They Packed Everything and Left. Do They Regret It?
This is one of the hardest questions to answer before you’ve tried it out yourself.
It’s fairly easy to compare salaries and living costs together with other practical information. You can research neighbourhoods, deep dive into the housing market online and read endless lists of pros and cons. But none of that can really tell you how you will feel six months after moving abroad. How will you feel when the excitement has settled, when you’ve experienced the less glamorous parts of starting over, and living abroad now just feels like normal life?
So, in the Next Job Abroad Relocation Survey 2026, we asked people who had already moved abroad.
95% of the people who took part in the survey said moving abroad was definitely worth it. The remaining participants said that it was probably worth it, or that they weren’t completely sure.
To us, the interesting part about these replies was to find out why they felt that way. Because when we looked at the rest of the survey, it wasn’t a story where people moved abroad and everything just worked out without obstacles.
They all worried before they left. They encountered problems in varying degrees after arriving in their new country.
And yet, almost all of them still looked back at the overall experience of moving abroad as a positive part of their lives.
People didn’t necessarily move abroad for the reasons you might expect
The most common motivation for moving abroad was seeking adventure. A higher salary was the motivation for as few as 3%.
It doesn’t mean that work or money was irrelevant to the people who moved abroad, as naturally, finding employment is a huge practical part of relocating. But moving abroad was much more often a life decision than a financial one. People wanted to experience something new. They wanted to challenge themselves.
Even more interesting is to take part of what they gained afterwards. It turned out that it often went far beyond the reason they originally left.
The biggest benefit was personal growth
86% responded that personal growth was one of the biggest benefits that they experienced after moving abroad.
Only 11% moved abroad for better career opportunities, however 51% later mentioned career growth as one of the biggest benefits of moving abroad.
The overall experiences that were valued the highest were mostly about what happened to their lives and themselves. 32% described meeting their life partner abroad and 46% told us about greater confidence.
One of the biggest fears became one of the biggest benefits
The most common concern before moving abroad was making friends. 46% selected making friends as their biggest concern before moving abroad.
It is interesting to see what happened after they moved abroad.
59% selected new friends as one of the biggest benefits of moving abroad. This is a nice real-life example of how difficult it can be to predict your own moving abroad experience.
The thing you’re worrying about while sitting at home imagining the move might eventually become one of the reasons, you’re glad you went.
The fear of starting over socially in a new country shouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as a sign that moving abroad is a bad idea.
Would they do it again?
Not one person said no to this question.
For some people, moving abroad had already become more than just a one-time experience. Several people had already lived in multiple countries, as their first move abroad had opened the door to a much more international way of life.
Once you’ve successfully built a life in one, new unfamiliar country, doing it again somewhere else might not seem quite as scary or impossible anymore.
Is moving abroad worth it?
The answer from people who have done it is overwhelmingly yes.
95% of the people responding to our survey said that they would do it again, if faced with the same choice all over. They said that the experience was worthwhile.
For many people, the biggest outcomes weren’t about having everything in order from the start, or if every single day felt like the most exciting day on earth (most days while living abroad do feel exciting to some level though).
For most respondents, the biggest benefits of moving abroad were personal growth, new friendships, confidence, career development and quality of life. These factors are hard to calculate before you move.
Thinking about moving abroad yourself?
If you are considering a move, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to decide whether you’re ready to leave your home country forever.
The only thing you need to decide is if this is an experience you want to try in your life. Remember that coming home is always an option.
Moving abroad doesn’t have to work perfectly from start to finish for it to be worthwhile. In the same way, it doesn’t have to be permanent to be considered successful.
