It’s easy to forget, but returning to your home country is often the final stage of your expat journey. Many internationals underestimate the challenges of going from expat to “re-patriate”.
We wanted to get insights on what coming back home after years as an expat is really like. So we decided to ask some of our team members who recently returned from a stay abroad.
Was it easy to pick up where they left off? Are they still reeling from the reverse culture shock? And what advice would they give to expats currently considering their own repatriation?
Find out what three of the InterNations team members had to say.
The Importance of Planning Ahead
Malte, InterNations Founder & Co-CEO
When our founder & co-CEO Malte decided to work from Cape Town for a year, he mapped out his return before even leaving Munich. “If you go abroad for a short time, moving back is already part of your relocation plans,” he explains.
His family sublet their furnished apartment, so they didn’t need to ship most of their belongings. And when taking their children out of school, Malte and his wife made arrangements for their kids’ return to the German education system.
Jane, Corporate Communications Team Lead
But sometimes life doesn’t work that way, and planning far in advance isn’t always possible. In December 2021, Jane — who’s now our Corporate Communications Team Lead — left her life in France behind.
After six years in Toulouse, working in the aeronautical industry, she needed to make a rather rushed return to Germany. To make things easier for her daughter, Jane decided to sign her up at Hamburg’s French school. But the start of the school year overlapped with her notice period at work.
“That’s why I spent the last couple of months flying back and forth between Hamburg and Toulouse,” she says. “I was still working a demanding job with lots of responsibilities. At the same time, I was organizing an international move, packing boxes, and canceling utility contracts. And I had to find a new job in Germany too. It was a complete nightmare!”
Jane’s most important piece of advice for other “repats”? “Just don’t do it like me,” she jokes. “Ideally, you need half a year or even a year to plan ahead.” Luckily, she landed her current job at InterNations shortly after moving back to Hamburg.
The Need for Closure & Goodbyes
Oguz, Freelance Software Engineer
Moving back to your home country doesn’t just involve clearing out your apartment and sorting out the paperwork. The transition period can be very emotional. And you should take the time to say goodbye to the people and places you’ve come to love. This is something that Oguz, a freelance software engineer at InterNations, still regrets he wasn’t able to do properly.
After graduating from university, he wanted to live and work outside of his native Turkey for at least three years. But the COVID-19 pandemic made him reconsider his plans. He was living on his own, in a tiny studio in Munich, when the first of several lockdowns began.
“Because of COVID-19, I was also working from home. But you weren’t allowed to meet up with anyone who wasn’t a member of your household,” Oguz remembers. “And most places were closed anyway. There were some days when I didn’t get to talk to a single person.”
Due to the strain of social isolation, he decided to move back earlier than planned and reunite with his family. Germany’s strict COVID-19 restrictions meant he couldn’t even throw a farewell party for his friends in Munich. His sudden return to Turkey left him with lots of loose ends, emotionally speaking.
Fortunately, Oguz was able to tie them up when he came back to Germany as a tourist last summer. “At last, I could meet up with everyone to catch up and officially say goodbye.”
By that time, he’d already been back home for nearly two years. But better two years late than never.
There’s No Going Home Again
Oguz, Freelance Software Engineer
When he cut his stay in Germany short, Oguz at least didn’t have to worry about looking for a new job. The InterNations Team fully supported his plan to continue working remotely from Turkey as a freelancer.
But his life had changed in other important ways. He’d been away from Mersin, his hometown, for work and studies for about ten years. Moving in with his parents didn’t mean going back to the carefree life of his high school years. Many of his old friends had also moved away, and he had outgrown his childhood home.
“Living abroad, I always wanted to spend more time with my family. But spending too much time with them has its downsides. As an adult, you do need your personal space.”
Getting readjusted to life in Turkey became a lot easier for Oguz when he moved into his own apartment and started rebuilding his personal network.
Jane, Corporate Communications Team Lead
“You think you can just slide back into your old life, but that’s not how it works,” Jane confirms. Before her aeronautical adventures in Toulouse, she’d been working as a local journalist in Hamburg for nearly a decade. She’d put down roots in the German port city, with a large circle of business contacts and personal friends.
“I know a lot of people in Hamburg, but all these friendships changed while I was in France. For example, some of my friends now offer to catch up during their lunch break. They don’t necessarily include me in the rest of their lives anymore. There’s no casual hanging out together, no going out on a Saturday night, or planning joint activities for our kids. If you’ve been away, you really need to put some effort into rekindling your friendships.”
The Impact of Reverse Culture Shock
Malte, InterNations Founder & Co-CEO
Unlike Jane and Oguz, Malte’s most recent stay abroad was only for a single year. Even though his stay in South Africa was short, he still misses Cape Town.
“At the beginning, coming back to Germany seemed super-easy,” he says. “It was summer, it was vacation time, and everything felt both comfortingly familiar and a little bit new.”
“But as soon as we all returned to the daily grind of school and work, I started making comparisons. And life in Munich doesn’t measure up to the Cape Town lifestyle at times. Especially not during a German winter, when the city is cold and grey. Then I really wish we’d stayed for another year.”
Oguz, Freelance Software Engineer
And while Oguz is very happy to be back with his family in Turkey, he still feels a little torn about his decision to repatriate. “It’s as if I had two hearts. One of them is here, in my hometown,” he says, “but the other one is still out there, in the big wide world.”
Reverse culture shock is something you need to brace yourself for. Former expats often become critical of daily life in their home country. Oguz now struggles with the traffic chaos in Turkey, getting upset at other drivers bending or ignoring the rules.
Jane, however, is longing for the more relaxed ways of France, as opposed to Germany’s love of rules and regulations. “I’ve changed during my time abroad. I’m taking things easier than I used to. German people can get a bit too serious sometimes.”
The Opposite of Homesickness: Three “Repats” Take Stock
So how can you minimize reverse culture shock and get readjusted faster? Paradoxically, the answer is often to keep some of that international spirit alive. For example, Oguz seeks out English-language events to connect with expats in Turkey.
“As a local with expat friends, you’re seeing life abroad from a different perspective,” he says. “I know the kind of problems they’re dealing with. I can give them some advice based on my own experience, or I’ll just listen.”
Oguz also appreciates the flexibility that comes with working as a freelancer with his own software business. He now has more time and opportunities to focus on what he loves about Mersin ― the city’s climate on the Mediterranean coast, with more than 300 days of sunshine a year, and its many cafés and restaurants with the local food he’d missed so much in Germany.
Malte has already been making plans to welcome some of his closest friends from Cape Town and explore Munich together. And from time to time, Jane enjoys immersing herself in a “French bubble” with other parents from her daughter’s school.
And yet … some part of them might always be longing for the road not taken, the other life they could’ve had abroad. There’s a wonderful German word to describe the opposite of homesickness: Fernweh, the literal ache to get out and see the world.
“This feeling of ‘I’ll never really be at home in just one place again’ may simply be here to stay,” says Jane. “But it’s something you learn to live with in the end.”
