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Living Abroad

The daily logistics of living abroad that nobody warns you about. Housing, transport, culture, and building a real routine in a new country.

⚡ Quick summary
Covers the four pillars nobody warns you about: local culture, housing, getting around, and the daily logistics that only make sense after you have lived them.For anyone still in the messy middle of building a life abroad, not just surviving one.

I moved to Stockholm from the Philippines in 2018 with two suitcases and a very optimistic plan. Every problem I thought I had prepared for turned out to be the wrong problem. Nobody warns you that shops close at 8pm on weekdays and barely open on Sundays, or that the November darkness, the kind that starts at 3pm while everyone around you acts completely unbothered, takes a full year to adjust to.

I have since moved from Stockholm to Barcelona, trading seven years of Scandinavian efficiency for Mediterranean chaos. Both cities are genuinely hard to navigate as a newcomer, just for completely different reasons. This guide captures both.

Jump to: Culture and Integration | Finding a Place to Live | Getting Around | Daily Life Logistics

Culture and Integration

The hardest part of living abroad is not the language. It is the invisible rules. When to show up on time. What silence at the dinner table means. Whether to make eye contact on the subway.

Sweden and Spain handle all of these differently, and neither one matches what you grew up with.

Swedish social life and what integration actually looks like

Culture through Stockholm spaces

Barcelona

Finding a Place to Live

Stockholm and Barcelona are both hard housing markets, but they are hard in completely different ways.

In Stockholm, the challenge is getting in. The first-hand rental queue can take years, so most newcomers go the second-hand route, which means navigating landlords who need association approval to sublet. I have been on both sides of this: as a tenant trying to get approved, and later as a landlord going through the association process myself, which is its own slow bureaucracy.

Once you are settled, the friction mostly disappears. Most Stockholm landlords do not charge a deposit: you pay the current month rent and move in. That simplicity is genuinely rare for a European capital.

Barcelona is a different problem. The process is faster to start but more expensive to execute. Expect fees on fees: agency fee, deposit (usually two months), first month, and sometimes a guarantor requirement if you have been in Spain less than a year. The listings that look affordable rarely are once you add everything up.

And before any of this in Sweden: getting your personnummer is the first thing you do.

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Start here if you are moving to Sweden: How to Get a Swedish Personal Number (Personnummer)

Without it, you functionally do not exist: no bank account, no pharmacy, no apartment lease, no phone plan. The barrier was genuinely harsh when I moved: the system assumes you already have a number to get the number.

Getting Around

Public transport in Stockholm is excellent once you understand the zones. Barcelona metro is fast, but the ticketing logic trips up newcomers who do not know the T-Usual vs T-Casual difference.

Barcelona transit

Stockholm transit

Daily Life Logistics

The small stuff compounds fast. Healthcare, cost of living, language basics: none of it is complicated, but figuring it out without a guide wastes weeks.

Not Ready to Live Abroad Yet?

This guide covers the living-there part. If you are still planning the move, start with the Moving Abroad Guide: visas, banking, and insurance live there. Still deciding whether to go at all? Should You Move Abroad? is the honest starting point.

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Local Culture

Daily Life

Finding Housing

Getting Around