The Sunday Getaway - 26 01 2025 - Moving Overseas

Have you ever considered getting away from it all? Leaving family, friends and your whole life's setup for venturing out some place new, solo? Not in your teens or your 20s but more closer to middle life. And not swapping a European capital for another or moving from one US state to the next. But really daring to go somewhere exotic!

It's Saturday evening as I'm out and about for a dog run when I phone a friend for a typical chatter. It's been a couple of months now that he's been fighting with an illness turning from migraines to a soar throat and switching doctors every week or so (now on the 5th from what I gather) - it's crazy, they simply cannot give him a definitive answer (and cure). And, sure, his state of mind is not really helping him as he's fed up with it all. After a few minutes of random pleasantries he says: "Oh, and I've also made my mind up on a couple of things. I'm leaving Athens and moving to Vietnam."

It's one of those occasions when you can't really work out whether it's best to be critical or encouraging, inquisitive or reassuring, calm or excited.?My friend is in his late 40s and works in the service industry with his own company. Surely, being a business owner helps cause with a relatively ok time difference?work can still remain intact. At least until you slowly build yourself through a new work reality there. And traveling around Southeast Asia can be so thrilling!

Equally, though, can life in a new, non-western place be challenging? Sure. Can it become lonely at times? Probably.?But I get it. When life throws at you all sorts of tricks, you really need to go big in order to turn things around. And moving out of one's comfort zone, making the impossible leap and going all in, can sometimes be liberating as hell! Cause it seems to me?when the desire is high, the house cannot win.?

Travel On.

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