There are loads of good reasons why you should invite your family and friends to come and visit you in the UK – Cheap flights and fun holidays are just a few of them.

First of all, if your relatives they have not visited before they will have a great time in the UK and besides it is always nice to get the news and gossip from home in person!  Secondly, having visitors from home and showing them your new house, town, and country is often the best way of helping them understand your new life. 

On a side note, it is a funny fact that most expats never get around to visiting any of the great free museums, historical places, or tourist attractions unless they have someone to show them to! So get your friends and relatives over, and get out there and have a good look around!

Visits & Homesickness

However, there are a few things you should consider when you start planning the visits.

If you think back to the curve of adjustment in the Prepare to Relocate section you probably remember the curve had its lowest point after 3-6 months.




Whilst most first time expats think that the period with the lowest point would be the best time for having visitors it is often turns out to be the worst time possible. To see why, just spend a few seconds imagining how it would feel to hear about how fun and easy everything is “back home” whilst you are in the UK fighting to get a your first phone line installed whilst working hard trying to make life work for all family members.

Instead you should try to arrange for visitors in the latter half of the honeymoon period or after you have adjusted to life in the UK.

Not only will you at these two times have much more energy and be more enthusiastic about life in the UK, you will also have things to show you visitors and the knowledge to go with it! Both you and your visitors will have a much better time!

 

Visits & Friendships

Many UK immigrants, especially the ones from nearby European countries, often play down the physical distance between their old country and the UK.

Before setting off to live in the UK they think that the (cheap?) flight means they can come home for weekends and holidays and that friends and family will visit often.  In good and bad, this is rarely the case.

Realistically, almost all expats sooner or later realise that dealing with the physical distance from family or friends is difficult, and that it is simply is not possible to see each other as often as it was imagined before the move.

This typically means that even over your fist six months in the UK, the dynamics of your existing friendships will change and so will you. By then you will probably have started making friends in the UK and will need to spend more time on that.