Happy New Year to expats everywhere! As this is the last post of the year for our Expat Blog and it happens to be New Year’s Eve, we’d like to highlight one more expat holiday report from Santiago, Chile:

What is your favorite thing about celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah in your overseas location?

I love adding new traditions to ours and I enjoy adding a special remembrance to our family Christmas tree to recall all the places and events in our lives. Having family near is always special. And for those who cannot be with us we call or Skype them.

Beside family and friends, what do you miss from home during the holidays?

I DON’T MISS the snow and hassles it causes in travel. Some of the favorite foods that recall our home are missed (we brought in a can of pumpkin for pumpkin pie).

How is New Year’s typically celebrated in your expat location?

New Year’s is celebrated with a flourish of food, fun, dancing and fireworks.

Please do fill out your own Holiday Report! It is a great way for potential expats to get a feel for what it might be like to live overseas.

Happy New Year to all from Expat Exchange!

U.K. Expats are no exception to the rule – if a government provides a benefit of any kind, there will be someone that tries to take advantage of the system.

The U.K. government will attempt to crackdown on its citizens that live abroad and are guilty of collecting benefits to which they are not entitled:

Fraud officials have joined forces with overseas counterparts to target Brits in countries where most fraud is carried out, including Spain and America, and even as far afield as Thailand and Sweden.

Common scams include people not declaring they have moved abroad, relatives claiming for a dead claimant or third party, or people working overseas while claiming unemployment benefits.

U.K. expats are advised to make sure that they are entitled to what they receive, and take appropriate steps to remedy the situation if not. As technologies improve to help the government track down those that attempt to defraud the system, individuals that cause the Department of Work and Pensions to incur significant cost to recover funds are likely to be delt with severely when caught.

We hope expats that celebrate Christmas are safe and excitedly amid preparations for a joyous celebration on Friday and Saturday, whether you are still abroad or home for the holidays.

Here is a recent Christmas and Holidays Abroad report from Sydney, Australia (click link for full report):

If locals celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah where you are living now, how is it celebrated differently?

Well of course a very big difference is that it is summer here and that effects the way Christmas is celebrated. In the past, families used to sit down to your traditional UK style dinner, but over the years and with strong multicultural influences many people will sit down to seafood (prawns/lobster), a leg of ham, fresh salads, and fruit (mangoes and cherries in particular). Santa seems to rein here although you may hear an occasional reference to Father Christmas. You can buy real trees, but they don’t seem to last long in the heat.

Christmas lights are quite big here with some whole streets lighting up together..of course on a warm summer evening after dark families will come out to see them.

Do you mix your own traditions with those of your expat location? If so, describe.

We still do a turkey dinner although it makes the kitchen hot!! You can also put it on the Barbie!!!

Beside family and friends, what do you miss from home during the holidays?

Probably pubs and cosy fires!!!

How is New Year’s typically celebrated in your expat location?

You have to ask???? A wonderful display of fireworks… ringing in the new year for the rest of the world to follow!!!

We encourage everyone to fill out your own a report about Christmas or Hanukkah in your destination country!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Some expatriates that hoped to be home for the holidays are face the spectre of getting stranded abroad.

Indeed, many expats are stranded for Christmas as snow chaos hits Europe:

The adverse conditions — which have seen more than 100 flights across the continent cancelled and airports shut down— are predicated to last until after Christmas.

And here is an update from today, in which an Emirates official slammed the UK airports body amid winter chaos:

A senior Emirates official has criticised the British Airports Authority (BAA) for refusing to allow two of its aircraft to land in the UK, and has warned that the airline faces a massive task in coping with the backlog of passengers now stranded in London.

Stay tuned as the real holiday travel season is just now starting to play out!

A recent survey of expats indicates that British expats do indeed enjoy a better life abroad than they do at home in the U.K.

The findings will strike a chord with millions of families in the UK struggling with soaring bills, sky-high house prices, pollution, traffic congestion and the battle to find a good school.
Those who have fled said they believed their children were enjoying ‘the good life.’ Typically, the schools are better, children are safer and life is cheaper.

