Should you live as a tourist or as a local while abroad?

Experiencing expatriation as both a tourist and a local can enrich and diversify your time abroad, easing your integration and filling each day with new discoveries and learning opportunities.

Do you agree with this perspective?

- @Veedushi

Not really.

The thinking expressed in this statement is akin to the modern philosophy that there are no winners or losers in sports, just participants.

Actually becoming an expatriate requires a certain amount of commitment and dedication to follow the rules of residency in your new location.

A person could simply call themselves a citizen of the world as many travelers are doing, but that's only possible if they maintain their legal residence in their home country, meaning the country of their passport.

COVID-19 should have been a wake up call for those who would like to call themselves expatriates living in a foreign country without actually having a legal residence status there, other than tourist.

Here in Vietnam (both in person and in dialogue on the Vietnam forum) I witnessed the utter disbelief being expressed by long-term tourists that the government here was not allowing them to stay in place, except with month-to-month approval in certain limited circumstances.

It was a rather rude awakening for most of those people, especially the ones who were attempting to live here while working illegally without the approval of the government.

Certainly the experience of being a tourist can be valuable in the development of the expat experience.

In the Vietnam forum we get almost daily posts from people who say that they have decided they are going to move to Vietnam, even though they have never visited the country, while also being ignorant as to the laws regarding employment and residency here.

Those of us who have been living here legally for a significant period of time are quick to advise them to first visit this country on a tourist visa while also providing information as to the immigration laws in Vietnam.

Just because that person comes and visits as a tourist does not make them a Vietnam expat, but when they do eventually qualify to be a legal expatriate here, the experience that they had as a tourist will be an invaluable part of that process.

So in retrospect, there is some truth to your statement, but anyone can be a tourist.

Only after certain decisions are made and commitments to legal requirements are accomplished can someone honestly be called an expat in this country.

@Veedushi

expatriate = "denoting or relating to a person living outside their native country"

tourist = "a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure"

Being a tourist, or an expatriate who lives as a tourist, seems to me to be very much AVOIDING "integration".

01/25/25 Those of us who have been living here legally for a significant period of time are quick to advise them to first visit this country on a tourist visa while also providing information as to the immigration laws in Vietnam. Only after certain decisions are made and commitments to legal requirements are accomplished can someone honestly be called an expat in this country. - @OceanBeach92107

We say much the same things  to people who decide that they're going to live in Brazil, and then some are outraged to discover that the immigration and other laws apply to them.  I guess that it's the same everywhere.

Hello everyone!

Thank you very much for your input.

Best regards,

Veedushi