Building Community Abroad: Why Logistics Were Never the Hard Part

People assume my job is mostly about logistics. Visas, paperwork, finding the right neighbourhood, the practical checklist everyone pictures when they think about moving abroad. I’ve never seen it that way. From the start, I knew building community abroad was the number one thing, and my work was never only about logistics. Then I watched a couple I work with move to Montenegro knowing no one, and I saw it play out in real life.

Before I get to their story, I have to back up to mine, because it’s where all of this started.

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The Winter I Finally Got It

Over a decade ago, I left Canada in winter for the first time. Before that, I didn’t understand why people packed up and left every year. I thought, we’re Canadian, winter is in our DNA, it’s what makes us resilient. Then I left in the middle of winter, and I finally got it.

We took my parents to Graceland. My mom was a huge Elvis fan and hadn’t travelled much, so taking her to Graceland had been on my list for a long time. We went in April, and where I lived in Canada, April is still very much winter. When we landed in Tennessee, it was spring. People were out mowing their lawns. I could smell the fresh-cut grass. And I knew what was waiting for me back home. My longest winter had lasted eight months, and I was staring down another one.

I remember thinking, life does not have to be six months of hellish cold every year.

Graceland planted the seed. It didn’t turn into a relocation right away. From seasonal travel, we launched into long-term travel. From Egypt and Jordan, we flew to Rome, leased a car and spent 90 days driving up through Western Europe, dropping the car off in Amsterdam. We used every day the Schengen Zone allowed. All of it led to our relocation to Mexico. Every stage taught me something different, but Graceland is the one I go back to most, because it’s where I first let myself imagine a different version of my life.

Fast Forward: A Medieval Tower in Montenegro

Years later, working as a relocation strategist, I helped a couple move to Montenegro. They knew no one there.

I’d been following a project online for a while: an old medieval tower a German expat had bought and turned into a co-working space. You could book The Tower for retreats and events, and on weekends he opened it up as an expat hangout. Drinks, live jam sessions, concerts, bonfire nights. Community building at its finest.

Before I’d set foot in Montenegro myself, I started building connections for them remotely. Once they’d had a week to settle in, my husband and I travelled there to meet them. We toured the country together, helped them find a place to rent, and I introduced them in person to the people I’d connected with online. And, of course, I took them to The Tower.

They go every week now. The Tower became their people, in a place where they’d started out knowing no one.

Watching it unfold proved what I already believed. The paperwork was never the hard part. Community was.

The Honeymoon Phase Always Ends

Here’s the pattern. The first stretch of living somewhere new is exciting no matter what. Everything’s a discovery. You feel like you’re on vacation, even though you live there now.

Then a couple of months in, it’s a random Friday night, and you realize you don’t know what you’re doing this weekend. Or who you’d even call. Friday night decides a lot. Some people push through it and build something real. Others start wondering if the move was a mistake.

It’s why I build community into the plan from the start, not as an afterthought. I focus on getting people connected before they land, the way I did in Montenegro, not after the honeymoon phase wears off. Waiting until you’re lonely to build community is a much harder place to start from than before you leave.

Building Community Abroad Isn’t One Thing. It’s Two.

I tell anyone planning a move this, because it surprises people every time: there’s your personal community, and there’s your business community, especially if you work remotely. They’re not the same, and you can’t skip either one.

I learned this the hard way in my business. Growing an email list or getting traffic while working from another country, often without a big ad budget, is hard. I hit a wall more than once. What moved the needle wasn’t a new tool or tactic. It was tapping into people in my business circle and brainstorming with them. In July, I hosted Free Thinkers Rising, a virtual summit with twenty speakers covering everything from geopolitics, money and privacy to free cities, community building and relocation. Having the speakers help promote it grew my list by 1,327 percent. I still pause at that number. It wasn’t a funnel. It was people.

Where This Is Headed

The Montenegro trip is a big part of why I’m now building immersive destination retreats. Strategy calls are great for planning, but a shared, in-person experience does something a call can’t replicate. My vision is to keep the retreats small on purpose, sixteen people at most, with everyone getting to know each other before the trip. By the time the group lands somewhere together, the connection has already started. Local markets, dinners with people who live there, the things that show you what living somewhere is like, not visiting. More on that soon.

Looking back, it all traces to that spring afternoon in Tennessee. I didn’t know it yet, but it was the first moment I let myself believe life could look different. Everything since, the long-term travel, the move to Mexico, the way I work with clients now, grew out of that one realization.

Grieve the country. Keep your values. Then find the people who share them, before you need them.

If you’re considering a move, or you’ve made one and you’re realizing the logistics were never the hard part, this is where I come in. I help people build the community piece before they’re standing in a new country wondering what to do on a Friday night, because that piece decides whether your move works.

Ready to start building your people before you land? Grab your free resource, Thinking About Leaving Your Country? here.

All photos provided by Charlotte Tweed.