You just had the most amazing idea - to move out of your homeland and live in another country for good. You are now absolutely, thousand per cent sure you want to do it. Now is time to start planning the relocation step by step. Read further to know more.

1. Prepare the documents
Check the expiration date of your passport, issue an international driving license, apply for a visa or work permission (if necessary), transfer your accounts in a bank in the new country, and have all your diplomas, qualifications etc. in the local languages and validate them. Research for any special customs regime items for the new country.

2. Choose the mean of transportation
With a view to the distance to the new homeland, decide upon how you and, more important, your belongings, will get there. If the country is on the same continent, moving lorries should make their way there. If on a different continent, you have to use air transportation, if you can afford it, because it's really expensive, or otherwise you have to use a combination of water and road transportation - the items will be loaded on a ship for some distance, and then, or before, moved to lorries.

3. Select the right moving company
No, you cannot carry out the relocation by yourself this time. You will definitely need professional help. Use the Internet to choose the right moving company for your foreign country relocation. The right company has to be respected, to have some experience in relocation to the particular country and to offer you a safe transportation by the mean you have chosen, for a reasonable price and within reasonable time. Warning: giving the moving company exact and detailed directions to the new residence is crucial!

4. Start packing
Start packing carefully. Unlike usual relocation, all your belongings have to be stacked inside one (or more) standard 20 or 40 feet container. This means 5,5x2,3x2,3 meters or 11,1x2,3x2,3 meters. Everything has to be wrapped, then put in moving boxes, and then put in the container and then fastened, so nothing can move inside the container while it is lifted up, dropped down and transported. Pay special attention to delicate items. At best leave the professional movers carry the boxes and the furniture in the container and fasten them in place. If you want to, your car can also be put in a container and transported to your new home. Some paperwork has to be done, so better leave this to the moving company. After everything has been packed and settled in the containers, say goodbye to your possessions for a while and get on the road yourself.

5. Think of the pet
If you have a pet, research the situation in the new country, because sometimes pets should be put under 3 or even 6 months of quarantine upon arriving, before you can have your beloved pet back.

6. Get there
Travel by train, car or airplane, carrying only the items needed for a few weeks of stay. All the rest will arrive later. Once there, open a bank account, subscribe the children for school, and scout the area to find the nearest post office, bank, hospital, police department, vet, pharmacy, grocery, hardware store, hypermarket, fitness studio and so on.

7. Prepare the new home for the moving in
After you already know where the hardware store and supermarket are, buy some tools and start repairing and redecorating (only if you have to!). Clean everywhere thoroughly. Make sure there is running water, hot water, electricity, gas, heating and so on. Contact the telecom company to get a phone installed, the Internet provider to connect you the WWW, and a cable operator to get a cable TV. Make a furniture layout plan and organize some help for moving day, if you can. If you don't know enough neighbours by then, hire a few movers from a moving company. On moving day have everyone and everything ready for the moving in.

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