Top Tips for Moving to The UK From Abroad?

Top Tips for Moving to The UK From Abroad?

Moving abroad always brings a mixture of emotions. Moving is an exciting, wonderful but nerving and sometimes scary time, which is completely natural. Whenever you make a big life decision like this, there is no better way to feel safer in your move than by being prepared. To give you a helping hand, we’ve put together this article with some top tips to get you ready for your move whilst removing your fears!

Plan Ahead

As soon as you’ve decided to make the move, you can start planning. If you’re a ‘leave it to the last minute’ type of person, then you need to change your ways as this isn’t something you can wing. Seat leasing and planning ahead is definitely the best way to go, get plotting out your route, creating lists of what you’ll need and writing down everything you can think of such as what you need to do and what you need to get sorted as part of the move. In the beginning, just literally listing everything you can possibly think of and then formalise it into more of an order at a later date. You can put things into categories and begin to timeline when need to have things boxed off by. If it’s a route you’ll planning, there are some handy digital maps you can use that plot out the best route and how long it will take you. 

Visiting the Place for a Recce

If possible, it always helps if you visit your new location before you move. What can be good the first time, may not be as good the second so if you can make sure you visit the place multiple times before you make your move to your new home. If you visit at differing times, you’ll get a full picture of the place and get a feel for the people and place, making it easier to adjust in the long run as you’ll have an idea of what to expect.

Build A Network

If you move to the UK it’s crucial that you create a network of friends and work contacts. With mobile technology, you’d be surprised at how easy this can be. Through avenues such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn it has never been easier to connect with people from afar that you don’t know. Start by performing a simple search for some local clubs, societies and groups that you want to get involved with when you’re over there. You can even get some events planned before you get there! This will mean that you can hit the ground running when the big day comes.

Get the Important Things Boxed Off 

So after the big news of Brexit, immigration has been a under the spotlight in the country. Therefore, it has never been more important to have your documents in order for when you move across. Make sure you have a valid passport, your visa or EEA family permit if you’re moving with the whole gang and any insurance you’ll need. It is the boring stuff but it is also the most important. If this isn’t your strong suit you can opt to speak to immigration lawyers in London as they’ll be able to provide you with advice suited to your situation – it’s better not to mess this part up so if you’re not the most organised, you should seek help.

Get Strict in The Early Days

Excitement is bound to get you through the early days, but you will need to be disciplined when the honeymoon period wears off. It is at this point you need to get strict. Get a plan together and stick to it. Start contributing to your new life, build that new network and immerse yourself into the community. By doing this you will get support at the toughest part of relocation and enjoy all the benefits it has to offer. Once you have established yourself as a valuable part of the community, you’ll settle in much quicker and you’ll get off to a flying start in your new British location!

Good luck!

What is the American Dream Today?

What is the American Dream Today?

What is the American dream today? If you ask most people, they will answer something about a good career, a better home, or success in all things. What most of them really mean can be said much simpler and without pretense. The American dream is more money, but it didn’t used to be.

Money didn’t used to be the American dream, but it has become the facsimile of it. This is because our country has lost itself and few remember what we once believed in.

The truth is the American dream used to be happiness, now it is money. Even those who dream of fame or power, don’t really care about either without having money to back it up. This is all true, because American is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

America isn’t the greatest country today.

This is an assertion that is made regularly by the more progressive politically active person today. This is an opinion held by both liberal and conservative persons, by men and women, even an opinion by those that are anti-government radicals and anarchists. Most hold this opinion because something has left them disillusioned with the way American treats people, enforces laws, engages in foreign policy, or the way it fails to do each of these things. In any case, the American dream has slowly been eroded in the wake of the shifting of society into socially separate and economically stratified groups that feel their separation from true power to change the United States of America. That America is not the greatest country in the world and it isn’t nearly as rich, as it once was either.

American has become a divided nation.

The real problem with the American dream today is essentially that most intelligent people are guided in how they are focused on achieving it. We have a two party system that is supposed to be representative of equality and real world representation of public opinion. In reality, the two party system is set up in such a way, that if we do not choose one of the two sides, it is nearly impossible to even have an opinion. Anything that mildly deviates from the left or the right, those views are not likely to get enough support to be represented. Ask anyone from an extremist point of view, or someone holding very middle of the road political opinions. Both these equally valid positions, simply do not have enough representatives in the population to warrant either party worry about them. Except possibly in little percentages or swing votes, and only during the elections of major importance like the presidential, or elections for the Senate and House.

Americans think great things about the United States, but they have no reason or proof that they should feel that way about America. Almost as if there were two countries simultaneously existing on top of one another.

One being America, a land whose population is made up of common people and citizens, but nobody who actually can count on the government to protect them, or even share the same country with them. The other being the United States, it is a country whose population is made up of true believers in the body political or you might call them the United Statesians, like the Romans were the true believers in the military government overlooking the Roman Empire. Americans are free but not equal to the United Statesians. Both sides of American want freedom, but both do not believe in the same way of achieving it.

One thing is true, despite these basic conflicts.

Most Americans wane nostalgic for the past. A time before television, before technology, before the Internet, and before the country had become so jaded. When the country wasn’t so scared to be politically correct or socially incorrect. If the American dream still exits, it is a dream that is rooted in somehow returning to a place of innocence. Because happiness is still the real American dream in our hearts.

 

Jessica Kane is a professional blogger who writes for Faxage a leading company that provides Internet fax service for individuals and businesses.