45 Best Living Abroad Quotes for Expats Moving Abroad

Living abroad is one of the most challenging and enriching things a person can do.

I spent four years living abroad – and would have kept going if it hadn’t been for the virus. Those years were the most challenging and the best of my life. Before that, I had lived abroad on and off.

So after a decade of on-and-off moving abroad, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on it. But sometimes it’s not your own words you need, it’s someone else’s.

I’ve gathered the 45 best living abroad quotes from writers, poets, artists, and expats. These quotes inspire me daily, and helped me overcome some of the challenges I faced along the way while living abroad.

These quotes are perfect for self-reflection, inspiration, and can work great for a caption to an Instagram picture (because let’s be real, that’s what most of us use quotes for nowadays!).

Keep reading to find your inspiration to move abroad.

Inspirational Quotes About Moving Abroad to Help You Take the Leap

Making a big life change is pretty scary. But know what’s even scarier? Regret. – Zig Ziglar

I was terrified when I moved abroad, but the idea of missing out on the adventures to come was even scarier. Regret has been a powerful motivator in my life to prevent me from letting my fear win.

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spend working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. – Jack Kerouac

Think back for the last five years. What do you remember most?

Certainly not the times you saved money or went to work. You’ll think of the adventures – good and bad – that you had. Don’t you want a life full of exciting memories, not mundane Netflix-fueled ones?

I’m not knocking Netflix. But it’s much nicer to remember watching Netflix in a barn in Croatia than on your couch.

Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from. – Seth Godin

This is one of the quotes I live by.

I’ve watched so many people in my life live for the next vacation. They slog through work only to enjoy 2-4 weeks of their year exploring.

That’s 48-50 weeks of the year that you’re not living to the fullest.

I think that ratio needs to be flipped!

That’s one of the reasons that I became a travel blogger.

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. – Howard Thurman

Of the people I’ve met in my life, the ones who I’ve been most drawn to are the ones who are living for themselves.

They have forsaken the 9-to-5 to create a life on their own terms that makes them truly happy.

I’d much rather have happiness and less money, than try to bank my happiness for my later years when I may not be able to enjoy it.

You’re never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. – C.S. Lewis

I think we stop dreaming in high school.

Or if we keep dreaming, we push it to retirement.

But why do we need to push these dreams of adventures and leaving the country until we’re old and grey?

There’s nothing saying we can’t dream now. And live that dream today.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is one of my favourite quotes to inspire people to move to another country.

When I wanted to move abroad, so many people told me I was crazy. They said it was stupid to put my career on hold. Or they told me I was wasting money that I should have been saving.

Many would even criticize the countries I chose and the times that I chose to go.

It made me doubt whether or not I should move abroad. I mean, some of these people were my best friends and family members. Surely if anyone knew if I could succeed or not, it’d be them, right?

Wrong!

Because I took the leap, ignored the critics, and had an amazing time. Now half of those naysayers tell people they always supported me.

Other peoples’ opinions are fickle. Don’t rely on them for your own happiness.

Ordinary life does not interest me.– Anais Nin

I don’t think any life should be considered “normal”. Because there’s no cookie cutter mold that fits everyone.

But I love this use of the word “ordinary”, because it brings to mind the idea of mundane living.

To me, an ordinary life is one spent unfulfilled working in a 9-to-5 job, doing what you’re “supposed” to do, and waiting for excitement to come to you.

I prefer to trigger my own excitement, even if it’s sometimes negative (like getting a pandemic puppy with too much energy for a small apartment).

You’re extraordinary. So you deserve an extraordinary life. Why would you be satisfied by anything else?

I think I’m quite ready for another adventure. – Bilbo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit is my favourite book, and LOTR is my favourite series, so I couldn’t help but sneak in one of my favourite quotes from the movies.

One of the reasons I love this quote is because Bilbo says it after he’s been through the burden of The Hobbit, where he was totally unwilling to go on any adventures at all. He told them to have some tea then essentially GTFO!

When I started living abroad, I was very much young Bilbo. I loved my routine and based my happiness around my meals.

Then I was forced out of my comfort zone (well, I wanted to go, but I needed the push). So I moved abroad at 16 to live in Italy.

The change completely rocked my world.

I remember sitting on my floor crying to my mom as I was packing. I was so terrified.

Cut to three months later when I was returning home and they could barely get me on the plane. The next day I was looking at universities as far away from home as possible so I could continue my expat adventures.

I think a lot of us can relate to the transformation of Bilbo.

People take different roads seeking fulfilment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.— Dalai Lama XIV

Can we please make this the national anthem of expats??

So many people tell you how to live life the “right” way. But there is no right way.

You have to find your own route to happiness.

A year from now you will wish you had started today. –Karen Lamb

I have a big problem with procrastination.

But once I do the thing I’ve been putting off, I wish I’d done it sooner.

That goes 10x for exciting things like living abroad.

Don’t wait until retirement. Anything could happen before then.

Do it now!

And then there is the most dangerous risk of all–the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.– Randy Komisar

I’m not a gambler.

