Arriving
A local number is infrastructure, and a foreign one blocks more than you think
Verification codes, delivery drivers and appointment systems are all built around domestic mobile numbers…
· 3 min read
Dev Chatterjee
Senior writer, Globetrotter Talks
Dev has written about arriving, visas & paperwork, money abroad for most of the last decade and reads the small print so you do not have to.
13 articles
Visas & Paperwork
A visa and a residence permit are two different objects
One is generally permission to travel to a border and ask to enter; the other is a record of permission to…
· 3 min read
Visas & Paperwork
Translation, legalisation and certification are three separate demands on one document
A foreign certificate usually has to be rendered into the local language, proved to be genuine, and copied…
· 3 min read
Money Abroad
Opening a bank account as a newcomer is a proof problem, not a money problem
Banks are not deciding whether to take your deposit; they are deciding whether they can identify and locate…
· 3 min read
Settling In
Learning enough language to do admin is a narrow and achievable target
Fluency takes years, but the specific vocabulary of forms, counters and appointments is a small closed set…
· 3 min read
Leaving
Shipping, selling or abandoning is arithmetic rather than sentiment
At the end of a stay every object falls into one of three categories, and the decision is usually settled…
· 3 min read
Arriving
The month you arrive in shapes the whole of the first year
Landing in the depth of winter, at the height of summer or at the start of a school year drops you into…
· 4 min read
Arriving
Sending your belongings by sea means living without them for months
A container is far cheaper than air freight and arrives on a timescale that turns the first part of a long…
· 4 min read
Arriving
Everything takes three times as long at first, and that is arithmetic
The exhaustion of the first weeks abroad is not a character failing but the predictable cost of doing…
· 3 min read
Visas & Paperwork
A permanent status is a different object from a longer temporary one
Most countries have some form of durable residence sitting above the renewable kind, and it is reached by a…
· 3 min read
Visas & Paperwork
Nobody is keeping a reliable record of your movements except you
People assume that borders, tickets and passport stamps add up to an authoritative account of where they…
· 3 min read
Visas & Paperwork
The immigration help your employer pays for is working for your employer
Company-arranged relocation support is genuinely useful and it has a client, and the client is the…
· 3 min read
Leaving
Going straight to a third country means closing and opening at once
Moving from one foreign country to another compresses the end of one administrative life and the start of…
· 3 min read