What Expats Miss About the Home
Living abroad or traveling on a frequent basis is exciting and eye-opening. However, it is totally normal to feel a little homesick every now and again. Linda Taylor, author of My Dog is Barking describes the phenomenon extremely well:
Cross cultural people have a companion called…”I miss”. How much time we spend with this companion determines our outlook while abroad. Too much time with this companion distorts our healthy adjustment.
So what is it exactly that expats miss when living overseas? We asked a group of expats the following question:
With the exception of friends and family, what do you miss when you are away from home?
The results? It seems that food is most certainly on the mind of many expatriates, with a staggering 13 of our group of 21 expats naming food items from home as being top of the list of things they missed the most about home!
In addition Emma from Singapore Baby told us that she missed sunday lunches by a large open fire, trailing spouse Sarah from proofreading company Vappingo said that she missed her career and Tim Leffel, editor of Perceptive Travel, described how he missed being able to drink from any water fountain, being able to flush my toilet paper down the toilet, and taking a neighborhood walk without seeing garbage tossed all over the ground.
For a different perspective on this though, see this great post from a 10 year old expat: “What I’ll miss and won’t miss about living in Mexico“.
