It’s June 2018.

I’m 37,000 feet over Northeast Siberia, sitting in a large metal tube doing 600 mph.

Suddenly, I have to pee.

I’m halfway down the aisle on my way to the bathroom when it hits me… a crippling pang of anxiety in my chest.

In an instant, all I can think is:

“What the hell am I doing?”

My 1st job hunting expedition out to Hong Kong was off to a interesting start…

Then, just as suddenly as nature called, 6 years FLEW by.

The more stuff you do, the faster the time goes.

And do stuff, we did.

3 jobs between the 2 of us, countless new friends, starting a company, a pandemic, and relentless gallivanting around the world.

Sarah and I managed to visit 19 countries during our 6 years abroad:

1. Hong Kong
2. China
3. Korea
4. Japan
5. Taiwan
6. Thailand
7. Vietnam
8. Indonesia
9. Philippines
10. Australia
11. New Zealand
12. Turkey
13. Israel
14. Bahrain
15. Switzerland
16. UK
17. Portugal
18. Spain
19. France

Not a bad list!

It would be have been nearly twice as long if it wasn’t for that pesky little flu that went around.

Thanks to COVID, we missed out on:

1. Mongolia
2. Cambodia
3. Laos
4. Myanmar
5. India
6. Nepal
7. Bhutan
8. Pakistan
9. Uzbekistan
10. Malaysia
11. Sri Lanka
12. Maldives
13. Within Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Okinawa (we had flights to Japan cancelled on us twice!)

EVERYONE should spend time abroad at some point in their life if they have the privilege of doing so.

It’s life experience on steroids.

Every time I learned something new or gained a new perspective, I wrote it down.

The result is this list of 23 things I learned from 6 years abroad.

Disclaimer: I’m American, and some of these represent the perspective of a born and raised American.

Let’s dive in.

On life & living life

1. You must spend a lot of time somewhere to see it’s true colors

Sarah and I moved to Bali, Indonesia for 6 months at the end of our stint abroad.

Bali is so overrun with tourism that if you don’t know the area or plan your visit carefully, you may actually have a bad time there.

We were on the ground for at least a month before we began to “figure out” the island and uncover its true beauty, culture, and lifestyle.

I discovered my favorite parts of Bali only after I was living there full time… quiet walks through lush rice fields, endless treats at local Balinese markets, less crowded surf breaks, the little village we lived in (ask me about it!).

These were non-existent to me as a passing tourist.

The reverse is also true.

I’ve never lived in Japan, but many Japan-based expats speak of a darker side of the country to which tourists are oblivious.

I keep this in mind when I think about where else I want to explore.

For example, I love Portugal, and I think I want to live there some day, but there’s so much I don’t know.

2. Culture shock fades fast

Culture shock is real, but you adapt quickly.

Indonesia’s septic system cannot handle toilet paper, so you can’t flush it.

Where does post-number 2 toilet paper go, you ask?

Into a trash can next to the toilet. Yuck.

I found this pretty gross when I first arrived, but within a week, I wasn’t even thinking about it.

Same goes for the lack of regard for personal space on the subway in Hong Kong.

It was shockingly annoying at first, but you get used to it like anything else.

If the urge to move somewhere is gnawing at you, but you’re worried about adapting to local life, don’t be.

The benefits of living in most foreign countries far outweigh the downsides of culture shock, and culture shock fades fast.

On traveling & travel tactics

3. When in Southeast Asia, always check all 8 corners of the bathroom for big, scary bugs

There is nothing worse than having a plump, healthy cockroach land on your arm while you’re trying to relieve yourself.

Can personally confirm. Not great!

The risk of some multi-legged insectoid exploring your most sacred areas is simply not worth it. Just check.

