“Travel while you’re young.” It’s a familiar adage with an obvious simplicity. Young and hopefully upwardly mobile millennials are constantly grappling with their next life choices. Should you finish, drop out, or go back to school? What should you study? Should you take that internship or keep applying elsewhere?
The pressures we feel about our careers and education are obviously tied up with our worries about the future. Especially in an uncertain economy, there’s nothing out of the ordinary in worrying, but if you’re in your 20’s—a decade as associated with fun as it is hard work—it’s also worth stepping back and appreciating the moment. While school might be the quintessential intersection of work and play, the rest of your 20’s can be just as adventurous. But in the United States, a lot of people are averse to the most obvious form of sprucing things up: travel. According to a recent study by The Boston Consulting Group and The Network, only 35% of Americans said they’d move overseas for a job, just over half of the worldwide average of 64% responding affirmatively to the same question. But, and as usual, millennials are different, with 59% admitting that they’d move to another country for work.
The study is interesting on its own—what does it say about millennials and/or the economy that so many of us would uproot?—and if nothing else, it proves that a new trend might be in the works. Moving abroad for work is daunting, but less so as a young person than as someone creeping into middle age or starting a family. The decision doesn’t have to be permanent, and even a short (but fulfilled) stint outside of the country can work wonders on your resume and inject a unique bit of job experience. There are plenty of things to consider of course: is a language barrier a deal breaker? What’s the job landscape like? Can you afford, both financially and otherwise, to be out of the country for an extended period of time?
With all of the above in mind, check out a shortlist of some of the best countries for a potential millennial expat to start over in below*:
*Countries culled from HSBC’s 2014 Expat Explorer survey & corresponding Business Insider report.
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