The best countries 2019 to enjoy life and work according to expats

old town of Faro in Algarve, south coast Portugal.
Faro in Portugal, the country was ranked third by expats.

When we travel for a long weekend or for a couple of weeks vacation we are usually interested in the destination alone. Whatever we can discover about the quality of life and work in the destination is an added bonus to the overall experience. But when people who have been sent to live and work overseas by their employers review the place they are living, they have a different view. They have actually experienced the pros and cons of the local culture. This is what makes the country ranking by expats so valuable for anyone who is considering of staying more than a couple of weeks in a destination.

The expatriate country survey is conducted annually by Munich-based InterNations. More than 20,000 expats, including retirees, students, executives and professionals were asked to rate the places they live. The respondents represent 182 nationalities, living and working in 187 countries or territories. A few countries attract a majority of expats — three in ten live in Germany, the USA, Switzerland, the UK, or the UAE. The Expat Insider 2019 survey received enough data to rank 64 countries across the world.

The survey questions were grouped in five categories: Quality of Life, Ease of Settling In, Working Abroad, Family Life, and Personal Finance.

Here are the top 50 countries to live and work 2019 as ranked by expats:

  1. Taiwan
  2. Vietnam
  3. Portugal
  4. Mexico
  5. Spain
  6. Singapore
  7. Bahrain
  8. Ecuador
  9. Malaysia
  10. Czech Republic
  11. Bulgaria
  12. Luxembourg
  13. Panama
  14. Israel
  15. New Zealand
  16. Colombia
  17. Australia
  18. Qatar
  19. Finland
  20. Canada
  21. Costa Rica
  22. Kazakshtan
  23. Estonia
  24. Netherlands
  25. Thailand
  26. Morocco
  27. Philippines
  28. Belgium
  29. Indonesia
  30. Hungary
  31. Malta
  32. Oman
  33. Germany
  34. Poland
  35. Norway
  36. Kenya
  37. Austria
  38. Switzerland
  39. Japan
  40. UAE
  41. Hong Kong
  42. France
  43. Ireland
  44. Sweden
  45. Cyprus
  46. Chile
  47. USA
  48. Denmark
  49. Egypt
  50. China

Klaava is all about writing visual travel guides that show and inform about destinations that are worth visiting in a region and that also explain the culture of a region. When I compare the country ranking of expats and the ranking of the most visited countries of the world, there are major discrepancies.

For instance, USA was the third most visited country in the world in 2017 but expats don’t like to live in the country at all. USA was ranked among the 20 worst countries for expats. Even larger gap between the vision of a tourist and real life in a country is Italy. Expats ranked Italy as the second worst country of all countries that were rated by InterNations. Countries like Ukraine and Nigeria got higher points than Italy. Yet, Italy is the fifth most traveled to country in the world. Obviously, Italy’s glorious history and harsh reality of today are experienced differently by tourists and expats.

Reported by Bloomberg.

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