They spent 5 years researching their move abroad. Now they’re offering scouting trips to aspiring expats

(CNN) — Jen Barnett has wanted to live abroad since first grade, when cafés lined her Birmingham, Alabama, school’s hallways during a week dedicated to all things French. She and her husband started talking about it soon after they met in 2015 and batted the idea around through two stressful US presidential election cycles.

Add a pandemic, coding bootcamp and a career change for her husband, Brett Andrews, and a new remote-work lifestyle for them both, and the time started to feel especially right to take the plunge.

Little did they know that researching their move would eventually lead to a new business venture that would include organizing scouting trips for other aspiring expats.

Their winding route to Expatsi — their business aimed at helping others sort through the complicated process of moving abroad — involved trips to Canada and Mexico, a well-researched top 10 list of contenders and a willingness to revise their plan on the fly.

So what can other people thinking about a move learn from their experiences and those of the guests on their inaugural scouting trips to Portugal and Spain?

One of the keys, Barnett says, is to lean on the community of people who are doing the same thing.

“The secret is that we encourage everyone to rely on each other,” Barnett said about the dynamics of Expatsi’s scouting trips. “And you know a lot of us are moving abroad because we’re trying to regain some sense of community that we feel like we’ve lost.”

A winding road to Mexico

For Barnett, 52, and Andrews, 44, their move-abroad journey really revved up at the end of 2020.

They spent a New Year’s Eve cabin weekend drilling down on exactly what they’d be looking for in a new place. They drew on a fact-finding trip they had taken several years prior to Vancouver, Canada, which didn’t feel like home to them.

“You know, obviously Canada had not been a good fit, so why wasn’t it, and what were we really looking for, and what would make us happy? And so we started listing out, like this is the kind of weather I want, and this is the kind of … vibes I want, and this is what I want to be legal, and this is how concerned I am with safety or the Wi-Fi signal or whether or not there’s a big airport, or health care and so on,” said Barnett, whose background is in marketing and product development. Andrews moved into software development during the pandemic and oversees Expatsi’s technology.

Once they had their criteria, they spent months researching countries, sifting and scoring on a spreadsheet to arrive at a top 10 list of contenders. They had planned to visit one country a year over 10 years. But thanks to TikTok, things didn’t go according to plan.

TikTok videos featuring Mérida, Mexico, caught their attention.

“And Mexico was like 10^th on our list, and so we decided to move it up and visit Mérida first, and we just fell in love with it immediately,” Barnett said. That visit was in January 2022.

So what if, instead of waiting another nine years, they took all the research they’d compiled on various countries and created a test that other people considering a move abroad could take to narrow their own choices? And then they could turn that into a company, work for themselves and possibly go ahead and move to Mérida?

They officially incorporated their company in 2023. And In April of this year, they made their way from Alabama to their new home in Mérida.

The couple moved right after they launched Expatsi’s first scouting trips in March to Spain and Portugal – two destinations they were visiting for the first time themselves. The trips help participants explore neighborhoods and link them up with local immigration, finance and housing experts.

Expatsi had one more trip scheduled for the fall, but things were fairly quiet after that first trip. And then the US presidential debate in June created a crisis for President Joe Biden’s struggling campaign. “Aaaaannnnnnd, ever since it’s been completely insane,” Barnett said, with a huge spike in interest in Expatsi and the scouting trips.

The company has added 10 trips to their calendar since then, although the frenzy has subsided somewhat in recent weeks. Most of the people in the company’s community are seeking countries that are more progressive, Barnett said, and are far more likely to view the United States as too conservative than they are to say it’s too liberal.

The test and the scouting trips

About 100,000 people have taken the 20-question Expatsi test since the couple created it in 2022, Barnett said.

It covers topics such as reasons for moving abroad, how prospective expats envision securing health care, what level of infrastructure they’d be comfortable with and the types of things they’d want to be legal there – with same-sex marriage, gambling, guns and abortion among the options.

The top answers to the reasons-for-moving question: 1) For adventure/enrichment/growth; 2) The US is too divided; 3) To avoid the threat of gun violence.

Gun violence is a big reason that Michelle Pomladé, a cybersecurity program manager who lives just north of Seattle, is determined to leave the United States.

“The fact that kids’ No. 1 reason for death is by guns, and we don’t do anything about it as a country, is just sickening to me,” Pomladé said.

She and her mother participated in the first Expatsi scouting trip to Portugal in March, and Pomladé had an experience there that cemented her decision to move.

