The 8 Most Expensive Misconceptions About Moving Abroad
The internet is full of people who never moved abroad telling you how to do it
I’ve lived in the UK, Australia, China, Germany, Thailand, the UAE, and Cyprus.
Over the course of my 38 years on this planet, I also visited around 50 countries and consumed more airport coffee than I’d like to admit.
Along the way, I’ve met hundreds of expats.
Students, workers, retirees, business owners, shamans, professors, coaches, people who make nothing and people who make hundreds of millions.
I read constantly.
About visas, taxes, residency law, financial planning, geopolitics.
I love this stuff.
But I also see a lot of advice out there that is flat out wrong.
And it makes me angry.
Because wrong advice about moving abroad costs people real money, real time, and sometimes their entire plan.
So I decided to channel that anger into something useful.
Here are 8 things I think everyone considering a move abroad should know.
#1: “I can just go and figure it out”
I moved to Cyprus during COVID with $11,000 and no job.
I spent my first week in an apartment with no electricity and no wifi, eating takeout by the light of my phone.
I made it work.
But I also made it way harder than it needed to be because I didn’t prepare.
If I had to do it again, I would prepare like my life depended on it (because it does).
Visa timelines take months.
Apostilled documents take weeks and they expire.
Don’t sort out apostilled birth certificates from a beach in the Algarve.
You do that from your kitchen table, three months before you leave.
The people who move smoothly are the ones who spent six months getting ready before they ever booked a flight.
“Just go and figure it out” is the biggest BS I have ever heard.
#2: “Banking abroad is impossible”
Fidelity, Vanguard, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley have all closed accounts on American expats.
Their internal compliance teams decide you’re too expensive to service overseas, and they send you a letter telling you to move your money somewhere else.
No law requires this, they just do it.
So you set it up differently.
Keep your US money with institutions that accept foreign addresses (Schwab and SDFCU both do).
Open a local account wherever you land for daily spending. And keep at least one US credit card active so your credit score doesn’t disappear while you’re gone (or coming back at some point).
And while we’re talking about moving money: the 1% remittance tax that went into effect January 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is scaring people for no reason. It applies to transfers funded by cash, money orders, and cashier’s checks. If you’re moving money from a US bank account by wire you’re exempt. Most expats will never pay this tax. But almost every headline about it leaves that part out. Scaring people into stupid, rash decisions seems to be more profitable.
#3: “The first step is picking a country”
Most people start by googling “best countries to retire abroad” and falling in love with wherever shows up first.
They spend months planning around a place before they thought about what they actually need from it.
One of my clients spent months researching Italy.
She had Italian heritage and spoke some of the language.
Then we sat down and went through her actual priorities, and things changed (fast).
Italy dropped off her list within a week.
Start with your life.
Budget, healthcare access, visa eligibility, what your daily routine actually looks like when you’re honest about it.
Once you know those things, the list of countries that work for you gets short fast.
Also this might help.
#4: “There’s only one way to retire abroad”
People picture retirement abroad as one thing.
Sell the house, pack everything, fly to Portugal, never come back.
And while that is one way, there are more ways that can work.
I’ve worked with people doing this in completely different ways.
People who split the year between the US and Europe or keep their house in Florida and spend winters in Mexico.
One couple I worked with keeps a home base in Spain and travels slowly through Southeast Asia four months a year.
The visa options reflect this too.
Some programs need you to spend time in the country, while others allow a high degree of freedom in terms of time being spent there.
I wrote a full breakdown of the four main paths in a previous article if you’re still in the planning stage.
#5: “I need to be rich”
Golden visa programs cost €250,000 and up.
If that’s all you’ve seen online, I understand why you assume this whole thing requires serious money.
There are places where you can live on $2,000 a month (comfortably). There are also places where $7,000 can be tight. Which is why I always tell people, to audit their situation, before making a decision on a specific country.
If you need some inspiration for places that don’t break the bank, check this article or this one.
Yes, moving abroad without any savings is a bad idea. No, you don’t need to have $5 million in order to move.
#6: “I’m too old to start over”
Most retirement visa programs are designed specifically for people over 50.
Countries are competing for you.
I’ve met people in their late 60s and 70s who made the move and told me their only regret was not doing it sooner.
That line comes up so often it’s almost boring to repeat, but I keep hearing it.
The skills you built over a lifetime, budgeting on a fixed income, reading contracts carefully, handling bureaucracy, those are exactly the skills that make this process easier.
A 25 year old backpacker with a laptop has energy.
A 62 year old retiree with a pension, patience, and a lifetime of problem solving has something more useful: Experience.
#7: “The whole process has to be painful”
I actually enjoy this stuff.
Reading visa requirements, comparing tax treaties, figuring out which banks work in which countries.
I realize that makes me weird.
But even if you’re not wired like me, the process of planning a move abroad doesn’t have to feel like homework.
Learning how residency systems work.
Figuring out how to move money across borders.
Reading about healthcare systems and tax structures in countries you might actually live in.
These are real skills.
They stay with you forever, and they make you sharper than most people around you.
Somewhere along the way, the internet decided that moving abroad is this enormous, stressful, overwhelming thing.
And yes, there are annoying parts. But annoying and painful are different things.
Researching where you want to spend the next chapter of your life should be one of the more interesting things you do this year.
If it feels like suffering, something is off with how you’re approaching it.
If you are an American 50+ and want to emigrate within the next 0-5 years, and don’t want to navigate healthcare, banking, visas, taxes and country selection by yourself, reply to this mail with “RETIRE”.
You’ll get an invite to the “Retire Abroad Priority List” with some of my best tactics for retiring abroad.
#8: “I’ll move when I feel ready”
Did you feel ready on your first day of school?
What about your first job?
When you had your first child?
My guess is no. You were not ready.
But you showed up anyway.
And the confidence came after, not before.
Moving abroad works the same way.
There is no morning where you wake up and think “okay, now I’m ready.”
That feeling doesn’t exist.
I’ve talked to hundreds of expats and not one of them described the moment they felt ready.
They described the moment they decided to start.
It starts with one budgeting exercise, or one scouting trip or a phone call to someone who has done it.
That’s how it begins.
Small, unglamorous steps that build momentum.
So what now?
Those are the 8 misconceptions I see most often.
The best thing you can do today is pick the one that’s been holding you back the longest and learn more about it.
Read, ask questions, talk to someone who’s done it. One small step forward is enough to start.
And if you want to do it with me, I just opened 4 spots for the Retire Abroad Blueprint today.
We start April 13.
The founding round filled in just 6 days.
Spots are first come, first served. Once spots are booked, I will be busy with those, until the next round opens up (not before June).
Book a discovery call here.
If you can't find a time, reply "BLUEPRINT" and I'll follow up personally.
Here’s how one current client described it:
“The program is so engaging. Ben really explains everything and is always going the extra mile to include details that help you deeply understand every element of your potential new life. The way he lays everything out sparks my imagination and at the same time is full of details that will help make my dream come true.” – Cheri, 60, retiring abroad
Another wrote after our call:
“Ben, you are awesome! Thank you so much for going into all this. I agree that the five you mentioned are the best options right now.” – Rhetta, 61, retiring abroad with her husband
And you can watch someone who did the entire program from start to finish here:
Thanks for reading, and as always, appreciate having you here.
— Ben
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