Navigating The Stressful (Chaotic) Pre-Move Period

You’ve signed the contract. You know you’re going. And now you’re in the thick of what is, for most international teaching families, one of the most exhausting and overwhelming periods of the whole experience – the pre-move period!

It’s not the move itself. It’s everything that happens before it. Waiting, uncertainty and what feels like a lot of spending (e.g. on paperwork or visas that you’re hoping you’ll recoup). Then there’s the decisions you can’t make yet because you’re still waiting on something else. And doing all of this while you’re working full time, your kids are still in school, and somewhere in the middle of it you’re supposed to be figuring out where you’ll spend the summer holidays.

While everything will no doubt work out in the end, that’s not particularly helpful to hear when you’re in the middle of it. Here’s our honest look at what makes this period so hard, and some practical things that actually help.

The Visa Wait (And Everything That Depends on It)

For most families, the pre-move period is defined by one thing above everything else: waiting for visa confirmation. And until it comes through, it’s hard to move forward.

You don’t want to book flights (or your school won’t book them for you until everything is confirmed). You can’t book international shipping, even though the time is getting closer to leaving your current destination. And in the meantime, you’re probably getting questions from well-meaning friends and family about your plans – which still seem very much up in the air!

Visa processing times vary enormously depending on destination, time of year, and how efficiently your school’s HR team moves things through. Some families have a smooth few weeks. Others are still chasing confirmation six or eight weeks out from their planned departure (or sometimes less!), with nothing concrete to work with.

What makes it harder is that this uncertainty tends to create a ripple effect across every other decision you need to make – and the pressure builds the longer it goes on.

Top Tip: Stay in regular contact with your school’s HR team and ask them to flag any issues as early as possible. Keep copies of every document you’ve submitted and track submission dates. The more proactive you are, the less likely you are to be caught off guard by a delay that could have been dealt with sooner.

The Financial Pressure is Tough

One of the things families consistently say they weren’t prepared for is how much money goes out before the move even happens – and how long it can take to get any of it back.

Visa fees and medical tests are charged per person, not per household. Apostilles, certified translations, courier fees, document authentication – all of it adds up fast, and for a family of four you’re multiplying most of these costs immediately. And you may not get all of it back. For example, if you live outside of a major city, you’re not going to be reimbursed for travel costs to the capital to organise your visas from the embassy.

On top of that: travel insurance for the gap before school cover kicks in, excess baggage if you’re bringing more than your allowance, and the constant drip of smaller costs you hadn’t budgeted for, like kids” things that need replacing before you go (shoes, uniform that just can’t stretch the final few months), the farewell dinners that add up more than you expected.

Most packages do eventually reimburse a significant portion of this. But the gap between paying and being paid back is real, and it’s stressful – especially when you’re also trying to manage the cost of a summer that now has a big international move sitting in the middle of it.

Top Tip: We’ve put together a detailed breakdown of what families should realistically budget for before a move – including a summary table of conservative versus higher-end costs. Worth reading before you start spending.

Read next: Do International Schools Pay for Visa Costs and Paperwork?

The Summer In Between

If you’re moving between contracts, summer isn’t just about squeezing in a holiday. It’s about figuring out where you’re actually going to live for six to ten weeks.

If you’ve been living overseas for a while, “going home for summer” isn’t always as easy as it sounds. You may not have a home to go back to. You’ve been renting it out, or you sold it, or you simply don’t have a base anymore. Which means you’re looking at staying with family – which comes with its own complications – or paying for short-term accommodation on top of everything else.

And if you’re returning to a high cost-of-living country like the UK or Australia, the costs add up quickly. Accommodation, a hire car because you no longer have one, day trips to keep the kids occupied, catching up with people scattered across different cities. It’s not a holiday – it’s an expensive holding pattern while you wait for your new life to begin.

On top of that, you’re usually doing this while the move is still in progress. Visas might not be confirmed. You’re fielding admin emails on your phone, trying to mentally be present for a summer that doesn’t quite feel real because you’re already thinking about what comes next.

There’s no easy fix, but it helps to plan the summer as its own logistical challenge rather than assuming it’ll sort itself. Think about where you’ll be based and for how long, set a realistic budget for it, and try to build in at least a few days that are genuinely low-key and restful – even if the rest of it is organised chaos.

