Source
r/AskReddit•
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Hey Reddit, what's the big deal about living abroad?

I'm a 20-something American guy, and I recently got the opportunity to spend a year abroad travelling the world on a budget ($22,000). I wouldn't be able to come back for that year. It's really great, and very rare, and I appreciate the opportunity. But there's also a ton of cultural and peer pressure for me to take it, and I'm struggling to see the point of travelling for a year. It's a serious question that I really can't answer - what's so great or growth-inspiring about living outside your home country? Especially when there are so many interesting places to live in America, and I wouldn't really be able to work abroad or anything (visa, time constraints, etc).

Full disclosure: studied abroad in Egypt for three months and lived in Jordan for a month. It went okay. I like America better.

Posted Aug 26, 2011, 9:26 AM UTC

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Dante2005•

If it's not for you, then that's ok.

But many of us like to experience the greater world and to learn from new experiences. That said, it is fine not to need to do this too.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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beyondawesome•

It's about broadening your horizon to different culture.

It's very ok that you like the US better, no problem. But by living abroad you have been touched by other cultured and this way, you have made an educated choice to live in the US.

2
the_berg•

It's not about "liking" your own country better, it's about exposing yourself to different things, people and cultures. It's an amazing learning experience because not only does it teach you - through experience - things you can't learn in books, but mostly it teaches you about yourself, who you are as a person and in society.

We build our identity through a complex process of inclusion and exclusion - exclusion not being pejorative here - and being confronted to entirely new things for a whole year is an opportunity to learn who you are in ways that you wouldn't otherwise and in ways you can't even suspect.

Living or traveling abroad has many stages. While you studied in Egypt for 3 months and stayed in Jordan for a month, traveling for a whole year is an entirely different thing. I'm Canadian, but I partly grew up in California. Two very different places that I experienced for many years each. Then, at 18, I went to Mexico with my gf for a year. Then at 26, we decided to go to Venezuela and stayed there a year too. I studied in Berlin for a semester. A few years later, I got a working contract in Taiwan and was there for almost a year. From Taiwan, I moved to France where I've been living for 4 years. I recently received my French citizenship, although Canada remains the best place to live for me and I will go back eventually. Each of these experiences were completely different and have taught me different things about myself, but also it has given me amazing tools to analyze and make sense of the world in which we live.

1
Grande_Yarbles•

I'd question what you're planning to do that gives you such a precise figure of $22k for your year. If you're doing something as part of a big group that will be together then bear in mind you'll lose a big part of the experience by being surrounded by people who think and view things in a similar way to yourself.

Part of the benefit of living overseas is being immersed in a different environment. After a while your perspective starts to shift and you start to look at things that you used to consider normal from a different vantage point. Traveling around America won't give you nearly the same experience.

1
[deleted]•

The middle East sucks. It probably ruined it for you.

But there is a bigger world like Asia, South America, Europe... Eh, don't care.

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