Ever too old or too young to be an expat?

It's not the age which decide. It's the experience and skills someone acquire along his/her career

Age is unimportant - only attitude matters

Totally true, attitude together with knowledge and discernment you are ready for anything, expat or not.

Hello,

I think, in my opinion there is no age limit to move out of our comforts and strive for better life. What matter is realization.
I think success is not a text book recipe, its the small steps or decisions what we take in our career.

Thanks

@maheshmalik1981

For security reasons do not post contact details on the open forum.

Hi Diksha,

"Expat" or "Expatriate" is a professional status. Thus, no perfect age. Although being at a certain age for some jobs may be an advantage, professional qualifications are still the deciding factor for filling in international positions.

Moving abroad does not automatically gives you the status 'Expat'. Being an expat is one thing and deciding to settle abroad is another. Though, the latter is a great experience you gain for being an expat.


Kind regards,
B

The day when age is important to decide, it will be the end of expatriation.  You need the state of mind to be ready to give up everything you have known to discover new things.

Yes I am

Ergouziaaron wrote:

Yes I am

You are what?

Any old or young to be an expat

BeZwe wrote:

Hi Diksha,

"Expat" or "Expatriate" is a professional status. Thus, no perfect age. Although being at a certain age for some jobs may be an advantage, professional qualifications are still the deciding factor for filling in international positions.

Moving abroad does not automatically gives you the status 'Expat'. Being an expat is one thing and deciding to settle abroad is another. Though, the latter is a great experience you gain for being an expat.


Kind regards,
B

Hello Bezwe,

Yes moving abroad, settling in a foreign country gives you the status "Expat".
You can be retired, or a student, or not even working and be an expatriate as an expatriate is someone who is living outside of their native country.

Nevertheless, are you still an expat when you become citizen of your country of adoption? But that's another debate.

Fred is right in saying that, for exüpatriation, age is less important than attitude.
But the practical aspects do differ and make moving abroad more difficult once you have a steady job (without international posting), a family, maybe bought property or have aged parents in need of care.
Therefore most expats start their adventure when they are young and free, or when they are old and financially independent.

(Of course it is good to keep in mind that the overwhelming number of people abroad - worldwide - are not the stereotypical "career or lifestyle expats", but refugees from war or economic difficulties. For those, entirely different rules apply!)

Hi Helene,

First of all, thank you for sharing your definition.

There’s a fine line with regard to the definition of expatriate. There are a lot of connotations and perceptions since years. 😌 One thing is for sure, when you move somewhere outside your home country due to a job or profession and is „temporary“, then you are an expat (either a company hosted you or you found a host upon arrival). However, if you move somewhere outside your home country for good and due to other reasons other than your profession on top of that, then thats immigration.

To answer your question, I was an immigrant when I moved to Germany and not an expat.

I could be wrong, but that‘s what I learned from the few years I moved around.

Kind regards,
B

I don't think it's ever too old or too young to do anything... the challenges would just be different depending on where you are in your life.

I think, the ideal age is youth, because a yang man may adjust to a new environment easier than whoever else. But I don't believe there are any rules of what age you may migrate.

Lukaslol wrote:

I think, the ideal age is youth.

But do they have the wisdom to make a successful move?

I would totally agree but the youth has nothing to do particularly with age as one might think. It is rather of the main set. In other words, if you never lose that passion in the first place. If one can maintain that creativity and fire of youth, despite their physical age, and not become complacent, and do not become attached to those things that become comfortable with age of the physical body, then the ability to be is available for all who choose it. But it is their choice, that’s the part that is lost along the way as many become “adults“. I’ve been a digital nomad for almost 25 years now, thoughI have remained in my native country. Despite that, I have lived in number of regions over the years, and never worked for anyone other than myself, in the online space only. Now, at 53 I intend to leave the United States and try my hand at Denmark. With the same openness that I left high school with a one way train ticket west when I was 18. The only reason to illustrate the years, is the time spent, the fire remains unchanged.

As young as you are able. That is from experience.
I always remind my kids to venture out of my house and go to different countries and cultures. Live there not as a tourist.
I also am challenging my younger son he can go to Germany for college (it is free there) but he has to learn the German language. I will fund his living expense. He said "no".
To each his own.

Jackson4 wrote:

I also am challenging my younger son he can go to Germany for college (it is free there) but he has to learn the German language. I will fund his living expense.

Excellent information, Jackson.  I checked it out .. and tuition is free for international students at quite a few colleges in Germany*.

This information could be useful to many potential Expat students and their families.  Too bad it is tucked away on this obscure too-young-or-old-to-expat(?) thread.

cccmedia



*Or they can pay $53,000 per student per year in tuition and go to Stanford.

