Probably the most important question you can ask yourself about living abroad is concerning tradeoffs. How much of your life are you willing to give up in your home country to experience the world abroad? Remember, you aren’t going to be living in a vacuum or a time warp. The longer you live abroad the harder it can be to come home. You might meet your future spouse, and they may not want to live in your home country. Is that something you are willing to accept? Of course, it’s impossible for someone else to tell you how long you should stay abroad, but let’s consider some facts and figures that might help you determine your length of stay.
A good place to start is by considering where you are in life and where you want to go. So, how old are you? If you’re fresh out of college you really aren’t going to destroy your career if you live abroad for a year or so. But if you stay too long, you might find companies less willing to hire you when you come home if you plan to get a traditional job. If you’re 25, you might want to consider a shorter stay. If you’re 65 and plan to retire, maybe you want to live the rest of your life overseas. But all of these decisions are tradeoffs and if you have circumstances that allow you more freedom (like a remote job) you could stay longer or visit multiple countries. Most countries, however, will require some sort of visa to stay longer than 90 days.
A lot of backpackers and young travelers love the idea of freedom, the open road, and no constraints. Not constraining yourself with a timeline may seem a lot like freedom. Reality is a bit harsher though. You don’t get to relive your twenties, and they will fly by much quicker than you thought (I speak from experience). Imagine yourself at thirty or thirty five? Do you still want to be backpacking and working odd jobs?
There is no law that says you can’t make a lot of money as a wandering globetrotter, but it doesn’t happen very often. Setting a time limit on your life abroad is the last thing you want to think about when you have the thrilling prospect of the adventure before you, but spend three minutes imagining yourself as a thirty-one year-old who speaks pretty good French, but has no work history back home, no career experience except teaching English, and you just broke up with your significant other and want to go home. Then what? Even if you have a decent degree you will not find it easy to compete with those who have been working for the last nine years. I only paint a bleak picture here so you can consider the worst case scenario. Of course, many people today find they are able to make enough money doing gig work or starting an online business. But not everyone is cut out for that type of arrangement so just be sure you keep an eye on your career goals and don’t let life happen to you.
It can also be clarifying to consider extremes: three months overseas versus three years for example. What effects on your goals will these extremes likely have? Ask others who have lived overseas what they think. Use these ideas to determine your optimal timeline. If you still aren’t sure, then make specific plans to come home in a year. If you can buy a round-trip ticket with a return date of one year from your departure date, then do so. If not, buy a ticket home as soon as you can. Returning home after a year will help you have a clearer plan, and it will help you avoid just staying because you have nothing else going on.