When I went to Vegas for my 21st, I spent about $20 and only because my mom and I promised each other we’d try two games.

I don’t even buy lottery tickets.

So I sure as hell wasn’t leaving my happiness to some future bet. I bet on today, which is why I refuse to wait until I’m 65 to live my dream.

Sometimes it’s best not to know what you are up against; if you are acutely aware of the challenges involved, you’d never do a damn thing. Being clueless is weirdly empowering.– Geraldine DeRuiter

I know a lot of people like to over prepare.

I’m usually one of those people.

But sometimes it’s better to dive in head first.

I started solo travelling at 13, when I had no idea what I was doing. Then I moved to Italy, again with zero idea of how it would go.

Being clueless means that you can only be excited by the amazing things you experience.

I do recommend preparing a bit. You should at least know how to get into the country and where you’re staying for the first few nights.

But beyond that, you don’t really need to know every minute detail of what it’s like to be an expat in a country before you take the leap. In fact, it’s more fun that way!

All great changes are preceded by chaos.– Deepak Chopra

I want this tattooed across my forehead.

I hate chaos. I hate change.

You’d be surprised to hear those things considering how chaotic I often make my own life by moving annually.

It means that things won’t go perfectly all the time. And when they go wrong, they may go abysmally wrong.

But great things come from failure and from mistakes.

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. – Mark Twain

This quote is very similar to the one by Kerouac, but in case you needed to hear it again: do the things!

The world is too big to stay in one place and life is too short to do just one thing. –Anonymous

Yes!

See the world my friends!

There’s nothing more amazing than leaving your comfort zone to explore. And to immerse yourself in a culture by moving abroad, you will be living such a rich life.

Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world! It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.— Ray Bradbury

Bradbury is one of my favourite authors.

And this quote resonates so deeply with me.

If you were going to die today, what would you do? Then why don’t you do that now?

It’s impossible said pride. It’s risky said experience. It’s pointless said reason. Give it a try whispered the heart. – Unknown

My heart and my reason are often at odds.

My reason told me to go to law school after uni. My heart told me to run as far in the opposite direction as I could.

So I moved to New Zealand and never looked back.

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. – Mary Ritter Beard

Travel really does shape who we are.

I was once a quiet kid who barely spoke. I only wrote fantasy novels that were basically a rip off of Twilight. And I needed my parents to order my food for me.

Then I started adventuring alone. I moved to Italy and I came back a talkative realist who only writes non-fiction and is menu fluent in many languages.

You don’t really know yourself until you get to know the world.

For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

For any of you that are holding back for the “right time” or worry that you’ve missed your chance, this quote by Mr. Fitzgerald is telling you that you can still do it! And do it now!

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Best Living Abroad Quotes for Expats

Everyone smiles in the same language. – George Carlin

This beautiful quote always makes me smile.

As someone who has used charades to get around the world, and knows how to say hi in a couple languages, smiling has been one of my primary methods of communication.

It speaks to the kindness of others around the world and their compassion to offer a stranger a smile.

The best way to travel abroad is to live with the locals. – Unknown

And to live with locals, you need to be an expat who takes the time to get to know them.

Many locals don’t trust tourists who only want an Eat, Pray, Love experience. They trust expats who are looking to become a part of the landscape, not photograph it and run off.

Splendid to arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don’t talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign. – Frances Mayes

I love the feeling of being foreign.

One of the things I hate most about being back in Canada is that everyone has the same accent as me. I can easily read everything in the grocery store. And I understand how society works.

I love being somewhere that doesn’t make sense to me, so I can solve the puzzle and work away at it until I become part of the landscape.

Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time. – Hannah Arendt

It’s so freeing to live when you don’t know everyone around you and there are no expectations.

You can be the true you, with no holds barred.

The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped. – Adam Gopnik

It’s true, you can get lonely when you live abroad.

There is always a sense of loneliness from being foreign. But if you learn how to make friends abroad, you can minimize it.

You know what else is nice about being a foreigner? Whatever you do takes place in a capsule that need not be discovered and opened by someone back home. Nothing really counts – it was the life that falls in the forest. – Patricia Marx

Again, this is about the idea of the freedom of no one knowing you.

You can do what you want. Be who you want. And feel free to live the way you want to.

If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody. – Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain was one of my travel icons.

He was brash and unapologetic with his opinions. And honestly, I want to be more like him.

I think we hide a lot of ourselves behind niceties when we should just be honest and live the way we want to.

He got to experience the world with locals and through food. That’s something we should all aspire to.

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. – Christopher McCandless

I think joy is so rarely talked about in adulthood.

When is the last time that you thought about your joy?

I always think of children and people talking about how joyful they are.

Well you can be joyous as an adult too!

The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.– Anthony Bourdain

The last sentence of this moving abroad quote is what hits me the hardest. We should endeavor to leave a mark on the world, but a positive one.

Sustainable travel is a big part of this.

But that’s not what Bourdain is talking about.

He’s focussing on the mark you can leave on the people and the society. Leave it better than you found it by imparting your own spirit into the place.