4. Always pack this simple “go” bag

You’ll be happy you have ‘em if you’re unlucky enough to need ‘em:

1. Pepto Bismol tablets. It goes by many names: Asia Belly, Bangkok Belly, Thai Tummy, Bali Belly. In Mexico, they call it Montezuma’s Revenge. Do yourself a favor. Take a little Pepto to limit the number of hours you spend shaking on the toilet with explosive diarrhea.
2. Alcohol swabs, Neosporin, and Band-Aids. Especially if you’re doing adventure activities (surfing, climbing, anything dirty). The stress of a possible infection can ruin a trip. So easy to avoid.
3. Zicam (or any zinc supplement). Take at the very first sign of a cold to significantly reduce cold duration and intensity. Having a trip ruined by a cold sucks. Avoidable.

5. Traveling long haul with a partner? Use these 2 seat selection tricks

1. Basic approach: On planes with 2 aisles, always choose the inside aisle seat and the seat next to it. You are never bothered by, nor do you have to bother a stranger to go to the bathroom.

Choose from the seat pairs marked with pink Xs.

2. Cheeky approach: If the middle section is an empty 3-seater, select both aisle seats. One of two things will happen:

• Other passengers are unlikely to take the less desirable middle seat, leaving you and your partner with the entire 3-seater to yourself. You can take turns curling up in a ball to sleep.
• The flight is full and someone does take the middle seat. Offer them one of the aisle seats, they will take it every time. You and your partner are still sitting next to each other and benefit from the bathroom setup described above.

Choose the seats marked with pink Xs.

Note: trick #2 does not apply to middle sections with more than 3 seats, and neither are relevant to all you business class hitters!

6. You become a points and miles god

If you live abroad, you’re gonna travel. A lot.

And it gets expensive.

The all-in cost of travel (flights, lodging, ground transpo, everything) was my single biggest personal expense during my time abroad. Rent being number 2.

This is a huge incentive to maximize the value of your points and miles.

Like many people, I was intimidated by and didn’t understand the world of points and miles.

But spend enough money on flights, and you figure it out. Fast.

Turns out, it’s actually not that hard to get good value out of your points and miles.

Credit card companies and airlines just obfuscate things, making it more intimidating than it should be.

The 80/20 rule applies. There are only a few tricks you need to apply to meaningfully drive down your cost of travel.

Let’s start with a simple list of points and miles DON’Ts:

1. Never let points expire
2. Never use points for gift cards
3. Never use points to shop on Amazon
4. Never redeem credit card points directly through the credit card travel portal

Each of these things destroy value, either by destroying the points themselves, or by getting a terrible point to dollar conversion rate.

Now let’s talk about “alliances”.

Here’s the critical takeaway: You can use miles from one airline in an alliance to fly on ANY airline in that alliance.

Alliances usually have 20-30 partner airlines. This gives your Delta miles a HUGE global reach.

Now this is where things get dicey. Hang in there.

Sometimes, that Orlando → JFK → Auckland itinerary via Delta and Qantas may be offered at a discount by a THIRD airline in the alliance 🤯.

Holy shit.

Enter Air France and their Flying Blue miles program.

Your Orlando to New Zealand trip may be offered by Delta for 80,000 Delta miles, but ALSO may be offered by Air France for 60,000 Flying Blue miles.

A huge discount.

“But wait!”, you say, “I don’t have any Flying Blue miles. Delta is my airline of choice.”

But you do have a credit card.

Credit cards partner with airlines, and their points are convertible directly into airline miles.

In this case, Chase Ultimate Rewards Points are convertible into Flying Blue miles, and you have a ton of Chase points from using your card regularly.

So, here’s what you do:

1. Transfer your Chase Ultimate Reward Points to Air France Flying Blue miles (via the Chase portal)
2. Buy your Orlando → JFK → Auckland itinerary on the Air France website with your new Flying Blue miles.

You will still be flying Delta to JFK and Qantas to Auckland, but you got the trip for a 20,000 point discount.

Key takeaway: a combination of credit card points and knowledge of airline alliances can help you unlock HUGE value.

Does all of this sound like a lot of work to track and execute on?

