Virtual Expats

I follow a Twitter account about expat life called @WeAreXpats. It's a RoCur (rotating curation) account, meaning each week a new expat takes control of the account and tweets about their experiences. Right now it's an American woman living in Japan. Sometimes it's a Chilean guy living in Germany, a Swedish woman in Canada...you get the idea.

The feed is mostly about culture shock experiences and tips for getting used to a "new normal". Commiserating about visas is a given. The discussion about using the term "expat" vs. "immigrant" is another perpetual topic of conversation. 

A few weeks back @StephFuccio had control of the account and shared about her experiences in language learning. A resident of Shanghai, she is a devoted student of Mandarin Chinese. She also documented a trip she took to Thailand to seek medical treatment. Health insurance, pharmaceutical prices, and access to healthcare has been a big eye-opener for me since I first lived outside of the U.S. Her feed caught my eye and we've been in touch ever since.

Steph hosts a channel on PodBean with 60+ podcast episodes that deal with language learning and expat culture. Steph is starting up a new series called Virtual Expat that explores how the internet and tech affect the lives of expats from all over the globe. 

I'm excited to announce that I've been invited to participate in an episode! I've been communicating about my expat experiences for awhile now. This blog actually started out as a pre-Facebook way for family to watch my expat life way back in 2010 when I moved to Ireland. Once everybody and their mom finally got on the FB bandwagon, I abandoned the blog. 

Now as a remote freelancer, tech is an integral part of my livelihood. I rebooted my blog 6 years later to start a content writing career and found success in tech copywriting. Now I use it as a place to share travel information and adventures in technology learning but I am much more active on other social media like Twitter and InstaGram. 

I'm excited to be a guest on Virtual Expat and talk more about the evolution of online tools for expats with Steph. Watch here and I'll post a link when she uploads it in October.