Travel Wanderlust contributor Elodie Ferchaud, co-founder of Boundless Life, shares the 5 things to keep in mind when moving your family abroad.
Six years ago, my husband and I packed up our life in the UK, put our (then much smaller) family on a plane, and moved to Sintra, Portugal, with nothing but three suitcases and mixed feelings of anxiety and exhilaration. We didn’t have a playbook. We had a spreadsheet, a lot of late-night googling, and each other.
Since then, our family has grown to four children, and we’ve lived in Portugal, Greece, Bali and Uruguay, and now Japan. Along the way, I co-founded Boundless Life, a company built to do the thing we couldn’t find anywhere else: make it possible for families to live, work and learn in a new country without needing a relocation consultant, a law degree and a small fortune in savings.
I still get messages every week from parents asking the same question: where do we even start? So here are the five areas I always tell them to sort out first, drawn from our own move and from helping thousands of families do the same.
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1. Choosing the right destination
The biggest mistake families make is picking a destination for its Instagram feed rather than its daily rhythm. Before we chose anywhere, we asked ourselves what kind of life we actually wanted to live, not just visit.
Climate matters more than people expect. Four distinct seasons in Europe suit some families beautifully and drain others by February. Bali’s tropical warmth is glorious until the rainy season tests your patience with soggy laundry and long indoor afternoons.
Language and community matter too. If you want to be understood at the pharmacy without charades, look at destinations with established international communities, such as Portugal, Spain or Bali, where English is widely spoken. If deeper cultural immersion is the goal, be ready to learn some of the local language, even just the basics, as in Japan.
And be honest about the cost of living and safety. A similar lifestyle can cost roughly $2,500 a month in Bali and closer to $4,500 in parts of Portugal, so it’s worth checking sites such as Numbeo for city-specific numbers before you fall in love with a place on paper.
Practical step: make a short list of three destinations and score each against the things that matter most to your family – climate, cost, language, healthcare and schooling – rather than the ones that photograph well.
2. Understanding visa options and restrictions
This is the part that stops most families before they’ve even started, so let’s simplify it. Your visa need really comes down to how long you intend to stay and whether you plan to earn money locally.
- Tourist or visitor visas typically allow stays of 30 to 90 days and suit families who want to travel between countries rather than settle. They generally don’t permit local work or access to public healthcare, and if you’re moving around Europe, you’ll need to watch your allowance in the Schengen Area carefully.
- Digital nomad visas have transformed this landscape for remote-working families. Portugal and Spain now offer long-stay options with a route to residency, Greece has introduced tax incentives for remote workers who relocate, and Indonesia and Montenegro offer more accessible entry points for first-time expat families.
- Long-stay or residency permits suit families planning to settle for a year or more, and usually mean more paperwork upfront in exchange for more stability once you’re there.
Most digital nomad visas will let you include a spouse and children on the same application, provided you can show proof of income, but requirements vary widely by country, so always check the embassy website for your specific destination rather than relying on forum advice alone.
Practical step: decide your travel style first (rotating between countries vs. settling in one place), then work backwards to the visa category that fits it.
3. What to know about taxes and healthcare
Nobody moves abroad dreaming about tax forms, but sorting this early saves enormous stress later.
If you’re a US citizen, you’ll still need to file a tax return every year, wherever you live, because the US taxes citizens on worldwide income. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll owe anything. The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion allows you to exclude a substantial portion of foreign-earned income, and foreign tax credits can offset what you pay locally against your US bill. Countries including Spain, Italy and Greece also have Totalisation Agreements with the US that can prevent you from paying into two social security systems at once.
What you’ll owe in your new country depends entirely on where you land. Uruguay and Montenegro only tax income earned locally, so many remote workers pay little or nothing there, while Portugal and Spain run favourable regimes for new residents, including Spain’s so-called “Beckham Law” for incoming professionals. This is genuinely one area where a specialist expat tax adviser, typically costing $300–$1,000, earns their fee many times over.
Healthcare is far less frightening than most families assume. In Spain, Portugal and Italy, legal residents can access strong public healthcare systems for little or no cost. In Bali and Uruguay, private clinics are the norm among expats, and they’re still considerably more affordable than equivalent care in the US. Either way, don’t skip international health insurance in the meantime; providers such as SafetyWing or Cigna Global are built exactly for globally mobile families, and a private plan can cost as little as a few hundred euros a year in parts of Europe.
Practical step: talk to an expat-specialist accountant before you move, not after your first tax deadline abroad arrives.
4. Understanding your education options
This is the question that keeps parents up at night, and it’s also the one I’m most passionate about, since education is the reason Boundless Life exists.
You have more options than you probably realise:
- Worldschooling – learning through travel, culture and real-world experience rather than a fixed classroom.
- Homeschooling – a structured, parent-led approach using curricula, tutors or online programmes.
- Local or international schools – local schools offer genuine cultural immersion, while international schools follow familiar curricula such as the IB.
There’s no single right answer; it depends on your child, your pace of travel and how much structure your family needs. If your children are currently enrolled in school back home, formally withdraw them, request their academic records and check your home state or country’s homeschooling regulations before you leave, so that returning later, if you choose to, is straightforward.
At Boundless Life, we built our own answer: microschools across eight destinations that blend project-based, experiential learning with the community and structure that travelling families still need. But whichever path you choose, the goal is the same: keep learning connected to the world your children are actually living in.
Practical step: gather school records and any assessments before you leave, even if you’re not sure yet which path you’ll choose.
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5. Budget planning
We built our first budget, then quietly added 30% on top, because something always costs more than the spreadsheet says. That habit has never failed us.
Split your planning into two categories. One-off relocation costs include flights, visa fees, temporary accommodation, international insurance and an emergency fund (aim for three to six months of expenses). Ongoing monthly costs cover rent, utilities, groceries, healthcare, schooling and transport, and these vary enormously by destination, so cross-check your assumptions against real numbers on a site like Numbeo rather than guesswork.
A few costs catch families out: seasonal rent spikes in popular spots, currency fluctuations, and local visa or legal fees. Multi-currency accounts such as Wise or Revolut can spare you painful bank fees when moving money between countries.
Practical step: build your budget for one-off and monthly costs separately, add a 30% buffer, and set aside a dedicated emergency fund before you book a single flight.
What does it mean when moving your family abroad?
Moving your family abroad will never be entirely tidy. But six years and five countries later, I can say without hesitation that it was the best decision we ever made for our children and for us.
You don’t need to have it all figured out before you go. You just need to get the big five – destination, visa, taxes and healthcare, education, and budget – roughly right, and let the rest sort itself out along the way. It always does.
This article was authored by Elodie Ferchaud, co-founder of Boundless Life and does not represent the opinions of the Travel Wanderlust team
TRAVEL WANDERLUST CONTRIBUTOR
Elodie Ferchaud is co-founder of Boundless Life, which helps families live, work and learn together in destinations around the world. A mother of four and a former brand leader at P&G and L’Oréal, she has relocated her own family across five countries in six years.