Yes, because it is.

That’s why websites exist to find these deals for you and map out, clear as day:

1. How you can get there
2. On what airlines
3. With points from which alliance partner
4. Which credit card rewards programs can transfer points to that alliance partner.

PointsYeah, AwardTool, and Seats.Aero are some of the most popular. Here’s our example itinerary on PointsYeah:

In this case, 51,000 points from any of the following credit card programs are transferable into 60,500 Air France Flying Blue points, where the Orlando → JFK → Auckland itinerary is on sale for that price:

• Amex
• Bilt
• Capital One
• Chase
• Citi
• Well Fargo

You are likely to have 51,000 points in one of those credit card reward programs.

Thanks to a basic understanding of airline alliances and deal hunting tools, those points equal a round trip journey between Orlando and New Zealand.

Enjoy your trip!

I’ll leave you with a few more Rules of Thumb to maximize the value of your points and miles:

1. (Almost) always transfer your credit card points directly to a partner airline, then purchase the flight with those miles directly from the airline website.
2. Try to use points to book the longest legs of your trips (and be willing to pay cash for the shorter “positioning” flights).
3. The more flexible you are with travel times and dates, the more value you’ll get.
4. The more flexible you are with destinations, the more value you’ll get.

7. Border control in Australia and New Zealand is absurdly tight

The tightest I’ve ever seen, actually.

I was unpleasantly surprised by the request to empty my water bottle before I boarded a flight that was laying over in Australia.

I wasn’t even entering the country, just passing through the airport. I was already through security and filled my bottle up in the terminal.

I was then welcomed onto the plane with a friendly announcement that went something like this:

“Our environment and wild life is precious. If you fuck with it, we’ll fuck with you.”

Not that far off from the actual announcement 😂.

If AU or NZ customs catches you with something prohibited (like, I don’t know, a sandwich), you’ll be welcomed into either country with a FAT fine.

Like it or not, it works.

The quality of the environment in ANZ is absolutely pristine (acknowledging that border control is not the only policy responsible for this.)

8. Travel budgeting hack: Dining experiences are forgotten, adventures last a lifetime.

You get MUCH more out of your dollar by skipping fancy restaurants, eating basic take out, and concentrating your spending around experiences.

Think back to your last vacation. How do you remember it?

You probably can’t name every restaurant you ate at, but vividly recall the experiences that defined your trip.

Dining at cool restaurants is tempting in the moment, but it’s an easy expense to cut.

If you’re trying to get the most out of your trip on a tight budget, optimizing spending around experiences instead of dining will usually impact the total cost of your vacation by hundreds of dollars.

Of course, there are some unforgettable dining experiences, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Want a cheap, delicious, reliable, and reasonably healthy option? Turkish food. It’s everywhere.

9. The most beautiful places are the heaviest lifts

Do you want “blow your mind” beauty, or convenient travel?

Pick one. You can’t have both.

My top 2 are Siargao, Philippines and West Sumbawa, Indonesia.

Both are a mission to get to even if you’re based in Asia. But so worth it!

10. Hot take: Beware of sight-seeing tours

More specifically, tours where you get to see beautiful things.

Here’s the thing: Whatever you’re sight-seeing is really, really beautiful… and that’s about it.

Do you really need 2+ hours to look at the beautiful thing, or will 20 minutes of appreciation and photo-taking on your own schedule suffice?

Usually the latter.

People tend to book these things after they see some sick social media content. But consider what they don’t tell you:

1. You’re stuck on a boat/bus/plane on someone else’s schedule for a few hours at a minimum.
2. If you want anything, it costs more money than you’d pay otherwise. You’re stuck there, kind of like buying a $15 hotdog at a stadium.
3. It probably isn’t private. I’ve found myself in tourist traps with some pretty rude folks. To be fair, group experiences can often yield some fun new friends, but you’re better off doing a group experience around some sort of activity, not just sight seeing.

