a life without the safety net of a regular job.

What I No Longer Believe: Work ethic isn’t stamped inside your passport.

3. Everyone Abroad Is Happier. That Fantasy Doesn’t Last Long.

Social media can make life outside the U.S. look like a permanent Mediterranean vacation.

Long lunches. Beautiful cafés. Smiling couples. Cobblestone streets.

Then real life shows up.

In Ukraine, I met people struggling with bills, family or health issues, and wondering whether they’d ever own a their own flat or dacha.

France had lonely retirees sitting alone in cafés.

Albania had young people dreaming of moving somewhere else.

Even fellow expats aren’t immune. More than a few admitted they were homesick after posting yet another perfect sunset photo.

Living abroad changes your scenery.

It doesn’t cancel stress, heartbreak, anxiety, or loneliness.

Those things are remarkably good at renewing their passports.

What I No Longer Believe: A new country can’t guarantee a happier life.

4. Slow Living Doesn’t Automatically Create A Better Life

One of my favorite memories of France is sitting at a café with absolutely nowhere to be.

Nobody was rushing me. Nobody was hovering with the bill five minutes after I finished my coffee. Time seemed to slow down in the best possible way.

I loved it.

Then I realized something a little uncomfortable.

I could sit in the world’s most charming café or watch the sunset over Corfu and still worry about family, deadlines, finances, or the next article I needed to write.

Changing the scenery didn’t magically change the person sitting in it.

Slow living is great.

Slow thinking isn’t always.

Sometimes I still caught myself mentally sprinting through tomorrow’s to-do list while standing in one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

Turns out, your stress doesn’t get stopped at customs.

What I No Longer Believe: A slower place won’t fix a stressed-out mind.

5. Culture Shock Doesn’t End. It Just Changes Clothes

When I first moved to Ukraine, culture shock was obvious.

• The language.
• The food.
• The alphabet.
• The fact that asking what someone did for a living could end a conversation.

Eventually, those things became normal.

I could order food, navigate the city, and laugh at misunderstandings that would’ve once flattened me.

I figured I’d beaten culture shock.

Not even close.

Years later, new challenges appeared.

• Healthcare.
• Taxes.
• Bureaucracy.
• Watching classic foreign variety shows and gangster dramas in another language.
• Figuring out retirement after spending so much of my life abroad.

Then came reverse culture shock.

Returning to the United States sometimes felt almost as strange as arriving abroad for the first time.

Culture shock never packed its bags.

It just found new ways to introduce itself.

What I No Longer Believe: Every chapter abroad comes with a brand new learning curve.

6. Healthcare Abroad Isn’t Always Better. It’s Just Better At Different Things

Healthcare might be the quickest way to start an expat argument.

One side says Europe solved it.

Another says the U.S. still has the most advanced treatments.

The longer I live abroad, the less I care which system was best.

I’ve seen affordable doctor’s visits that would’ve cost me a small fortune back home.

I’ve also dealt with language barriers, incomplete testing, and that sinking feeling when you know something still hasn’t been fully diagnosed.

Every system has tradeoffs.

Some prioritize affordability. Others prioritize speed and thoroughness.

Some make preventative care easier. Others make access to cutting edge treatment easier.

No country has completely figured it out.

The longer I lived abroad, the less interested I became in asking which system was best.

The better question became, “Best for what?”

What I No Longer Believe: Every healthcare system asks you to make different compromises.

7. Locals Don’t Always Know Best Either

When I first started living abroad, I treated locals like they held the answer key to life.

Surely they knew the best restaurants, the smartest way to do things, and the right way to live.

Sometimes they did.

Sometimes they complained about their country more than expats did.

I met Ukrainians who dreamed of leaving Ukraine. French friends who rolled their eyes at French bureaucracy. Albanians who insisted life was better somewhere else. Every country had people convinced the grass was greener across another border.

That was oddly comforting.

Locals aren’t one giant hive mind. They disagree about politics, traditions, food, and what makes a good life just as much as the rest of us.

Living somewhere gives you experience.

It doesn’t automatically give you wisdom.

What I No Longer Believe: Living somewhere else doesn’t automatically make someone wiser.

8. Tourists Aren’t Always The Problem. Sometimes Expats Are.

Expats love blaming tourists.

They’re too loud. Too rushed. Too disrespectful. They don’t understand the culture.

I’ve probably said some version of that myself.

Then I wondered who was having the bigger impact.

The family spending four days in a city before flying home.

Or the foreigner who’d lived there for years, rented an apartment, spoke only English with other expats, and never really became part of the local community.

That question made me squirm a little.

Expats often drive up rents, create English speaking bubbles, and support businesses aimed at other foreigners. That doesn’t make us bad people. It means staying longer carries more responsibility.

Sometimes we’re so busy pointing fingers at tourists that we forget to look in the mirror.

What I No Longer Believe: Tourists don’t ruin places alone. Expats can do plenty of damage too.

9. You’ll Never Want To Go Home. I Finally Stopped Saying That.

For years, I thought going home would feel like defeat. Many expats talk that way, as though missing home means you’ve failed abroad.

Life turned out to be much more complicated.

Some days I miss things I never expected.

Other days I wonder how I ever lived there.

Occasionally both thoughts happen before lunch.

Home isn’t a competition between countries anymore.

It’s become a collection of people, memories, habits, and places that shaped me. Some of those places are in the United States. Others are scattered across Ukraine, France, Spain, the UK, Albania, Georgia, Germany and beyond.

Turns out, your heart is perfectly capable of having more than one address.

What I No Longer Believe: You don’t have to choose between loving where you came from and loving where you’ve gone.

Maybe The Biggest Expat Myth Was Thinking I’d Finally Have All The Answers

Living abroad has a nasty habit of killing the assumptions you were most proud of.

Almost every opinion I’ve held has eventually met an exception that forced me to rethink it.

That’s where the real growth happens.

After more than two decades abroad, I’ve stopped collecting assumptions and started collecting better questions.

Maybe that’s what living abroad was teaching me all along.

So now I’m curious.

Which popular expat opinion have you stopped believing, or which one will you defend no matter what?

Life abroad is incredible. Whether you dream of moving abroad or you’re already abroad and having second thoughts, Expats Planet exists to answer that one question: is life abroad really for me?

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