From the US to the UK, the UAE, Malaysia, and Bali: Kristen
Feeling like an outsider in the UK. Easily making friends in Dubai. Not fitting in in Kuala Lumpur. And how a summer vacation from Bali ended up lasting 6+ years.
As a teenager, Kristen knew that she was going to live in London someday. In her twenties? She did.
I don’t think she had any idea that she would also live in Dubai. And Malaysia and Bali.
I know for sure that when she flew to the US for a 2 month summer vacation, she had no idea that she wouldn’t go back to Bali for 6 years (and counting).
How did a 2 month vacation turn into 6 years?
Will she ever get back to all of her belongings she left in Bali?
Will she move somewhere else and if so, where?
And most of all, what was it like living in these totally different countries and cultures?
This is Kristen’s story of living in places she loved and places that were hard. Starting from scratch with a partner and going it alone. And the kinds of things that would be important to her if and when she is ready to move abroad again.
This is her story of leaving home and finding home.
How did your first international move come about?
I was 24 and my husband at the time was a chef. He was working for a company that was expanding in the UK and they were sending all of their chefs over to the US to train with him. And I said, “That doesn't make sense. This would be so much more economical if they sent the two of us over there.” And so he pitched them on that and we moved to England.
I thought we were moving to London, but we moved to a town called Basildon, which is outside of London, in Essex. It was not as picturesque as what I had imagined England would be. The little town was really sweet, but it was very local. It was not a place where people came from other countries to live. We'd go into the pub and everyone in the pub would turn and look at us like Who are these outsiders?
Every chance I got, I was taking the train into London. I felt much more comfortable in London, because I could just go in and be sort of anonymous and blend in with all of the other tourists and all the other outsiders.
I never think of the UK as being that much different from the US. What was the adjustment to that culture like? How hard or easy was it?
I just assumed I was going to get to England and it was going to look English, but everything else was going to be the same as it is in America. I had no clue that it was going to be different.
And it's little things. Like in the States, when you have a meal—you order your drinks, your starter, your main, your dessert. They bring the check and they set it on the table and you can easily add on if you want, but it's sitting there.
In England, if you're in a pub, you go up to the bar and order and they give you a wooden spoon or a stick to put on your table. And that's how they know to bring your order. In the pub, nobody was coming to the table to take our order. So we're sitting there forever like How's everybody else getting their food?
I thought people weren't coming over to serve me because I'm the foreign person or whatever. Like, I'm not from here. I didn't know that nobody was coming to serve anybody. I'm looking around. I'm like What the hell is going on? Why is he ignoring me?
But they weren't going to bring the bill unless you asked. And so we're sitting there for hours sometimes. And I feel like I'm a bad person for asking the question and being so demanding. When no, they're just not going to bring the bill until you ask.
How did you figure all of this out?
I definitely started paying a lot of attention to social cues when I hadn't been paying attention before. Watching a lot more, becoming a lot more observant, and consciously knowing that, okay, I'm going into a new place, I'm going to have to pay attention to what's going on.
There were a couple of times when somebody would take us under their wings. Through my husband's work, one of the guys was taking us out and he was explaining some differences. But largely I just knew I had to make that conscious shift.
What about friendships?
I made really good friends with my next door neighbor and we're still sort of in touch now. I didn't really make friends other than her until I was working in London. And even that took a little bit of time.
It was not as easy as I thought it would be. I didn't even think about what it's going to be like to make friends. I just assumed that I would. Up until then, all of my friends had been people that I'd gone to school with and friends of friends from their schools. And then, when we went to new schools, the friend network just kept growing. And then there were friends from work.
So I just assumed it would be easy. But at work, everyone was very social, but it was like your work social group. It wasn't like making friends.
I had acquaintances, but it took me a while before I made a good friend there.
My other experiences, though, were fairly different. Like when I was in Dubai, it was really easy to make friends. The experience was night and day to what it was like in London.
How did you end up in Dubai?
My marriage had ended and I was in a new relationship and we were sort of like: Let's try something new. Let's give it a go. Why not? London was dark and gray and rainy. And as much as I loved it, I was still just going and doing the same things over and over.
My best friend moved to Dubai and she was talking about how great it was. And it looked amazing. Living at the beach. Making a lot more money. Great career opportunities.
My partner at the time got a job there before we moved. I didn't—I'd had a couple of little interviews, but he got a job before I did. So we packed up and moved.
He'd been out to Dubai ahead of time to kind of scope it out and see if he liked it. And I was like: Oh, what's the worst that's going to happen. We'll just pack up and move and if we don't like it, we'll move somewhere else.
So we moved to Dubai on a two-year plan. I thought we will go to Dubai for a little bit, we'll enjoy that lifestyle, and then we'll move back and be close to my family. But once we were both in Dubai, the pull of that wasn't as strong.
What was so great about Dubai?
Where did you go next?
My job offered me a role in Malaysia and I jumped at it. I lived in Kuala Lumpur, but my role took me all around the country. So I was in Johor and Ipoh and Malacca and everywhere. I traveled the whole of the country for work.
I hated Malaysia, though. After my Dubai experience, it was much harder than I thought it was going to be.
In the UAE, you've got Dubai, which is the glitz and the glamour–the high life. And you've also got Abu Dhabi, which is a little more conservative, more family focused–it's not the party lifestyle.