It would be interesting to hear from some of these expats – or any other expats – as when these changes at home began to feel so burdensome and what might possible be done to turn the tide. That being said, here is another interesting tidbit I thought was worth highlighting:

In many cases, the poll by banking giant HSBC International found, British expats have ‘a greater sense of community’ than they do in their ‘home’ country.

Feel free to comment here or on any of our Expat Country Networks.

Expats often find it hard to establish credit while living overseas after relocating. While there are challenges that make it difficult, there are some steps expatriates can take to help create a financial foothold after before and after moving overseas:

Still, if you apply with the right card issuer, it’s possible to get approved. American Express, for example, says foreign-based borrowers may qualify for a U.S. AmEx card. First, those international cardholders need to have an address in the States that AmEx can use to send the card out or contact the cardholder if necessary. Then, you’d simply apply in the typical way, with AmEx requesting additional information from you as needed. “If someone lived abroad and didn’t have a FICO score or a current bureau report, we would ask for income verification,” says Marina Norville, AmEx’s director of public affairs and communications. “Also, if they had an American Express card in an international market, we could also leverage that information for a credit application decision,” she says.

So understanding what different credit providers look for, and keeping track of what may or may not be on your credit record is critical. Clearly, a need to evaluate a variety of financial service companies is also important.

Jaws dropped late last week when the 2022 World Cup was awarded. But Expats were excited that Qatar was given the World Cup honors. Rachel Morris, an Australian freelance journalist and consultant living in Doha, Qatar, has penned an article for the Sydney Morning Herald that provides some insight into this Muslim nation that happens to be the smallest on continental Asia:

On the demographics:

The population is 1.7 million and of that, 1.5 million come from somewhere else. This imbalance is the result of massive growth fuelled by the decision to tap the [natural] gas reserves.

Separating Myths From Facts:

Yes, Qatar is a monarchy and an Islamic state. There are no elections and attempts to introduce them have been met with ambivalence. Sharia law is in place but there has been an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty since anyone can remember. Women wear the traditional abaya but they also have careers and run companies.

And some humor:

Needless to say, I’m taking bets on what will happen when the first drunk, sunburnt, incoherent English football fan strips off and tries to climb the oryx statue on the Doha Corniche. Expect Amazing, as they say here.

As for me, all I can say is that I’m glad I don’t have to play in that heat! As with past events, whether it’s the Olympics or the World Cup, it’s fun to watch nations scramble to make all the preparations necessary to make it happen. Looking forward to watching Qatar get it done. Talk about this on the Expat Exchange Qatar Network!

Many people consider a life abroad when they explore retirement. Kathleen Peddicord, founder of the Live and Invest Overseas publishing group, has penned an article about the proper approach to doing just that.

In an article on http://money.usnews.com, Peddicord suggests that picking a region to retire abroad to rather than a country is the best bet. Here are a few of her thoughts:

Asia:

Then you don’t have to worry about trying to organize permanent residency. Stay as long as you can as a tourist and then move on. Consider three months in Chiang Mai, where your retirement budget would stretch far, followed by a few months in the south of France.

Europe:

Most would-be retirees abroad dismiss Europe as too expensive, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Sure, a retiree on a modest budget probably can’t afford Paris. But consider southwestern France, where life is quintessentially French and surprisingly affordable.

Kathleen, who is very experienced in international real estate (personally and professionally), also has a book and newsletter to consider for those who would like to retire abroad.

Expats across the globe are flocking to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part I.” In the U.K. or in the United States, tickets are tough to get and people go all out in celebrating whenever another film in the series is released. It’s a little different abroad, however, as evidenced in Spain, where expats were among the most enthusiastic Harry Potter attendees:

“It’s it very popular here, too, but tickets are very easy to get and I don’t think it’s a big deal like in the U.K. or the U.S. People don’t host Harry Potter themed parties, and very few dress up to go to the theater, except for maybe wearing a Harry Potter scarf.”

Cristiano Martinez, 22, agreed, adding that Harry Potter is more of a successful movie than a cultural phenomenon.

It’s interesting to note how different a blockbuster series like the Harry Potter film series translates abroad. More than 400 hundred of million of her books have been sold throughout the world, so let there be no doubt that the books penned by J.K. Rowling have no problem at all crossing cultural divides.