What Do You Actually Take With You?

At some point during the pre-move period, you have to make decisions about your stuff. What gets shipped. What gets taken as luggage. What gets sold, donated, or left behind. And for most families, this is more emotionally and logistically complicated than it sounds.

Shipping vs Taking It With You

Sea freight is significantly cheaper than air freight, but it’s still expensive (especially with the current state of the world) – and it takes time. Depending on your destination, you could be waiting six to ten weeks for a sea shipment to arrive after you do. That means weeks of living out of suitcases in a new country, which is manageable for adults and genuinely hard for kids.

Many schools provide a shipping allowance, but it’s often capped by weight or volume and may not cover dependents. It’s worth getting quotes for multiple options – sea freight, air freight, excess baggage, and services like Send My Bag – and comparing them against what you actually need to bring. In some regions, particularly Latin America, you’re often better off bringing more as additional baggage and shipping less, due to high import duties and customs complications.

Our general advice: ship less than you think you need. Most school accommodation covers the basics, and it’s almost always cheaper and easier to buy things at your destination than to ship them. If you are shipping, make sure to check if there are additional arrival costs – not always included in the quote from the shipping company (or sometimes hidden in the fine print).

The Emotional Side of Reducing Your Stuff

What no one tells you is how hard it is to go through your home with the intention of getting rid of a significant chunk of it – especially when you have kids.

Kids attach to things in ways that aren’t always logical to us! The plastic dinosaur that’s been living under the sofa. The soft toy that hasn’t been played with in two years, but absolutely cannot be thrown away. The art projects and the birthday cards and the random collection of things. As my daughter often tells me, “But Mum, that’s my whole childhood!”

Deciding what makes the cut can be genuinely painful. And doing it while tired, under time pressure, and already emotionally stretched is a lot. A few things that help: start earlier than you think you need to, do it in stages rather than one big weekend, and involve your kids in the process rather than making decisions for them. Give them agency over what they keep (within reason), and you’ll (hopefully) get a lot less resistance.

Top Tip: Get your kids involved in selling things they no longer need. Whether that’s by emailing your school colleagues, a Facebook Marketplace listing, or a front-garden sale. Some kids turn into little entrepreneurs once they realise there’s money in it. It gives them ownership over the process, makes decluttering feel less like loss, and the proceeds can go towards something for them when you arrive in your new home.

Still Doing All of This While Life Carries On

If there’s one thing that makes the pre-move period uniquely exhausting, it’s that normal life doesn’t stop for any of it.

You’re still going to work every day. Your kids still need packed lunches, clean uniforms and someone to take them to their football practice on Thursdays. You still need to do the shopping and visit the dentist and all the ordinary machinery of family life – but now you’re also managing an international relocation on top of it.

If you’re both working, this is especially brutal. The move admin – chasing visa updates, getting quotes from shipping companies, sorting documents, researching your new neighbourhood – happens at 10pm, in lunch breaks, on weekends. The mental load of tracking all of it across two tired adults is huge. And it almost always falls unevenly, which creates its own friction.

The best thing you can do here is be realistic about capacity. Something will slip – a work deadline, a social commitment, a tidier house, your sleep. Accept that now, and try to agree together on what the priorities are, so you’re not both running at full speed in different directions.

The Emotional Weight of It

Underneath all the logistics is something harder to put your finger on…. the uncertainty of not knowing exactly what you’re moving towards. The stress of leaving somewhere you’ve loved (or even if you haven’t – somewhere you and your family are familiar with). The anxiety about whether your kids will be okay. The pressure of being the person holding it all together when you’re not entirely sure you are.

A lot of parents describe this period as one where they feel like they can’t fully voice their own stress – because they’re the ones who need to be reassuring to their kids, and being visibly anxious doesn’t help.

But it’s important to talk about how you’re feeling. Have a chat with your partner or a friend who’s made a similar move. Talking to people who genuinely understand this specific experience makes a difference. This isn’t a life transition that most of your friends and family back home will get.

The pre-move period is tough. It’s harder than most people on the outside realise. If you’re in it right now and finding it genuinely tough – that’s not you struggling. That’s just what this is.

Thankfully it won’t last forever. And the other side of it is worth it. But you don’t have to pretend it’s easy to get there!