She went to a pharmacy in Portugal to get an eczema cream that her mother ran out of while they were away. The cost? 7 euros (about $8). The same cream in the United States cost her mother $78.

“You know, I’m only 48 right now, so when I start to need things like my mom does, I won’t be able to afford them if I stay in this country,” Pomladé said.

Current pricing for the scouting trips is $1,000 for Portugal and $1,200 for Spain. It works out to about $100 per day and includes daily tours with locals as well as a four-hour seminar covering key logistical topics. Transportation, lodging and most food and drink are not included.

Barnett said leaving those arrangements up to participants makes the trips accessible at a variety of price points.

“But really, most important, it’s just not a very authentic experience to come into a country, stay in a hotel room, ride on a bus, all go together, holds hands, that sort of thing,” Barnett said. “It’s just not very much what it’s like to live in a country, and we don’t feel like it gives you the tools you need to decide if it’s the right place for you to live.”

Some tour participants have opted to share Airbnbs where they can go to the market and cook dinner together.

Expatsi isn’t the only company offering scouting trips. Barnett pointed to Panama Relocation Tours as another company she knows of that’s creating guided trips.

Exploring the options

Pomladé said it was fun to be part of Expatsi’s maiden voyage as a scouting trip organizer. She loved Portugal and was pleased with the local information that Expatsi provided. Participants knew that the couple were visiting Spain and Portugal for the first time, too, Barnett said.

“It felt like it was meant to be when I was in Portugal, and if I could move there first, I probably would,” said Pomladé. “But the way they put it together, you would have thought that they had been doing this for years.”

Pomladé wanted to be a remote worker in Portugal, but she’s had trouble finding a company that would be OK with her moving abroad.

“So Jen [Barnett] actually told me about the DAFT [Dutch American Friendship Treaty] program in the Netherlands, and so I started doing some research there,” Pomladé said.

Under the DAFT program, she’ll be required to set up her own business and maintain €4,500 (about $4,900) in a business bank account. She’s submitting her application this week and aims to move by the end of the year. Pomladé is eyeing Rotterdam, although she’s never set foot in the Netherlands. But she’s hoping to make a gut-check independent scouting trip in September.

There are no Expatsi scouting trips to the Netherlands yet, although they plan to add Italy, France and Mexico trips in the near term. They started with Portugal and Spain, Barnett said, because the community that grew from Expatsi’s TikTok engagement and Facebook group put those two locations at the top of their relocation wish lists.

Spain is the leading contender right now for Rachel Mims, 42, who lives in Texas and participated in the Portugal and Spain scouting trips in March.

“I had never been to either country before. I got to see multiple cities in each country. We did things like go grocery shopping, navigate public transportation and tour neighborhoods to see options of places to live,” she said in an email. But the best thing was meeting other people considering a similar move, she said.

She’s eyeing a move to Barcelona by the middle of next year, where she may apply for a student visa with a 20-hour a week teaching job. Mims is an art therapist and licensed professional counselor and an Army veteran. She hopes to continue working as a therapist remotely with some clients.

‘Every day is just miraculous’

While Barnett and her husband are a long way from Spain and Portugal, they’ve been thrilled so far with their choice of Mérida.

“We just love it. Like every day is just miraculous,” Barnett said.

Back in 2020, when they identified their criteria, Andrews wanted to be in a US time zone and relatively close to his family, while great cuisine was a requirement for Barnett. They both wanted a place that respects women’s and LGBTQ rights, and Barnett said she thinks Mexico is trending in the right direction there. And she said they feel very safe in the city.

They’re working as digital nomads for their own company and are in the process of gaining their temporary residency.

They have US health insurance based on their remote worker status and pay out of pocket for most health-related expenses, but they’re pleased with the health-care situation.

“It’s not just the cost of it, it’s also the access to it,” Barnett said. After more than a year of trying to get a specialist appointment for her husband in Birmingham, they gave up. They were able to get an appointment within days in Mexico, and it cost $38 out of pocket, she said.

“So people often ask us about the quality of health care in Mexico, and first of all, it’s excellent. But even if it weren’t, we feel like the health care that we can access and afford is superior to the health care that we can’t.”

And they love the city’s vibrant culture.

“We can go downtown and see them play the Pok-Ta-Pok game of fireball in the streets on Saturday nights,” Barnett said. “There’s just Mayan art and architecture and culture everywhere.”

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