In April 2012 we launched GoodMigrations to help people moving abroad learn about the moving process and determine which international movers were reputable. We also wanted to provide independent social proof for all the great moving companies out there. Over the past year the response from expats has been great. But there’s still a lot of work to do so we’ll be adding new functionality to the site over the next couple months.
 
One of the features we’re looking to include is a way for people moving abroad to easily compare quotes. We’ve found that for a person moving to a new country for the first time, comparing different moving quotes can be difficult given the different terminology and templates used by different companies. Additionally, most customers don’t know enough about international moving to ask about things that may not be shown on the quote, such as terminal handling charges. And of course trying to manage all the documentation and correspondence via email can be a headache since it gets buried under dozens of other personal or work messages.
 
And on the moving company side, we’ll be looking at how we can help good moving companies generate more business — after all, paying for leads that are often bad or don’t go anywhere isn’t ideal. We also want to help the good guys really show off their track record and capabilities. As such, we’d love to get input from some international moving companies to make sure we’re adding features that can benefit them. So if you’re interested in contributing your thoughts please let us know and we’ll get in touch.

Just send us a note via email or Twitter

All the best,

One of the most important things to consider when moving abroad is the cost of living in the destination country. If your company is relocating you then you’ll want this information so you can determine how much compensation you’ll need to live the lifestyle you want. Or if you’re retiring abroad you need to know what locations you can afford on a fixed income.

When I moved from New York (the most expensive city in the United States and ranked as the 47th most expensive city in the world according to the most recent Economist cost of living index) to Sydney, Australia (currently number seven on the Economist list) I used some online websites to determine the cost differences. They all suggested Sydney was on par with NYC, but when I arrived on the ground for the first time I learned it definitely is not. Since then I’ve discovered several better tools you can use and thought I’d share them with the wider expat community.

Expatistan  http://www.expatistan.com
Expatistan is a crowdsourced database of prices around the world that lets you compare one city to another. The prices are entered for six categories of consumer items: Food, Housing, Clothes, Transportation, Personal Care, and Entertainment. You can expand each category to see more specific information, such as the costs of a beer in a local pub, laundry detergent, and a haircut. Expatistan shows that NYC is 6% cheaper than Sydney overall, and that roughly matches my experience. The one area where Expatistan shows New York being (much) more expensive is for housing — and again this is accurate based on my personal experience in both cities.

Numbeo  http://www.numbeo.com
Numbeo is another crowdsourced cost of living website. It breaks down prices into more categories than Expatistan but they essentially compare the same items. It’s not quite as user-friendly as Expatistan since it provides you a generic cost of living index number initially, but if you scroll to the bottom of the page you can enter another city to compare. Numbeo says Sydney is almost 20% more expensive than New York.

Numbeo is unique in that beyond just cost of living you can also compare property prices, traffic, health care, crime rates, pollution, and overall quality of life. This will give you a more complete picture of the city and country you’re moving to.

The challenge with both Expatistan and Numbeo is that they compare cities. Both New York City and Sydney are enormous and one neighborhood can have vastly different attributes from another. Ideally, it’d be great to be able to compare by postal code or neighborhood.

Humuch  http://www.humuch.com
This website makes you login with Facebook or Google or sign up with your email in order to use, which I dislike. It does let you be more granular than Expatistan and Numbeo — for example, even though I live in Sydney I technically live in a suburb called Bondi. Humuch made it possible to look up the cost of living suburb by suburb. I liked the potential of this feature, but unfortunately they didn’t have any data for Bondi so it wasn’t much use. Their city comparisons weren’t as easy to use or informative as the other two sites. You can, however, ask for price information if you can’t find it on the site, so if you have a specific thing you want the price for this site may help.

I was lucky: I moved to a country where everyone speaks the same language I do (granted, some of the slang in Australia is decidedly foreign to me). It was a huge relief walking off the plane for the first time and being able to communicate with people around me, to find out where services were, or where I could find a good restaurant.

 
Duolingo http://duolingo.com
Duolingo is a completely free language-learning service. Right now English-speakers can only learn Spanish, German, French, and Portguese. And Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese speakers can only learn English. I took it for a test drive, practicing Spanish (which I studied for five years but haven’t used in about ten so you can guess my skill level). It starts with the basics and builds from there — showing the word (and including an image if the word is a noun), asking you to pronounce the word, and asking you to write the word. From there you move on to basic sentences. It’s got some very cool voice recognition software to test your pronunciation. If you think you know your stuff you can skip ahead by passing a test at each level.
 
