Expatriotical

Episode 54: Digging Deep When Doing Expat Research

• Season 1 • Episode 54

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Sensationalized headlines are everywhere and what happens when you need the headlines to help you learn more about your next country (next assignment or maybe first assignment) as an expat? In this episode, Chandra helps you dig deeper, to uncover the truth behind what some articles are saying, where they are getting their information and whether their sources can be trusted. She also gives you a great resource to keep in your pocket for your future research.

Plus, stay until the end when Chandra shares a family favorite from her time in Italy for this episode's "Chan Select"!


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"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!

Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, traveling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without losing your own.


Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life in every episode!


Bonjour tout le monde! Which means hello everyone or good morning everyone. I know that it is a good morning, but it is another cold and gray February day here in Paris. And maybe that has contributed to why I really have struggled to sit down and write this episode.


But honestly, more of that could be the fact that last week was a really big episode, big celebration or celebratory vibes, for the One Year anniversary of Expatriotical and I was thinking to myself I don't think I have the energy to like top that or meet that at an even energy level. So this episode is gonna be more chill and low-key. But I also hope that it will drive home the importance of Expatriotical and other podcasts of the like or websites of the like. Because we bring you, in the moment actual information and things that are actually happening and not like a news program, but basically the people that are on the show, they are living the life or have lived the life. And they’re not just another number, they’re an actual person giving true, to them, information.


So when I was in America over the Christmas holiday, so just a couple months ago and I was looking something up on Google, I noticed an article. In Europe, Google does not have articles or advertisements on its homepage. I think that's due to the regulations here for the EU. So for me, it's always weird when I go back to America and get on the Google homepage and I see these different articles.


But one of them caught my eye, the title of it was (and it’s kind of long) 2025’s Best Cities To Live In Europe For Expat Families, Per New Study. And it was put out by Forbes magazine. So since it was for expats, of course I was curious and I clicked on it. But when I started reading it, I thought, “What on earth is this writer talking about?”


But I didn't have all the time in the world to read it then and analyze it, even though it's actually a very short article and I will link it into the show notes so you can check it out for yourself, and so I emailed it to myself.


And today we're going to go through and I want to kind of debunk some these different things that are mentioned. The article is written by a writer named, Rebecca Ann Hughes, and she is based in Italy. So that actually makes her comments even more perplexing to me, not that it wasn't a well written article, it was, but maybe she just has had an entirely different experience than I did living in Italy.


Now I know if you've been listening long enough you know that I love Italy, I even said in recent episodes that I think I left a little piece of me in Italy and that I even feel that it's kind of in my blood now. I love Italy. I was just on the internet yesterday or the day before looking at small houses or apartments in Cinque Terre, which is my favorite place in the whole world. Um, because I like to dream and I would love a house by the sea, so who knows, maybe one day. But the four years that I lived there, those years were not easy.


And that's why when I read the subtitle of one of the sections, claiming Italy to be one of those best “cities”, which actually every listed were actually countries and not cities, so that’s a bit of a misnomer.


But let’s start at the beginning of the article. Basically, it says that the information that it has is pulled from a study done by an international insurance company called Williams Russell, which I've actually never heard of, and then when I looked into that and the methodology for what Williams Russell put together, it was actually them just going to a bunch of different websites and searching stuff.


I was thinking, that this was going to be a study that they did of expats abroad, but basically they went to other sites like TripAdvisor, Webometrics, Google Flights, and the OECD. Of all of those places in my opinion, the OECD, or organization for economic cooperation and development, is probably one of the more legitimate sources, it’s solid and I’ve actually made friends here in Paris that work for the OECD. And so the sources they pulled from there, those are solid. Though I will say that when I looked at the entire study of the 28 different countries that they pulled information on. The fact that they put the United States as having zero paid maternity or paternity or family leave weeks, is questionable. Maybe it's put that way because it’s a not mandated thing by the government and that's why they are able to put zero, but personally, the old policy (because it could have been updated as far as my knowledge goes) when my youngest child (who is now 6) was born in Italy, per my husband's company’s policy, he had three weeks of paid paternity leave. Now compared to that of Finland's 161 weeks, it's even a drop in the bucket, but 161 weeks for people that would like to do the math is just over three years.


That’s a long time away from work and for me being a stay at home mom, I going to honestly say I don’t know if I would want that long away. I might feel a little rusty and want to jump back into the game. BUT, that’s just me personally, I did not go back to, actually I did go back to work after having my daughter, but it was really challenging, so that’s another story.


Anyway, we're not here to talk about my maternity leave or the United States, but we are here to talk about getting information from reliable sources when you are about to move to another country.


