Fishing Frenzy

There are varying degrees of travelers in the world exploring the planet that we've been given to live on. Tourists and vacationers will go to a place for a few days at a time while on their vacation, while backpackers will sometimes spend upwards of a few weeks or even a few months in the destination. But it is only the truly hardcore travelers known as expats who actually go a place to live there and become a native resident rather than just a visitor.

There are a lot of different reasons people choose to become an expat, such as the fact that you can actually experience a culture by living there, whereas if you are simply a tourist or a backpacker you are just passing through and thus only getting a taste of culture. It's kind of like reading a book; if you skim read it from front to back you'll only catch the gist of what the book is about, but if you read every single page you will understand all the different characters and how they work.

Becoming an expat also means learning the language and going native, so to speak. While tourists are generally staying in the resorts, and backpackers generally stick to the hostels, expats choose to rent long-term accommodations such as apartments or condos, or even pick up local property considering prices in other countries are fairly cheap.

Vacationers usually only stay on for a few days or a few weeks, while backpackers might make it for a few months, but expats of the ones who choose to go beyond the six-month mark and sometimes even go as far as five years in order to earn a secondary passport. This can lead to a number of benefits such as foreign bank accounts and offshore investments, as well as tax havens and various other loopholes that long-term residency offers.

At the end of the day, the type of traveler you choose to be will dictate the type of experience you have a destination. You can certainly see the sights and have fun while on vacation as a tourist, but you will never know a destination or experience it fully until you are an expat.