So, You’re Ready to Leave it All Behind? Read This First.

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There’s a shift happening. You’ve probably felt it. People aren’t just daydreaming about leaving anymore — they’re plotting it.

They’re not just asking, “What if I left?” They’re asking something far more dangerous:
“What if I didn’t?”

The signs are everywhere. Searches for “move to Canada” exploded the night of the US election. People in so-called "stable" countries like Australia and Canada are quietly making backup plans. The US and UK are on the brink of civil war. And if you think that's hyperbole, you haven’t been paying attention.

I hear from women and men all the time who feel it too. Women who feel abandoned by their home countries — politically, socially, financially, emotionally. Men who are tired of working harder for less. People who are tired of “just getting by.”

Who are tired of (barely) surviving when all they want to do is live.

Let me say this, loud and clear:
You can’t abandon a country that abandoned you first.

Maybe that’s where you are right now. You’re watching everything around you tighten, break, and fray at the edges. You're seeing wages stagnate while costs skyrocket. You're seeing your leaders tell you to “just wait it out” while the rich get richer and your bank balance has never been lower.

You’re wondering if it’s time to go. If you’re supposed to “stick it out” or if it’s time to do something braver, bolder, and maybe a little bit terrifying.

If it’s time to leave.

I’m not going to lie to you. It’s hard. It’s messy. It’s confusing and exhausting and full of doubt. You will question yourself. People will question you too. And the voice in your head will say, “Am I being selfish?”

But here’s the truth:
Leaving isn’t selfish. It’s self-respect.

And you’re not the only one asking yourself these hard questions.

This isn’t some fringe idea. This is a movement.

If that’s you, this post isn’t here to convince you to leave. It’s here to tell you the truth about what it’s like if you do. Not the Instagram dream of “beaches and better weather.” Not the fantasy of “everything will be perfect once I’m there.”

That’s a lie.

It’s not easy.
It’s not perfect.
But it is worth it.

You Will Not Break; You Will Stretch

There I was, finally living by the beach. It was the height of COVID, and I’d scored an affordable, well-built, spacious bungalow just steps from the ocean — my first time living beachside since moving to the island six years earlier.

But it didn’t feel like a reward. It felt like a consolation prize.

I wasn’t soothed by the waves lapping at the shore — I was taunted by them. I wasn’t sitting back with my feet up contemplating life — my head was in my hands as tears poured out of me until I had nothing left. I was surrounded by paradise, but rather than thriving, I was drowning.

I’d left our family home when I couldn’t take any more of the fights. Fraser and I had just come back to our home on Koh Phangan with our six-month-old, and we were falling apart.

My father had just died after a brutal, two-year battle with cancer. My mom had remarried. All in Mexico, all a long way from where I was in Thailand.

My business — the one I’d poured years of my life into — was on the brink of collapse. Contracts were cancelled. Clients ghosted. The bills kept coming, but the money didn’t.

I was holding it all together — barely. And then I wasn’t.

Six months. That’s how long I sat in that bungalow, waiting for someone — anyone — to check on me. One person did. Once.

And I remember in that moment feeling so desperately unimportant to the world. I’d uprooted myself from everything I knew, and now my entire safety net had dissolved before my eyes. I looked longingly at the powerful ocean and wondered:

Would anyone really care if I tied some heavy rocks to my feet and took a long walk into the ocean?

But here’s the thing about being forgotten like that:
It forces you to remember yourself.

Because leaving isn’t just packing bags and booking flights. It’s grief.

Not the loud, dramatic kind of grief — the slow, creeping kind that shows up in quiet moments when you least expect it. The kind that hits you, not all at once, but in pieces.

It’s the moment you’re scrolling through Instagram and see your friends back home out together. You weren’t invited — not because they forgot you, but because you’re not there anymore.

It’s the moment your best friend calls you after she’s had a baby and says, “I wish you were here.”

It’s realising that for the people back home, out of sight really does mean out of mind.

It’s knowing that nobody really likes video calls — not even the people who insist they do.

I know this pain because I’ve felt it.