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Living Abroad Quotes About Love and Friendship

I don’t cry because we’ve been separated by distance, and for a matter of years. Why? Because for as long as we share the same sky and breathe the same air, we’re still together.– Donna Lynn Hope

This is why I don’t mind long distance friendships. We’re still on the same earth. And with digital tech, we’re not that far away.

Travel brings power and love back to your life.— Rumi

Love here can be romantic, platonic, or the love of life itself.

Even when someone is miles away, always remember this: we are under the same sky, looking at the same sun, moon and stars. – Gudapati Srikanth

I love the image of someone else looking at the same moon as I am.

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth. – Robert Southey 

The best friends in life don’t need to be messaged daily. You don’t need to live next door.

A true friendship is one that supports both parties in living their lives freely. And that can be picked up with one text a year if needed.

Our homes are not defined by geography or one particular location, but by memories, events, people, and places that span the globe. – Marilyn Gardner

The people and the memories that I’ve made living abroad have been some of the best of my life.

To me, home is where the heart is. And my heart is scattered around this globe with the memories I’ve made.

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Challenges of Moving Abroad Quotes

Expats who can only criticize the country in which they choose to live are like a sailor who demands the wind blows only according to his skill. – Tony Crossley

I love this living abroad quote so much.

So many people get frustrated with moving to a foreign country because they want it to be like back home.

Well, it shouldn’t be, because it’s foreign!

How boring the world would be if every place felt like home.

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. – Clifton Fadiman

This quote goes hand in hand with the above quote.

You may be uncomfortable, but remember that this is home to others.

It’s about adjusting yourself to fit your environment; not the other way around.

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Quotes About Homesickness and Leaving the Country

Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was. – Jodi Picoult

I didn’t love Canada until I left.

It’s hard to appreciate what you have until you leave it behind. Then you can find the silver linings.

Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground. – Judith Thurman

I get homesick for places I’ve never been all the time.

It’s partially because I’m chasing the idea of home, since I’ve found it’s not really tethered to one spot. And it’s partially because the people that are part of my version of home are out there in other places.

So, here you are. Too foreign for home, too foreign for here. Never enough for both. – Ijeoma Umebinyuo

This is a common issue for travellers and expats.

You don’t feel quite like you belong in either world.

But this quote comes from a much deeper topic of study: the diaspora of Africans displaced around the world.

It’s often used without its full context in mind, which is incorrect.

While it’s a beautiful quote, it definitely men’s more than just feeling a bit out of sorts after you studied abroad in Paris.

It is a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures. Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same. – Sarah Turnbull

The more you know, the harder it is to return to your former state.

You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. – Miriam Adeney

What a beautiful living abroad saying.

It’s a price we all pay as expats. But it’s one that I’d happily pay time and time again for the experiences and the friendships I’ve gathered around the world.

It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you. – Eric Roth

I came back to Canada after being in Italy and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the country. It felt like someone had moved everything over half an inch, but was pretending nothing had changed.

In truth, I was the only thing that was different.

I’d come back more headstrong, sure of myself, and open to other people. When I’d smile and wave in the morning, Torontonians looked at me like I had two heads.

Similarly, when I came back from living in the UK and couldn’t figure out why things cost more than sticker price (because taxes), I was so confused.

It only takes a little time living in a new world to change significantly.

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.— Terry Pratchett

I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of coming back, whether for a weekend or permanently.

You really don’t know your home until you’ve left it.

So much of who we are is where we have been. – William Langewiesche

I definitely track the versions of myself based on the places I’ve lived.

There is pre-Italy Nina, and post-Italy Nina. Then the New Zealand era of Ninas.

This quote about moving to another country really speaks to the ways that travel helps us grow and discover who we are.

When overseas, you learn more about your own country than you do the place you’re visiting.– Clint Borgen

Like I said above, you don’t know where you live until you’ve gone away.

You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again. – Azar Nafisi 

This is the deepest feeling of homesickness I get.

All these quotes about moving countries focus more on the positives.

But this change is kind of negative.

You lose a part of yourself when you leave a place. While it may be a skin you’re willing to shed to become a better you, there is something sad about it.

You may be able to return to the location, but you can’t return to who you were at that moment.

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Wrap Up: Best Moving Abroad Quotes

Quotes about living and moving abroad can be poignant, introspective, and inspiring. They offer a unique perspective on the challenges and joys of living in a foreign country.

For me, they help me feel less alone.

When I would struggle with my decision to move abroad or when I felt stuck, I’d break out some 18th century Scottish travel writing (I know, I’m a very exciting person) to remember how hard it once was to travel. Their perseverance to explore despite insurmountable obstacles lit a fire in me.

I started typing quotes into my phone to look at when I would struggle.

Now, I have a document of quotes I refer to whenever I need a pick me up. Because sometimes all you need are a few poignant words to help you remember your power.

Whether you are just starting to think about moving abroad or have been living in a new place for years, these quotes will resonate with you.

I hope they provide some encouragement as you continue on your journey!

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