Example: Milford Sound boat or plane tour, New Zealand.

This is a highly recommended experience on the New Zealand circuit, and we have friends who said it was awesome.

Yeah, I bet was totally awesome and would have been nice to see. But… so is the rest of New Zealand that I’ve been driving through for the past week.

Milford Sound is far, expensive, and time consuming. We elected to skip it and got more out of the time we had in Queenstown.

Example: Ha Long Bay boat tour in North Vietnam.

Ha Long Bay is easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. But…

• It was a 2 hour drive away.
• We were stuck in waiting area for a few hours.
• They served terrible food (and we are the type of people who are happy with chicken and rice).
• They crammed us into a shared dining space, forcing interaction with others, which I wasn’t in the mood for.
• There were many rude guests.
• It was several hours of just riding around Ha Long Bay.
• The island stops we made were absolutely jammed.

The punchline: Skipping these things is usually trip-enhancing.

Notable exception: Sight-seeing tours that revolve around an activity (river rafting, ATV-ing, hiking, etc.) These can be awesome because you’re not just staring at something.

11. If you travel a lot, you’re gonna experience some duds

It’s impossible to bat 1.000 with a perfect vacations every time.

Don’t hold yourself to that standard… things will be a lot easier.

Here’s a “fun” list of travel mishaps we experienced during our time abroad:

1. Our entire Taiwan trip getting rained out
2. Flights to Japan getting cancelled on 2 separate occasions
3. Weeks of diarrhea in Bali, Indonesia
4. Sprained foot surfing in Sumba, Indonesia
5. My bags got stuck in Istanbul while I made it to Paris, resulting in a missed connection to London (took 2 days to get the bags)
6. Epic snorkeling cancelled due to weather in Byron Bay, Australia
7. Burning our legs on our scooter engine in Bali (the “Bali Kiss”)
8. Running out of food and water on a 6 hour hike in New Zealand
9. Sarah getting her teeth knocked out by a surfboard in Bali
10. Getting a cold literally all the time
11. Getting a staph infection from elephant poop in Thailand
12. Showing up to the airport in Da Nang, Vietnam to find our flight didn’t exist (and we checked into this phantom flight online)
13. Oh yeah, and COVID for 3 of our 6 years abroad

The list goes on.

And yet, we still had the time of our lives.

12. How to not feel like (complete) shit after a 16 hour flight

I’ve put up some serious miles on the New York to Hong Kong long haul.

At this point, I have it down to a science.

Follow these 7 steps to minimize how bad you feel after crossing many time zones:

1. Pick the right flight times. The closer you can get to arriving close to bed time and crawling into bed shortly after arrival, the easier the adjustment will be. Nothing worse than showing up exhausted and having to do a full day of stuff.
2. Hydrate like a lunatic (with electrolytes). Planes dehydrate you like crazy. You should be drinking so much that you’re peeing all the time. Bring electrolyte packets like Pedialyte or LMNT. Chug water after you wake up from a nap. Hydrating properly will have a noticeable impact on how you feel after the flight.
3. Drink ZERO alcohol. On the note of hydration, this one should be obvious.
4. Sleep as much as you can, when you can. There’s a whole cult around when exactly to sleep on a long flight to speed up your adjustment time, but I’ve found that the more sleep I get overall, the better off I am. Use an eye mask and strong earplugs, and invest in a good pillow that’s easy to travel with. However, if you want to attempt to optimize sleep timing, check out the Timeshifter app.
5. Wear compression socks. This prevents blood from pooling in your ankles, which feels terrible (and is dangerous).
6. Make time to move around the cabin. Get up 2-3x during the flight, walk around, and do some light stretching by the bathroom for 5 minutes. You will feel MUCH less uncomfortable when you get off the flight.
7. Don’t eat just because they serve food. You don’t have to accept every meal. Eat less. Feel better.

On economics

13. Popularity is the enemy of value

Even in cheap Indonesia, Bali has become so hyper popular that it’s not as cheap as you think.

