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Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America by Mark Ehrman. Reviewed by Jason Erik Lundberg
Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America (previously mentioned here) is volume 2 in Process Media’s Self-Reliance series, and aspires to be an all-purpose guide for expatriation from the USA. Written with a pessimistic slant toward the current state of the nation (only natural, since Process’s books tend to lean firmly to the left), the book presents a compelling case for leaving the country, be it for political or economic reasons, or for a chance at adventure.
Ehrman splits up the book into eight parts — Ways to Leave; Getting In; Foreign Citizenship and How to Get It; Work, Study, or Slack; Choosing a Country; The Top 50 Expat Meccas (which takes up fully half of the book); Doing It; and Web Resources — each presenting the details necessary for a move abroad (including website links when available), and peppered throughout with testimonials on living in a foreign country. Of especial note are the sections on obtaining a visa, working overseas, and health care (although this section could have been much expanded, as it is one of highest worries on an American’s mind today).
The greatest resource in the book, however, is its biggest chapter: The Top 50 Expat Meccas. Broken down are the statistics on style of government, population, currency, languages spoken, religion, ethnicity, cost of living, visa requirements, climate, infrastructure, internet access, health care, popular expat professions, taxes, crime rates, and attitudes toward cannabis use, homosexuality, and abortion. This information, coupled with the aformentioned testimonials, as well as first-person experiences, provide a wealth of information on choosing a new country in which to live.
Notably absent to this list, however, is Singapore, to which I just immigrated only two weeks ago. It is a country with one of the best health care systems in the world, excellent public transportation, and a hunger for recruiting foreign workers (specifically English teachers and professionals in science and engineering). It may have been overlooked because of its small size (approximately only as big as New York City), or possibly its socialist style of government, but there is no way to know; the criteria for which countries made it into the top 50 and why are not evident within the text, and the reasoning behind the choices made is vague.
There is also a surprising lack of deepness to the book, in that Ehrman provides a lot of information, but does not go as in-depth as similar books on the subject. This gives a broad but shallow reading experience, which may help to narrow down your choices on where to move, but is lacking in what to do after that. All the space given to first-person accounts is helpful (word of mouth is a powerful persuader), but Ehrman relies on it overmuch, and some of that space could have been re-allocated to more research from third-party sources.
Still, if you are considering moving overseas, Getting Out is a good place to start.
The book is available direct from the Process website, as well as through BookSense
and Amazon.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:48 am
I purchased the book when it was featured on the site prior, and I agree with your review. Putting aside the political slant (which is fully Left; Che would love this book), it has some useful info on a very broad basis and is organized quite well. One note: it is geared primarily to the younger expat who can survive on an English teacher’s salary or those who are studying abroad. I, at 36, am probably a little too old for some of the advice or strategies given. Still, it is an excellent starting point. One question: you mentioned other books which might be more in-depth. Can you list them with a link to Amazon?
April 18th, 2007 at 10:57 am
It’s good to know that this book is out here in case a democrat wins in ’08.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:02 am
I like how the cover uses the classic http://bbsnews.net/bbsn_photos/topics/Timeless_Events/caution_migrants_prohibido.jpg” rel=”nofollow”>border-crossing road sign.
April 20th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Justin, I hadn’t even realized that that is the border-crossing road sign. Thanks for pointing it out!
Brian, a similar title might be Patients Beyond Borders by Josef Woodman, which looks at medical travel, and which I’ll be reviewing at Vagablogging sometime soon. It’s on traveling overseas to save on health expenses due to surgeries or other procedures that are prohibitively expensive, and though this isn’t quite the same as expatriation, many of the preparatory tasks (acquiring a passport and/or visa, picking a country in which to travel, etc.) are similar enough; the difference comes in the research done, which Woodman went above and beyond to accumulate. Not that Mark Ehrman didn’t do his research, but Woodman’s feel far more based on rigorous fact-checking rather than gut-based decision-making.
And thanks for pointing out Ehrman’s intended audience, which indeed seems like the late 20s/early 30s crowd (though he does have an entire section on elderly expatriation). And the comment about only English teachers or foreign exchange students being able to afford to move overseas and find satisfying work is a valid one based on the text, but is not quite true in real life. Other countries have all the same jobs that the US does, but the trick is in being able to find those jobs, which, again, I think Ehrman doesn’t go into enough.