Cccmedia: This is actually discussed very clearly on the Germany forum - and what you wrote isn't entirely correct - since a few years non-EU students have to pay a fee (just like students from EU countries in a second degree course). But, at around €1500/semester, it is far smaller than schools in the USA. You have to learn German at C1 level to gain admission (and to understand the lectures, of course), so this might not be for everyone.

beppi wrote:

Cccmedia: This is actually discussed very clearly on the Germany forum - and what you wrote isn't entirely correct - since a few years non-EU students have to pay a fee (just like students from EU countries in a second degree course). But, at around €1500/semester, it is far smaller than schools in the USA.

Free tuition was granted to undergraduate students at all public universities throughout Germany in 2014.

The free tuition benefit was taken away from non-EU students in one of Germany's 16 states, Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany, in 2017. 

Source... topuniversities.com (article dated July 6, 2020)

The article indicates that the free-tuition benefit may be removed in more of the German states, so readers may have to do some research to find out where it is still available going forward.

The expat.com Germany forum thread titled "University tuition no longer free for many non-EU ciitzens" does not contain any claims that the free-tuition benefit has been canceled at public colleges in Germany outside of southwestern Germany.

cccmedia

I googled it - and stand corrected:
The €1500/semester fee for non-EU students applies only in Baden Württemberg at the moment. Other states plan to implement this too, but do not have it yet.
Sorry for posting wrong information above!
More details about studying in Germany are available in the Germany forum.

Yep. I guess I did not realize tuition fees were reintroduced fall of 2017 by the state of Baden-Württemberg. The other states probably followed suit. $1,697 per semester is not bad at all. I hope the schools there don't nickel & dime you with extra fees.
Either way, I would say start being an expat while you're young. Explore.

By my yardstick, you are just a pup.

I am quite a bit older, but, I don’t look, feel, or behave in ways that would be expected of me if someone correctly guessed my age just once.

Aging has changed me in ways I really like. As one who never much cared what others thought of me, I notice that this awesome trait grows in tensile strength with age. That certainly helps to explain the stilettos.

Never in my rather lengthy lifetime did I dream of being a wife and mother. No little ones and house in the burbs, minivan, and soccer games for me. Actually, I do live in the burbs, divorced, very palsy with the ex whose older son is 40. And, I confess to once owning a minivan. The first thing I did with it was remove all of the rear seats to make room for dog crates.

Thus, I have always been odd. I was thinking the other day about the shopworn phrase “the road less traveled”. It it me: In*am* the road less traveled. If you have spent time in my orbit, you have been exposed to the complete opposite of the life you are *supposed* to be living. Do with it what you will.

Being old is actually the impetus to flee the US. Things are a mess here. The election will have no good outcome either way. I don’t want the thread to turn political. What I mean is, no matter which candidate wins, I do not expect the violence to subside, it may escalate or the economy won’t bounce back. NYC is literally emptying out as is Los Angeles. High earners are pulling money out. People are very afraid of the violence. Their are precautions they could take around COVID. Over the violence in the streets, we are essentially powerless. The economic damage is astronomical. The businesses that were not wiped out by the virus are at risk of being burned by rioters. Many, many businesses will never reopen. I feel terribly sad about this. So many are multi-generational small family enterprises.

Even before the violence started, the thought popped into my head that I don’t have a clue how many years I have left. There is no reason to live them out in a state of anxiety and fear. I don’t *have* to stay here. I am free to go. It was quite the revelation. Five years earlier, I had insisted that we bail out of California and move to Tennessee. That could not have been timed better. In a way, this is the expanded version.

jazminerose wrote:

The election will have no good outcome either way.... What I mean is, no matter which candidate wins, I do not expect the violence to subside, it may escalate or the economy won’t bounce back. NYC is literally emptying out as is Los Angeles. High earners are pulling money out. People are very afraid of the violence. Their are precautions they could take around COVID. Over the violence in the streets, we are essentially powerless. The economic damage is astronomical. The businesses that were not wiped out by the virus are at risk of being burned by rioters.

Small businesses, yes, have suffered during covid .. and  many mom 'n pop operations have shuttered and will not re-open.
But otherwise the above paragraph is filled with falsehoods.  Not lies, as I don't perceive the assertions as intentionally false.  Misinterpretations, yes.

"The election will have no good outcome either way."

Given that there is every opportunity to depose The World's Most Dangerous Man with his lying, cheating, cyber-bullying, corruption, hollowing out of government agencies that used to properly address national crises -- that would not be just a good outcome .. that is a great outcome.

"NYC is literally emptying out as is Los Angeles."

Some major cities' streets may look partly empty .. as many folks are still sheltering in place even if the city is technically open for business.  However, New York City is a major success story in the fight against covid.  If you believe it is literally emptying out, you are probably watching too much Fox News aka Faux News.  Also, you might look up the definitions of literally and figuratively.