Yes, it is MUCH cheaper than any major city, but the days of being able to rent a nice place for a couple hundred bucks a month are long gone.

If you’re hearing about a cool place to visit, the deep value is probably gone, or will be soon.

14. Healthcare in Asia is CHEAP

One area that popularity doesn’t seem to impact is healthcare.

Sarah took a surfboard to the dome in Bali.

It knocked her front tooth out which ended up deep inside her bottom lip.

Gnarly.

We rolled up to the emergency room, and they stitched her up right there on the spot.

The next day, she saw a dentist who fixed the tooth and even touched up her smile to make it better than before (impossible! 😍)

The whole thing? $170. Cash.

It was an unpleasant experience, to put it lightly, but we got a sick pic out of it:

Surfing injuries just scratch the surface. Routine healthcare is easy, cheap, and unregulated in Southeast Asia.

Dental work, emergency rooms, contact lenses, x-rays, MRIs, the list goes on.

Medical tourism is a thing for a reason.

On life admin & work

15. WhatsApp is a fundamentally better way to live your life

I will die on this hill.

iMessage is terrible. WhatsApp is a god-tier app used by almost 3 billion people around the world.

Yet Americans don’t use it.

WhatsApp isn’t just a messaging app, it’s a bona fide productivity and workflow management tool.

Robust search across media types and conversations, organized file storage, group management, broadcasts, rich content templates, design flexibility, encryption, group calling, message pinning, the user interface…

These things either don’t exist in iMessage or are way better in WhatsApp.

I can store, find and share many types of information effortlessly.

If you think you have it good with iMessage, wake up, you sheep.

That’s like saying regular olive oil is delicious without having tried EVOO.

The only downside of WhatsApp: no iPad app.

Come on Meta, we’re hungry.

16. Quality phone customer service is not a concept in Asia

My fellow expats are nodding their heads in agreement as they read this, reliving the visceral, teeth-pulling experience of trying to accomplish something on the phone with a Asian bank, airline, hotel, or credit card provider.

The sheer bliss I experience from a smooth interaction with Cheryl from Delta, Marcus from Amex, or Jacob over at Chase…

Gets me going just thinking about it 🤤.

17. You become a time zone god

Me when I’m scheduling calls across Asia, Europe, and North America:

Timezone scheduling tool: worldtimebuddy.com. You’re welcome.

On perspective

18. American grocery stores are GIGANTIC

The American grocery store is a unique beast.

I didn’t fully appreciate that until I no longer had one.

They just don’t do it like they do in the States anywhere else.

Not just the physical size, the number of options.

Hong Kong is a wealthy city, and yet there would be days when chicken breast would be sold out of my local grocery store.

Your average American grocery story will be stocked full of 10 brands of chicken breast, with more of each one than a growing boy could eat in a week.

I missed the American grocery store thoroughly.

19. If you live in a developing country, you will probably see some fucked up shit

Within 5 months of living in Indonesia, I saw things that most people would consider “fucked up” or “tragic” on 4 separate occasions.

5+ years in Hong Kong, and I can’t recall one.

Indonesia is my favorite country in Asia. A truly beautiful country with a beautiful culture.

But it’s just the nature of the beast.

Thinking of expating in a developing country?

⚠️ Warning: A strong stomach may be required.

20. My bar for an exciting travel experience has become very high

Walking through the arrivals terminal in a new and exciting destination is one of my favorite feelings in life.

The anticipation, the unknown adventure just around the corner, knowing that my travel itch is about to be scratched…

It gives me a feeling of energy and happiness I can’t get anywhere else.

After years of flying around the world, I still get it, but not as strongly or as often.

That makes me sad, but I guess it’s a small price to pay for doing a bunch of cool stuff.

One thing is clear: PEOPLE make all the difference. Going on trips with my best friends still gives me that high.