The Forbes article also mentioned in its opening paragraphs, the best countries in Europe to relocate, in another article written by Rebecca Hughes, and she pulled her information from a study done last year by InterNations. In Episode 36 of Expatriotical: Expats… We’re Everywhere, I actually pulled a ton of information from that same study, which surveyed 12,500 different expats representing 175 different nations and living in 174 different countries.


It was a really solid study, and if I'm honest, I totally butchered that episode because I tried to do a different format with it and I didn't write down the script. And I later talked to my mom and to my husband, Chris, and they said it just was really hard to follow along because I was basically rattling off a ton of numbers and percentages and statistics. So I am going to apologize right now to you for butchering that really interesting and helpful information, and I'm also going to link that study or survey in the show notes so you can check it out for yourself.


Anyway, I say that to say that the info taken from the InterNation study does not coincide at all with the article that came across my path last December.


According to the William Russell study, if you can call it that, Portugal ranked highest with a 6.33 out of 10 for a family relocation score. Things that they looked at were net childcare costs, top universities, paid maternity or parental home care leave, average reading science and mathematics proficiency, average hours worked in 2022, child-friendly attractions per 100,000 people, cost of a one-way flight from London, I think they put that in there for people wanting to be able to go back home to their home country and visit, not sure, rent price per square meter for the city average, apartment price (if you want to purchase one) per square meter, and basic monthly utility costs.


So Portugal took first place because it performed well, they said across-the-board with affordable childcare costing 5% of the household income on average, the monthly average cost of utilities being $119, (and they converted all of this into dollars and you could also convert it into pounds and euros) and the price you would pay to buy an apartment being $266 per square meter.


I am not knocking Portugal, I have never been there, but have a dear friend who is from there. And I also have another dear friend, who I knew here in Paris it was her favorite place to travel to from Paris. And she actually hoped to retire there one day. So again, it sounds lovely, I'm not knocking Portugal, but I will say that in the InterNation survey, it's not at number one, Panama was actually number one last year, and Portugal is ranked in the top 15. So pretty great though!


Moving to the second country in the Williams Russell study, was Sweden, it has a family relocation score of 6.26 and was given that ranking for having the most affordable childcare in Europe averaging 4% of the household income and 10 of the world's top universities apparently. Also, it has one of the lowest average annual work hours of 1440.5. All of that sounds really great! But again when I go to the InterNation's survey where actual experts weigh in, Sweden is ranked 42 out of 53 countries. Again, not knocking Sweden because that same dear friend that’s from Portugal is actually half Swedish. And I have never been to Sweden and I’ve heard wonderful things.


But I'm giving you this so that as you start researching maybe your next country or if you're new to the podcast and you're not an expat, but you are thinking about becoming one, make sure to check your sources. And I trust sources that really get information about what it's like to live in these countries from actual expatriates.


And finally in this Forbes article from the William Russell (I was saying Williams Russell before, that’s not correct, there’s no “s” after William) from the William Russell study, they ranked Italy as the third country with a family relocation score of 6.22 out of 10. They say the reasons for this was that it had the joint lowest cost of childcare and also the third highest number of world class universities.


And though my kids were never in childcare in Italy, I certainly did price it out. And I can say that that could very well be true. In fact, right before Covid, I was considering putting my third child, Isaiah, into part-time preschool in the town that was a mile and a half away. And that was going to be a really big commitment for me because I was going to have to bike him there, rain or shine, but I was told by a dear friend who had had her children in that same preschool, that it was actually free. So affordable, childcare, check!


And good universities, I believe that also to be true as well. In fact, the oldest university in Europe is The University of Bologna located in Bologna, Italy. Which was founded in 1088. Yes, that's right. It was founded in the year 1000, nothing else after that until you say 88. I know, age does not necessarily mean greatness, but a lot of times when you've got hundreds- almost a thousand years of experience under your belt, it can mean that- let's be honest. And I certainly know my daughter has been planning to return to Italy for university one day, she's only 11 right now so we'll see if that happens, but if it does, I know she’ll love it.


So even though these two factors that William Russell used to determine that Italy should be ranked third in their study, are true, there's a lot of things that are missing. The 2024 InterNations survey has Italy ranked as 47th out of 53 countries. And I'm not completely sure why this was, but in my personal experience it could be due to the extreme challenge of the language barrier, the nightmare it can be to try to get through Italian bureaucracy for residency paperwork, etc… and a number of other things.


Again, I love Italy. But even if you ask Italians about dealing with the bureaucracy, or share that you've had a hard time with it, they might say something like, “Si, È normale.” Which means, “Yeah it's normal.” They're used to it. Doesn't mean they like it, but they know what to expect.