I found it to be intuitive to use and slightly addictive, and it does make you want to keep going, which is definitely critical when learning a language. At each level you get a score. Eventually, you can try your hand at translating real text. You can ask questions to the community, look up vocabulary you’ve been taught in case you need to refresh your memory, and follow other site members — be they Facebook friends or just other people studying the same language. It broke everything down into bite-sized chunks that I found very accessible. It also sends you a daily reminder email, which is a great idea because if you don’t stick with it you won’t learn.
 
Livemocha http://www.livemocha.com
Livemocha has a wide range of languages: in addition to the usual suspects like English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, they offer everything from Hindi to Hebrew to Arabic to Urdu. Some languages only have a basic level course meant to teach you vocabulary and simple grammar while others also have advanced level courses meant to give you conversational fluency.
 
When you get started you can indicate whether you want to become proficient in the language or are just dabbling, whether you need to learn urgently or are have a more long term horizon, and whether you prefer learning through conversation or study alone. Livemocha offers lessons in different formats: video dialog, grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons, reading, and role play. You can also arrange for a personal tutor through the site.
 
You start off with 200 “tokens” which are spent on various lessons. You can also earn more tokens by helping others learn your native language. Otherwise you can purchase a month-by-month membership for $9.95 a month or an annual membership for $99.95 a year.

Brainscape http://www.brainscape.com
Brainscape is not just about learning languages — they have courses on test preparation, music theory, sports trivia, and technology, among other things. Among the available languages, they offer Chinese, English, French, French Creole, German, Latin, and Spanish. Spanish, as an example, has four products: a sentence builder, Spanish vocabulary, Spanish verbs, and Business Spanish for those who already know the basics. With the exception of the Business Spanish module, which is free, the others cost either $5.99 or $7.99.

Brainscape uses a flashcard model based on research of how the brain actually learns. I tried out the Spanish language course. The flip card style of learning took a little getting used to, but I did like it once I became comfortable with it. You rate on a scale of 1-5 how well you knew a certain flash card, and this determines how often Brainscape shows it to you. Brainscape lets you trial each lesson for free so you can check it out and decide for yourself.

Happy learning! Adios

I read somewhere that it takes roughly six months to adjust to a new country and that sounds about right based on my experience. In our first few months of living in Australia my wife voiced her discontent several times — she missed family, she missed her old job, she couldn’t just pick up the phone and call friends to chat like before. I hoped that eventually she’d feel differently, but I had my own doubts as well and often wondered if we’d made a mistake. We left a city we loved, jobs we were good at, and a network of friends and family and moved about as far away, geographically speaking, as possible. That doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for success.

But as expected we got settled in, found amazing new friends, became established at our new companies, and came to love our new city. Now my wife throws around Aussie slang like she grew up here. And while it’s still difficult to be so far away from people back home, we love living abroad and talk about how hard it will be to leave Sydney when we return to the U.S. someday.

This is a perfectly natural response and I don’t think it’s limited to moving countries. Change isn’t always welcome at first. When I first moved to New York City because of work I didn’t like it — I only knew a few people and the city was overwhelming. But within a few months, after I discovered its charms, I was in love with the place. When I’ve changed jobs I’ve often thought “I should have stayed where I was” during those first few shaky days where you don’t know anyone or anything. But if you don’t occasionally feel out of your comfort zone then you’re not growing, and if you’re not growing I think life gets stale very quickly.

With that said, I do think the impact of change can be particularly felt when you move to a new country simply because so many aspects of your life have been fundamentally altered — you’re changing jobs, cultures, relationships, and more, all at once. Scheduling Skype calls to catch up with family wasn’t something I had to contend with before. It takes time to adjust to and embrace this amount of change. Another expat blogger expressed a similar sentiment when he said you don’t hit your stride until your second year in a foreign country.

So while I wouldn’t “write off” the first six months of expat life — after all, this is when you get to explore your new home and develop the friendships that will sustain you during your time abroad — I do think that along with all the other preparations you make, you also need to prepare for moments of unhappiness and self-doubt. If you expect it and tell yourself it’s a normal part of the process you won’t be surprised by it. And before you know it you’ll be a local and having a great time.