Moving Internationally: Thoughts A Year+ After

tl; dr:/ Moves are hard, intracity or interstate. Moving internationally is the hardest of all.

When we decided to move to Portugal, we thought we would just sell everything, get an extra suitcase or duffel bag, and just go. That was the fantasy. The reality was that we had almost two decades of accumulated belongings from two 3+ bedroom houses and a lot of legacy items from previous generations. There was nothing “just go” about what we had to do.

Caveat: while I’m not a professional mover I did move my company four times in 15 years, and I personally have moved about 30 times, including four times from coast to coast in the USA. If you need more “proof” of expertise, I have several good friends in the diplomatic corps and armed forces — people who move on a near-professional level who contributed their thoughts and feelings about how they organized their moves. You, however, get to benefit from what we learned.

Here are my suggestions for making your move easier:

Create a central place to keep everything you are working on. We used the Microsoft ecosystem (specifically, Outlook tasks and calendar, To Do, Excel) as we share a server and household network. Doing so allowed us both to access spreadsheets, documents, and save various types of files in ways we could both see, without duplicating files. Some use Google Drive in the same fashion. I’m told that OneNote has some great features such as a checklist template you can create with one click. No matter what you use, make it able to check off items as they get done. From this list, you can itemize even further, such as “What do I need to put in the carry-on bags?” and “Schedule appointments to get prescriptions.”

Make a list, and try to make it a single list instead of many. Your central list needs to remain central, so add sub items instead of creating entirely new lists. This, in some ways, is the hardest part because you really need to sit down and imagine every single thing that needs to get done. Doing so creates a record of what needs to happen and gets all of those things out of your head. We found that when we had more than one list we started to lose track of what was — and wasn’t — happening.

Plan for a specific time each week to talk about the move. If you don’t you’ll find yourself constantly thinking — and talking — about it. And you will get burnt out so very fast. We made time each Saturday to talk about what we’d learned, researched, or worried about. Some weeks it was just a quick check in, others it was several hours and big changes to our plans. Before we made scheduled time, talking about the move was constant and draining.

Keep track of what is where, and with whom. It’s hard to stay organized if you don’t know where your things are, so track them. List what will go in your suitcases and bags coming with you. For the items you ship (if you do), label each item/ box/ container with a number and list what is in each. Keep a master list, and print smaller lists to put in each case/ box/ bag. If you are shipping, it can be months before your items arrive and I guarantee you will forget what you packed except in broad strokes.

Cancel services and subscriptions. The easiest way to do this is to go through all of your monthly, quarterly, and yearly bills and be sure to cancel anything you won’t still use abroad. We use Quicken to track our finances, so it was super fast to pull up a list of all bills paid in a year. Examples of things to cancel include:

• Health insurance — unless you’ll be using it the new country (which would be unusual, so double check this)
• Car insurance
• Home / renter’s insurance
• Utilities, including electric, gas, water, etc.
• Cell phone plan
• Internet plan
• Gym membership
• Shopping clubs, like Costco
• Magazine / Newspaper subscriptions
• Online streaming subscriptions, like Hulu (some work in other countries, but usually require a new account, or will have a very different cost, so check first!)
• Subscription boxes

Organize your paperwork with an eye towards accessibility. First, get official copies made of birth and marriage certificates, as well as social security cards. Take one set with you, and leave one in a safe place — perhaps with a relative or in a Then, make digital copies by scanning everything. It’s not legal, but if anything gets lost (or stolen) you’ll have a copy to tide you over until a replacement arrives. Organize the documents in a binder — 1″ is probably big enough — each in a clear plastic sleeve. travel with this in your carry-on and keep it handy wherever you travel. Add to the binder as you acquire important documents; you will be so very grateful for this over time.

Documents to bring when you move abroad include:

• Passport
• Visa
• Work Permit
• Birth Certificate
• Medical records
• School records
• Social Security card
• Marriage certificate
• Adoption papers
• Child custody papers
• Divorce papers
• Driving license

Get up-to-date medical and dental records, and new prescriptions. We got our entire medical history, with diagnosis, chart notes, and the whole shebang in .pdf files. Having them made integrating into our new health services very easy. Many pharmacies will fill US prescriptions, at least once, and being able to print a summary of chart notes to give to your new doctor or dentist will make that intake appointment much smoother. Especially for women: include mammogram imaging. We also had to provide documentation of our prior medical history to qualify for local health insurance to get around a three-month waiting period.

Make a list of everything and decide what you’ll keep, sell, store, or take. We already had an excel spreadsheet inventorying everything we owned for insurance, so we used that as our starting point for thinking about, and deciding how to handle, all of our possessions. Be detailed about what you own: open drawers and boxes. Leave no place unexamined, no item listed. This process can take a very long time, as can deciding what to keep and take. Be gentle with yourself, a lot of emotion can be invested in physical things.

When deciding whether to keep something, if you love it, I suggest you find a way to bring it. If that just isn’t possible, can it be held by a friend or family member? Otherwise, consider how useful it will be in your new home. Will you truly use that silver service for entertaining? Those table linens? Electronics are tricky because of the voltage variances, not everything will function well with an adapter or may require a transformer. Can you replace it instead of shipping it? Clothes can also be tricky if your body type is not standard to your new country. Clothes may be more difficult to replace than you might imagine — and online shopping might be a whole lot more expensive. In general, it is usually less expensive to check extra bags rather than shipping boxes, crates, or containers. If you’re only moving small things, you can check cardboard boxes as long as they fit the airline’s dimensions and weight restrictions. Even if you check 3-4 bags, it will probably be the cheapest and least-onerous way to get your belongings to your new home.

For the items you will not take with you, decide whether to keep it in storage or discard. Consider a holding a series of garage sales, or using one of a variety of online auction houses. In some cities, you can utilize a company like Maxsold which will auction off every item in your home for a fee and percentage of sales. Elsewhere you might find a local auction house to do the same. Doing it yourself or paying someone else is up to your level of tolerance and free time. We used MaxSold (clicking on the link will take you to the first of our series of posts about working with them) and highly recommend it for sheer convenience. It may help you decide whether to store things to consider the sheer cost. For us, the least expensive option would have been about $120 each month ($1,440 a year with costs increasing annually).

Consolidate your finances. Pay off debts and close excess bank accounts and credit cards; you want to reduce the number of places you have to pay attention to on an ongoing basis. Setup new bank accounts and figure out how you will move your money or exchange it from one currency to another.

Moving internationally is a Big Deal. It’s hard and not for everyone. Doing some extra organization and planning can make it a lot easier.

We’d love to hear what else you did to make your move easier?