This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kat Smith, 35, who has lived abroad since 2015. Smith, the founder of Away Abroad, a website for female travelers, currently lives in Trieste, Italy, with her husband. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I think people don’t always believe me when I say it, but living abroad has always felt more fun to me. I love the cultural challenges, the language barrier, the different food, and the process of figuring out the day-to-day.
I’m originally from Conyers, a small town just outside Atlanta. In high school, I moved to Athens, Georgia. It was a typical small, suburban place — there weren’t many people traveling internationally. Certainly, no one was moving abroad the way I eventually did.
When I was 18, between graduating from high school and starting at the University of Georgia, my parents basically forced a gap semester on me. They came home from a dinner party one night and were like, “Instead of going to college, you’re going to Guatemala.”
I did not want to go, but hindsight is 20/20.
Going to Guatemala was the best thing that could have happened to me. While I was there, I met a Peace Corps volunteer. Spending time with them and being in the country changed my perception of the world and opened my eyes to what was even possible.
When I got back and started university, I met with an advisor who had also served in the Peace Corps. After talking with him more, it just felt like the right path for me.
Living abroad changed me as a person
In 2013, almost exactly a month after I graduated from university, I joined the Peace Corps and left the US for Ecuador.
At the time I applied, you didn’t really have much say in where you went. I basically said, “Send me anywhere in the world,” and they sent me to Ecuador. During training, they placed me in a community based on my skill set and the community’s needs.
I ended up in Tumbaco for 3 months for training and then in Arenillas, a really small town in the southwestern province of El Oro, where I lived for about two years.
When my service ended, a friend of mine and I hitchhiked through the Peruvian Amazon and ended up working at an eco-lodge in the middle of the rainforest for a few months.
Around that time, in 2015, my dad was like, “Okay, you haven’t been home in almost three years. I’m buying you a ticket—you’re coming to visit.” So, begrudgingly, I went back to the US.
I remember feeling reverse culture shock more intensely than I ever felt culture shock. It completely caught me off guard. All of a sudden, the US didn’t feel like home anymore. I felt like I didn’t fit in.
I also knew I wasn’t the same person I’d been when I’d left, which created an internal conflict. I don’t want to be that dramatic, but I had a different mindset, and trying to be the old me was hard.
I’ve traveled and lived all around the world
Over the years, I’ve lived in Panama City, been to Colombia, worked on a yacht in the South of France, and backpacked through Eastern Europe for a couple of months. I also backpacked between Vietnam and Thailand, and taught English in South Korea.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I fell in love and got married in Colombia in 2018. Not long after, my husband and I moved to Vietnam, where we stayed for three years while I was teaching English, before leaving in 2021 because of COVID restrictions.
After Vietnam, we went back to the US for a while. We bought a van, converted it, and traveled up and down the West Coast. I loved nature, but after a few months, I was ready to leave again.
So we tried Albania next. We stayed for a couple of months, but it didn’t feel like the right long-term fit. Instead, we kept moving and spent time around the Balkans — traveling through Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia.
My journey hasn’t been perfect
Looking back, I’ve made a few mistakes along the way.
One of the things I cringe about most is how I treated my friends and family back home. I was pretty insensitive about their choices — friends who just wanted to graduate, buy a house 10 minutes from where they grew up, and settle into a typical, structured, no-surprises kind of life. I think I judged that because I felt like what I was doing was so extravagant.
But honestly, I was a bit of a brat about accepting other people’s paths.
I did something similar with my family, too. I didn’t really consider what it meant for them when I left. I was so focused on what it meant for me, and not necessarily on how it was affecting everyone around me.
Italy is home — for now
In 2023, we moved to Italy for a job opportunity for my husband. He has an EU Blue Card — basically a work permit for skilled workers — and I’m on a family reunification visa linked to his.
We’ve been living in Trieste for the past 2.5 years. Trieste is fantastic, but it’s also an up-and-coming city that’s gotten really expensive, fast. Even in the short time we’ve been here, we’ve seen a big jump in costs. Our rent, for example, increased by $308 a month, which still feels crazy.
Our apartment is really nice: one bedroom, one bath, open floor plan, and close to everything. I’m really into nature, and we have a beautiful view of the sea and the hills. We were paying $1,423 a month, and now it’s $1,732.
That rising cost of living is one of the reasons we started looking at other places — just to get more for our money.
We ended up buying an apartment in Belluno for $260,955, and we’ll move in April. Belluno is a much smaller town, kind of a gateway to the Dolomites, and it sits north of Venice. We’re big mountain people, and the Dolomites are genuinely my happy place. Being closer to them means we can hike and snowboard more regularly without a long drive, which was a huge perk for us.
Although we didn’t choose Italy initially and only moved here for my husband’s job, there are a lot of reasons we’ve chosen to stay rather than move on like we typically do after a few years.
Italy has a strategic geographic position. I love living smack dab in the middle of the world. Not only is this exciting adventure-wise, but it’s also meant more people have been able to visit us, including our parents, who aren’t as keen on the long-haul flights.
On top of that, the culture clicks for both of us. As an intercultural couple, we have different triggers, things we look for, and things we want to avoid. Northern Italy has provided the perfect balance for us.
I really hope Italy can be our home base, at least for the foreseeable future. But I also know myself: If, two years from now, it doesn’t feel right, we’ll pivot. I’m not setting a deadline; it’s more about whether it still feels like home. And right now, it does.
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