"High earners are pulling money out."

The stock market has defied gravity, a sign that millions of the top earners are investing, even at a time when there was or is figurative blood in the street.

"Over the violence in the street we are essentially powerless."

More Faux News-style blather.  Compared to what you lived through in the Sixties, this is a peaceful time.  The protesters have been generally peaceful with a few early exceptions.  Peaceable protesters were gassed at Lafayette Park for a politician's photo op.  George in Minneapolis had his life choked out of him under a cop's heel.  This is not the riots of the Sixties;  the 'powerless' claim is a misinterpretation.

"The businesses that were not wiped out by the virus are at risk of being burned by rioters."

This is pure speculation not supported by fact nor worthy of an expat.com forum.

cccmedia

Can we please keep USA-internal politics out of this discussion, as well as emotional over-reactions?
As much as I dislike him, Mr. Trump is far from being "The World's Most Dangerous Man" - that title surely goes to bloodthirsty tyrants like Kim Jon Un, Wladimir Putin or Mohammed bin Salman.
As all of us will realize in a number of years, Mr. Trump is a mere footnote in the history of democracy - and (as I always try think positively) the harm he causes now will be outdone by the greater good of making his party unelectable for any intelligent person for many years to come.

Darth Vader is also a very bad person.

I agree.  I was invited to a "parents day" at my daughters former employment.  At a talk to parents the speaker made a point of telling us they strived to constantly bring our children out of their comfort zone.  I loved that.

Denmark is the land where I was born and lived until the age of 17.  It's a beautiful country and the most honest people you will meet.  Would love to hear how it goes.  Everything is different in the age of Covid-19.  Good luck.  Inge

BeZwe wrote:

Hi Diksha,

"Expat" or "Expatriate" is a professional status. Thus, no perfect age. Although being at a certain age for some jobs may be an advantage, professional qualifications are still the deciding factor for filling in international positions.
B

I travelled/lived in different countries in my younger years and I also thought expat is a term for professionals until I found this website and looked up the Merriam Webster's definition. Flabbergasted was I.
Expat:
noun - a person who lives in a foreign country

Hello Diksha, I think one should be matured emotionally in order to leave abroad because it entails a lot of challenges which the person has to overcome and for someone who is not mature for such, he/she can break under the pressure. My name is Andrew and I would to connect with you. ***

The title of this thread references the notion that there may be an age at which one becomes Too Old to be an Expat.

There has been precious little discussion here of that aspect of age.

Age is less of a determinant than mental, emotional and physical considerations for the many Expats who return to their home countries late in life.  Ergo, there is no specific age that is determinant.

With all this in mind, I present...


Ten Top Signs That You May Be Too Old to Still Be An Expat ..
    and It's Time to Think About Returning to Your Original Home Country

10.  You can't stand to overhear one more conversation among
fast talkers sputtering incomprehensibly (to your mind) in their 'foreign' language.

9.  Going to the local market and selecting fruits by pointing to the mangos and holding up two or three fingers .. has totally lost its charm.

8.  The long-time Explorers Society where your Expat friends gathered from time to time has lost some of its purpose due to the Internet .. and has closed in your city.

7.  You are no longer sufficiently alert to avoid muggers and thieves .. and the number of times you have been victimized is now in the double digits.

6.  You are no longer up to the mental gymnastics necessary to receive money, mail and packages .. and are forlorn over your inability to order and receive marmite.

5.  The concept of potentially entering a hospital where the language barrier could mean life or death .. spurs recurring and frightening thoughts.

4.  The local 'femmes' and 'señoritas' are no longer eyeballing you for the smiling 'once-over'.  Or it could be the 'hommes' and 'caballeros' who have seemingly lost interest.

3.  You have to renew your cédula and your drivers license .. and change your insurance set-up .. at three different and opaque bureaucracies .. all in one-month's time.

2.  You receive an unexpected, welcome and qualified offer to buy your Expat home, which had been languishing in the local property market for years.

And the number-one reason you might decide to stop Expatting and return to your original country....

1.  Your legs -- they ain't what they used to be.  The local terrain is unforgiving to your need to get around .. and your Expat location lacks the elevators, level pathways and wheelable conveyances that are needed by you en esta época.

--

Bonus reason... Dedicated facilities for 'assisted living' are unheard of in your adopted country, where extended families find a way to care for frail/ailing members without paying strangers thousands of dollars a month to look after them.

It's not the age which decide. It's the experience and skills someone acquire along his/her career
-@Eng.MAAKA

I think career is a big determinant. If you don't have a job that lends itself to travel or relocating, then you really can't embark on the expat life until retirement. Remote work is key in my opinion.

@cccmedia Great 10 points. Te issue might be that one has been so long away from the home country that it has changed sufficiently for one not to want to go back. It might also be completely unaffordable.