So yeah, there will be extreme moments of loneliness. You will miss people. You will miss moments. You will grieve your old life and sometimes wonder if you made a mistake.

But you will not break. You will stretch.

I know it sounds like I’m trying to spin it, but I’m not. Stretching hurts. It hurts like hell. It feels like you’re being pulled in two directions at once.

But that stretch gives you the capacity to hold more joy, more strength, and more life than you ever thought possible.

And it’s a damn good thing that moving abroad doesn’t break you. Because this feeling of wanting to leave — it’s everywhere.

People Are (Thinking About and Actually) Leaving in Droves

Last year I wrote a feature post for this blog that detailed the largest mass migration in history, which was taking place back in 2023. Now 2024 is coming to a close, and the numbers are wild.

People don’t want to stay in their home countries, and now that they’re seeing examples of others living better lives abroad, they’re feeling more confident that they can do it too.

This isn’t a dream anymore — it’s becoming a global plan.

You can see it in the numbers:

Over half of Americans under 35 are thinking about leaving — a pretty dramatic rise from the 19% who were thinking about it 50 years ago.

On election night, Google searches for how to move abroad jumped by an astronomical 1,514% — because when everything feels broken, you start looking for the door.

Aussies and Brits are leaving in their droves. Venezuelans, too.

South Korea, on the other hand, has experienced a 4,000% increase in foreign residents over the past 30 years. The Netherlands has had such a huge surge in immigration lately that it’s now declaring itself “full”.

In Israel, political instability has driven unprecedented numbers of people to leave the country since 2022.

The war in Ukraine has displaced an unimaginable 6.8 million people since February 2022, with another 4 million internally displaced.

All over the world, people are quietly making plans. Late at night, after the kids are in bed, they’re Googling visas. They’re comparing the cost of living in Spain versus Portugal. They’re watching YouTube tours of Mexican neighbourhoods they’ve never heard of.

Because people are tired of being told to put their ‘fed-upness’ on hold any longer.

The Big Question — Should You Leave?

If you’re still here, reading this, then you already know the question.

It’s not, “What if I left?”
It’s, “What if I don’t?”

And that question will haunt you. It will keep you up at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if you’re slowly suffocating in a life that used to fit but now feels too tight.

The truth is, I can’t answer that question for you.
No one can.

Not your mom.
Not your friends.
Not even the internet (sorry, Google).

This is one of those times in life where you have to get brutally honest with yourself.
Are you running away from something? Or are you running toward something?

I know, I know. You’ve heard that line before. It’s become a self-help cliche. But here’s the thing: sometimes you do need to run away. Sometimes you need to walk, jog, sprint, and fly away from whatever is suffocating you. There’s no shame in that.

But the only person who can answer this is you. So here’s a framework to help you figure it out:

5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Leave

These questions aren’t cute. They aren’t easy.
But if you answer them honestly, you’ll know what to do next.

1. If you stay exactly where you are right now, how will you feel 3 years from now?

Not the “Instagram version” of your life. Not the curated highlights.
The real version of your life.
Same job. Same salary. Same stress. Same surroundings.

Are you okay with that?
If the answer is yes, then maybe it’s not time to leave.
But if the answer is “Absolutely not”, then maybe that’s your sign.

I think about my friend Allie, who asked herself this exact question.

She was living in the U.S., feeling restless and worn down, and she could see her future stretching out in front of her like a straight, endless road. Same job. Same commute. Same days on repeat. She knew, deep down, she couldn’t do it for three more years. So, she left. First to Bangkok, then to India, then to London, and now she’s raising her kids in Amsterdam with a husband she met along the way.

Her life didn’t just change — it expanded.

2. Are you craving something new, or are you craving freedom?

Be honest.
Are you hoping for palm trees and pretty sunsets?
Or are you hoping for space to breathe?
The two aren’t the same.

Newness wears off.
But freedom? That lasts.

I used to think I was craving newness. I thought living abroad would be a postcard-perfect montage of sea breezes and golden sunsets. But after 12 years living on a tropical island, I know that what I was actually craving was freedom from the script I’d been handed.

The “get the degree, get the job, get the house, get the retirement plan” script.
That script wasn’t for me. I didn’t want new for the sake of new — I wanted to feel like I had control over my life.