In Asia, you've got Singapore, which is just like Dubai. And you have Kuala Lumpur, which is more like Abu Dhabi. And that's not where I was in my life. I was newly single. I wanted to be going out. And the expat community felt much more family oriented.
And work was harder also. Because we were not all expats–it was only two of us, my boss and me. Everyone else was local and most of the local people resented that I had come in as an expat. They felt very much that there were people on the team who were capable of doing the jobs that we were doing and they resented us for being the Western folks coming in and taking the local jobs. And that was hard.
Were you lonely?
I don't know that I would say I felt lonely. I did still hold on to a lot of friendships pretty closely in Dubai and so I still felt like I had those connections for a while. Until they got harder to keep and maintain. I started making some friends in Dubai, but then they left. And so it started to feel a lot more difficult. And work was really hard.
To a degree I felt lonely, but it was also really easy to date.
Tell me about dating in Malaysia.
Why did you leave Malaysia?
Well, after about a year and a half, I was really struggling. Work was really hard. I was not performing well. It was miserable. And I decided I didn't know if I was going to be able to go on. I came back from a vacation to the states where my dad and I went to REI to buy a backpack for me just in case I had enough one day and was like, That's it, I'm going to have to walk out. I thought I could just backpack around Southeast Asia.
When I got back to work, I found out my role had been made redundant. I lost my job and I thought: Well, now what? I decided that I did not want to put myself back into a corporate situation and I wasn't ready to move back to the States.
I didn't know where else I wanted to go, because my brain hadn't been thinking of that next step. So I decided to take some time off and figure it out. I thought I would give myself six months to decide what I wanted to do.
I went to Bali for a retreat. And on that retreat, I decided I was not going back into corporate and I was going to become a coach. And that's what I did for the next year and a half in Bali.
Were you planning on staying in Bali forever?
I figured I'd be there for a while.
I came back to the states in 2019 and I really thought I was just coming back for a two month summer vacation. And then I was getting ready to book my flight back to Bali at the end of the summer and my stepdad said, “I'm throwing a surprise party for your mom's 70th birthday.” And I'm like, OK, well, it looks like I'm staying until the end of September.
And then I was like, Well my birthday is the week after and it would really suck to get on a flight after my mom's birthday and miss my birthday here. So I'll stay.
And then I had an opportunity to go on a retreat with some coaches that I was working with in Canada. And that was at the end of October. So I'm like: Well, I may as well stay and go on that retreat at the end of October.
And then I just kind of kept extending it.
So 2 months turned into 6 years. Do you wish that you hadn't come back to the US?
No. It was good that I came back and stayed. I don't regret that I'm here at all.
I don't know that I'm here permanently and forever. But I think that's kind of been the way that I've addressed all of the other moves. I don't know how long it's for. It might be forever. It might not be.
What I do know is I don't necessarily want to start over again. While I'm a little bit open to the idea of exploration, this exact season is not a starting over season for me. Not yet. I am super content with where I am in this season of my life. If and when the right thing comes up, or the draw and the pull of moving abroad gets a little bit deeper and stronger, then absolutely, I'm open to it. I'm just not in that seeking out phase right this minute.
Is there anything that you know now that you wish you had known back before any of your moves that would have made them easier or less stressful or more fun?
Yeah, before moving to London, I would have told myself to be more flexible than I was at the time. I expected everything to fit into the way things happened here and they didn't because it's a different culture and it's different people and different timescales and different things. I’d tell myself to be more aware that that was going to be happening and to be more flexible about it.
And I think too, for every country: recognize that it's going to take longer than you think it's going to take. Be prepared for it to take longer than you think.
You think you're going to go in and set up your bank account and they're going to tell you that you need this other piece of paperwork. And in order to get that paperwork, you're going to have to wait for somebody to come back from their vacation. And that person is on vacation for another three weeks and nobody else can do it. Just be prepared. There’s not anything you can do to change it.
Good news!
Kristen is a mentor, challenger, and the guide who helps women break free from self-judgment loops to become their Favorite Self. Her approach combines neuroscience, behavior change, and nervous system regulation to create permanent identity-level shifts, not temporary fixes. She guides smart, ambitious women beyond mindset hacks into real transformation—helping them
If you want to connect with Kristen, you can subscribe to her substack Your Favorite Self and Field Notes: Wisdom for Woman Who Break the Rules
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WHAT ELSE DID WE TALK ABOUT?
Kristen and I talked about a lot of other things, including:
What it’s like to live in places where you feel like an outsider.
What it’s like to live in places where all of the people you befriend are coming and going in and out of the country all of the time.
Why it was so much easier to make friends in Dubai (as compared to London).
The kinds of expat communities we both enjoy living in. And the kind we don’t.
What belongings moved with her from the US to the UK to Dubai and then onto Malaysia and Bali. Including things she brought with her, but never took out of the moving boxes.
Why (if she makes another international move) she won’t pack up her belongings and ship them from her home in the US to her new home overseas.
What it was like starting a new business in a new country. What she looked for in a country to start her coaching business and the other place she considered before choosing Bali.
What she would be looking for in the next place she moves overseas. She shared her thoughts on where she’d like to be and why. SPOILER: she doesn’t think she’d go back to any of the places she’s already lived.
Paid subscribers can access the entire conversation.
