Should I Stay or Should I Go? What I Considered Before Deciding to Move Abroad.

I left my home country, where I was born, raised and lived for 28 years, to move to London in May 2018. This is a very personal post in which I explain the factors I considered before making this decision. Hope it can be helpful to someone who’s considering making this move!

To some people moving abroad doesn’t imply much of a hustle. Maybe they are just a train or a short flight away from their new home. As awesome as this sounds, sadly this wasn’t my scenario. This is mainly because I was born in a very isolated country, that is, Argentina.

Argentina is a very long and vast country in South America. Living in one of the southernmost countries has some perks but travel-wise, unless you want to visit nearby countries, it kinda sucks. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about this and it didn’t discourage me to follow my dream.

I’ve been thinking about moving abroad since I was about 10 years-old. I knew it was something I wanted to do at some point in my life. Even though unfamiliar situations scare me a bit, I like taking on challenges and learning to adapt to new scenarios.

As I grew up, I understood that I wanted to get my degree in Argentina and make the move after I graduated to grow as a professional abroad. To follow my plan, I wanted to get a degree which wouldn’t need to be validated in another country, so that left out a few majors like Law or Medicine. I decided on Software Engineering since I was into learning how to code and it is a very “international” major. During Uni my desire to move abroad intensified, not only because I could see all the career opportunities I could aspire to, but also Argentina’s context started making me very uncomfortable. As if I was a stranger in my own country.

With this idea very set in my mind, every decision I made since then was to achieve my goal. Even before starting my relationship with, my now husband, Alan I told him that I wouldn’t be involved in anything serious unless he shared that same desire with me (I know this sounds awful but I was dead serious about fulfilling my dream to move abroad). Thankfully he was onboard from day one :)

After visiting London, UK a few times both alone and with Alan, we decided that we wanted to move there. Even though this post is written in singular (for the sake of simplicity), these decisions we discussed and made as a couple.

So, let me tell you some of the stuff I considered before I decided to move abroad and also deciding where to move.

Language

Personally, I don’t think you should only move to a country where you feel comfortable with the language they speak. I mean, it does make things a bit easier (ok, maybe a lot) but I strongly feel that you can learn it.

For me this is a very personal decision. If you want to land a job as a professional maybe it would be best if you are familiar with the language. In my case, I wasn’t entirely up to moving to a country where the language was unfamiliar to me because I wanted to start working right away, so my choices were either Spanish or English-speaking countries.

Visas

This is an important one. Find out whether the country or countries you are thinking of allow you to work with your current nationality or if you’ll need a Visa of some kind. In my case, being an Italian citizen (as well as an Argentine citizen) allowed me to work in any EU country (thanks to my parents for dealing with all the documentation to make this happen, I will be forever grateful!).

Having this nationality helped me a lot during the decision making process. I knew that I could pick any EU country and English and Spanish-speaking ones, so that reduced my options a bit.

However, Alan (at that time my boyfriend) was not a EU citizen and this was the tricky part for us. Before abandoning the idea, I did some research on options for partners of EU citizens and I found out that European laws are comprehensive about this, which was such a relief. We ended up getting married because the timing was right and eventually that would help us build a stronger case when we presented all of our documentation.

We needed to gather evidence of our relationship (tenancy agreement with both our names, certificate of cohabitation, pictures, etc.) and make a certified translation. Make sure you google what documentation you need and where to present it.

Work

When I gave my notice at the company I was working for at the time, I changed my location on LinkedIn to London (even though I was still living in Argentina) hoping that I would appear in some search results. I knew that within one month I was leaving anyways, so it wouldn’t be so hard to explain that to recruiters if they contacted me.

Little did I know that this would work like a charm! That same week I was contacted by several recruiters for jobs in startups and medium sized companies. I had some phone screens and scheduled one face to face interview for the week I arrived at London.

I did thorough research on the job scene in London. I mean, reeeally thorough. I went through hundreds of job posts a week for months and I got a pretty good idea of the type of company and level I should be applying to. By doing so, I got a good understanding of what salary range was appropriate for my experience and eventually what rent I could afford.

Costs

After knowing what salary range I could aim for, I started looking at rent prices. London is huge, and there are lots of areas you can live in. I knew I wanted to stay fairly close to the city centre but of course that comes with a pretty high price tag.

My advice here is to ask and read a lot. I would google things like “where to live in London” (I know, it seems super broad but for an initial search it can really help!) or “best dog friendly neighbourhoods in London” (we were moving with our dog Frida, but that’s a whole different chapter :P ). Once I found an area that looked good I would google everything about it. I would see flat rent prices, photos, read articles and threads, research crime rates, etc.

After some thorough research, I had around 3 to 4 areas that I was mainly interested in that and I could afford, which narrowed it a lot.

I also had a good understanding of how much food cost and a very basic knowledge of how much I would pay for bills (this varies a lot depending on where you live).

Rounding up, lots of people were surprised when I told them that I had already booked my one way ticket but the truth is that I had done tons of work for months before doing that. It wasn’t just an impulsive act. Approximately one year of extensive research on jobs, housing and visas, among others. I know some people like to be a bit more spontaneous but being this such an important move in my life I wanted to reduce the risk as much as I could.

In retrospective, I’m very happy that I put all that effort doing my research before making the move and I would advise you to do the same if this is what you want. I landed in London and I knew exactly what to do and I was able to land a job offer in less than a week, that’s something I’m really proud of :)

Fortunately, I had all the support from my family and wonderful husband who took the leap of faith with me!

So, if you’re considering this I hope my advice helps so that the process enjoyable and stress-free.