So to round out this short-ish and sweet episode, make sure when you see these inspiring headlines pop up, that you dig a little bit deeper. I'm not saying that the William Russell study was all bad, I actually think that the OECD data explorer that they used to find some of their information could actually be very helpful. But I also don't feel like we got a full picture from their study.


Whereas; I do feel like you get a really great picture of what expat life is like in a lot of the countries represented in the Expat Insider survey done by InterNations. Not only do they break down their study by country and in some cases even by city, but if you click on that country, you'll see what they did great at and what they didn't. When I clicked on Italy, it said things like… there was a worsening quality of life, but not surprisingly the Italian cuisine “kept expats delighted”. And I can speak from experience that that is completely true. The food is amazing!


And out of curiosity, I clicked on the United States, which is ranked 35th overall, but also said that the quality of life was disappointing due to the expensive healthcare and public transit being tricky (and it is tricky because we drive everywhere because it’s such a big country, let’s be honest). Though it was rated highly for “shining career prospects and efficiency in the digital world”. It went on to say that the average age of the person taking the survey as an expat in America was 48.1 years old and it said that the top reasons for moving were 16% to go to school or university, which actually when I just did a presentation for my son Carson's class at his school during international week, I learned that America was the number one spot for studying abroad, in the world. And in the expert insider survey, back to the survey, the second reason for moving to the US was employment at 12% and 10% for people being the partners of the other person that was employed.


Anyway, I'm going to be careful not to give you a bunch of statistics like I did in that previous episode where I mentioned the survey, but again I will put the link for the study in the show notes so you can check it out for yourself. It's pretty fascinating! And as a sidenote for people that don't like reading through numbers, they do a great job of making all of this information, visibly enticing. I am not the kind of person that just likes to read through a bunch of black and white text, but they had a lot of graphics and it just made it easy on the eyes and made it easy to skim through.


Now moving on to our “Chan Select” for this week's episode. Because I talked about Italy so much and in last week's episode I really wanted to put this as the Chan select, but I kind of needed to mention my new website expatriotical.com as last week's “Chan Select”.


But this week’s pick is so delicious! It’s called The Garage and it was a lunchtime or day date favorite for me and my family when we lived in Italy! I even wrote a review on Google, so I’m going to read it to you!


The Garage is one of my family’s favorite “hidden” gems! Moreno (the owner) is so welcoming and kind (even when we have all four of our active children eating with us). The ambiance is relaxed and inviting and the food… THE FOOD is delicious! The best way to describe it is that it’s like an Italian nonna (grandma) has invited you into her home and served you a meal that she has lovingly prepared for her family. For lunch, dinner, or even a pizza on the way home from work, The Garage is absolutely worth the stop!!


I wrote that review right around the time we were moving here to Paris. And Moreno responded, “Thank you very much. It was always a pleasure to have you for dinner even with your four little ones. I wish you a good trip and a good stay in Paris.”


His kindness, patience and charm was always so greatly appreciated. And his amazing hospitality and generosity, giving us salami di Cioccolato and always giving my kids some M&Ms at the end of the meal, and honestly just the overall deliciousness of his food, Pasta Amatriciana, being one of my favorite dishes of his, you can hear more about that dish in Episode 52: Favorite Foods Since Becoming an Expat.


Anyway, all of that made The Garage and its Harley Davidson motorcycle theme, a favorite spot for me and my family.


And due to this being truly a mom and pop type restaurant, you're not going to find him on social media, and he doesn't have a website, but I will be sure to include the link to all of the Google information complete with the address and the reviews so that if you're ever in Milan, Italy you can be sure to stop by The Garage and get a truly local and authentic experience!


And now for our “Quote of the Day”. Since in this episode, we focused on doing our due diligence when we read articles about expat life (and in general) and not always just taking them for face value, I thought it would be good to have a quote about diligence. And it comes from Spanish writer and author of the beloved novel Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes who said, “Diligence is the mother of good fortune…”


That quote actually continues to talk about idleness, it's opposite- the opposite of diligence, never getting a person to any of the goals of their best wishes. But in general, he's right. We tend to have better fortune when we dig a little deeper, do a little more research, and don't always take things for face value.


That's it for today, everybody! If you haven't yet visited my new website, when you are done with listening to this episode, please head over to expatriotical.com and check out everything that's happening over there.


I'm looking forward to meeting you back here next week when we pick back up with our TOEs or Types of Expats interview series and I talk to a young lady who has had experience both as an NGO, or non-governmental organization expat, and as a missionary expat. Her interview is super insightful and very heartfelt, and I can't wait to share it with you next week.


Until then, this is Chandra Alley signing off and reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know” with Expatriotical.