My friend Juliette found the same thing. She left France with two toddlers and a partner. She raised them on a Thai island, navigated setbacks that would’ve crushed most people, and built a life for herself where she calls the shots. She didn’t leave for “new.” She left for agency.

That’s what makes the difference.
Are you chasing novelty?
Or are you chasing freedom?

3. Are you more afraid of change or more afraid of staying the same?

This is a big one.
Because staying is comfortable. It’s familiar. You know how it goes.
Leaving? That’s the leap.

But if you’re afraid of change, you’ll stay stuck.
And if you’re afraid of staying stuck, you’ll change your whole life.

I’ll be honest with you: I’ve been afraid of both.
I was afraid of changing everything I knew.
But I was more afraid of waking up one day and realising I’d done my whole life wrong.

When my friend Megan moved to Bali with her child, I asked her if she was scared.
Her answer has stayed with me for years.
She said, “Of course I was scared. But I was more scared of waking up one day and realising I’d lived a life that wasn’t mine.”

4. What’s the absolute worst-case scenario if you leave?

Seriously, play it all the way out.
Let’s say it all goes wrong. The visa doesn’t come through. The job falls apart. The dream crumbles.

Where do you end up?

On your mom’s couch for 3 months?
Applying for jobs back home?
Back where you started?

Okay, cool.
You’ve survived worse, haven’t you?
If that’s the worst that could happen, is it really that bad?

My husband left Scotland at 21.
He didn’t have a high school diploma. No degree. No fancy resume. He just left.
If it all went wrong, where would he go? Back to Scotland, where all his friends and family were.

But it didn’t go wrong.
It went spectacularly, brilliantly right.

He now runs the fastest-growing property development company on Koh Phangan.
No diploma. No safety net. No plan B.

But he knew that if he failed, he’d survive.
So he jumped.

If you think of failure that way — as a slight detour, not the end of the road — it becomes a lot less scary.

5. What if it all goes right?

This is the question nobody asks themselves.
We’re so good at imagining failure, aren’t we?

But what if it works?

What if the visa comes through?
What if you wake up in that sunlit apartment, sipping a cup of coffee, and you feel calm for the first time in years?
What if your life feels bigger than you imagined it could be?

You’ve been so busy preparing for worst-case scenarios.
Take a second to imagine the best-case scenario.

What if it all works out?
What would that look like?

(Go ahead. Close your eyes. Picture it.)

The People Who Leave (And Why They Don’t Regret It)

You know how people love to tell you, “Don’t do it, you’ll regret it,” or “What if you hate it?”
Here’s something I’ve noticed after 19 years of living abroad.

The people who leave never say they regret it.

You know what they say instead?
They say:

• “I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner.”

• “Even if I go back home, I’ll be different now.”

• “I had to leave to realise how strong I am.”

I think about my Mom, who moved to Mexico over a decade ago. She's endured a shocking amount of bureaucracy and red tape. She's seen violent drug cartels move into her town. She's watched her husband lose his battle with cancer there. She's remarried there. She's gotten sick with her own cancer and is now undergoing chemo treatment there. And despite all the setbacks and all of the things that she could blame on her move abroad, she never speaks ill of Mexico, nor does she ever express any regrets about moving abroad.

She thinks of Mexico as her home and is so grateful for the country’s acceptance and gifts.

Not everyone stays abroad forever, and that’s okay too.
Sometimes you leave, you stretch, and then you go back.
But you are never the same.

The Truth You Already Know

Look, I’m not here to convince you to leave.
I’m not going to sell you a fantasy of beaches, better weather, and no worries.
Because that’s not what you’re looking for.

You’re not looking for “easy.”
You’re looking for “aligned.”

And if that’s what you’re chasing, then this is your sign.
It’s not about “running away.” It’s not about “starting over.”
It’s about deciding that your life deserves to feel like it’s yours.

You don’t need anyone to give you permission.
But in case you’re waiting for it, here it is:

Go.
Do it.
You already know the answer.

Because the deeper the stretch, the more life you can hold.

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