21. American media’s presentation of global events is highly distorted

We knew this already, but watching the 2019 Hong Kong Protests unfold before my eyes, then seeing how it was portrayed by American media crystallized this for me.

Reality witnessed through my eyeballs: A very safe city in which to go about my normal life while avoiding a few areas of unrest.

Presentation by American media: An urban warzone.

I got tired of explaining to family and friends back home that there was nothing to worry about.

We all know media is jockeying for our attention, so they have the sinister incentive to promote the most shocking events (regardless of how isolated the incidents may be).

But this was the first time I witnessed the disparity between those shocking events on TV and what was actually happening on the ground.

I now take everything I see online with an extra grain of salt.

Note: This is not a comment on the validity of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests, and I acknowledge that the situation was unsafe for certain people protesting for democracy.

22. People around the world see America in a negative light

To put it bluntly, they generally regard America as a shitshow.

It’s pretty much the default view.

America has it’s fair share of problems which are made highly visible in today’s political environment, but I didn’t realize how unanimous the outside view was.

“What do you think of Trump?”

“I would never taking a teaching job in America. I prefer not to get shot.”

“Doesn’t it cost a fortune to see a doctor?”

All common questions/reactions I get when people hear my very American accent for the first time.

It seems that any perceived economic opportunity in the United States is far overshadowed by our highly publicized problems.

23. Things are not as extreme as they seem

“You’re gonna show up in Hong Kong with a suitcase and see what happens?!

Are you nuts?! That’s absurd!

How will you EVER survive?!

What about your life back home?! You’re risking everything you’ve built!”

Let’s all take a deep breath.

I faced an onslaught of this sentiment from friends and family when I concocted my plan to ship out to Hong Kong.

And I faced it again and again as continued to engage in “risky behavior”…

“You’re gonna start a company?! WhAt aRe YoU dOiNg?!?!?”

“You’re gonna spend 6 months in Indonesia with no job?! NoOoOo!”

This is called “catastrophizing”.

There are a zillion ways any given path you take can play out.

“Catastrophizing” is the act of lasering in on one of the possible futures where things go wrong and incorrectly ascribing a higher probability to it.

It’s human nature.

Things like moving across the world, starting a company, and taking time off to be a surf bum are unconventional… far outside the box of what your average joe would even consider doing.

They are not “normal” things to do. They represent the unknown.

And unknown = scary!

Scary things often come with HUGE perceived negative consequences.

“What happens if I can’t find a job in the new city? Will I derail my career? Will I be stuck there? What if I hate it?”

“Will I lose my friendships back home?”

“What if my company fails?”

“What will job recruiters think about the big gap in my resume?”

All understandable questions to be running through your head, but here’s the thing…

We have a natural tendency to overestimate risk, but most big decisions in life are just not as consequential as we make them out to be.

Trust me, I know.

Look at life through this lens, and a lot of interesting opportunities will start presenting themselves.

If you want to do something, but you’re scared of doing it… you should probably just pull the trigger.

You’re gonna be ok.

Note: I’m not advocating to blindly shoot from the hip when making big life decisions. Think about what you want, what you’ll get out of the decision, what the trade-offs are, and if your circumstances allow you to do it. My point is that the downsides are almost never as big as we make them out to be.

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Punchline of this post: Go abroad!

Many of you are toying with the idea or see it as a far flung pipe dream. Maybe you’re hiding behind a few “excuses” for why it doesn’t make sense.

Here’s my advice: DO IT.

Or let me rephrase, do not go abroad if any of the following are NOT for you:

❌ Visiting a ton of beautiful places cheaply

❌ Making a ton of new like-minded friends

❌ Getting exposure to perspectives very different from your own

❌ Experiencing new cultures, cuisines, and lifestyles

❌ Doing a ton of super fun stuff

It’s a no brainer if you can make it happen.

As prolific travel vlogger, Drew Binsky, puts it: JUST GO.

Thanks to Sarah for reading a draft of this post.