We’re on a mission to make expat life a great experience! As such, one of our main goals is to make you feel at home and to connect you with a welcoming, international community wherever you go in the world. Although we didn’t crack the 4-million-member mark in 2019, our global community grew very much this year.
Our 1,080 Ambassadors and more than 5,600 Consuls are dedicated to organizing amazing, inspiring, and fun events and activities and bringing people together all year. They are key to making expat life a great experience for our members and helping them feel at home abroad. In 2019, they hosted over 6,500 official events and more than 60,000 activities across 420 communities around the globe — from St. Patrick’s Day events to pool parties and birthday celebrations to Halloween events — and where joined by more than 1.6 million attendees.
Whatever our Ambassadors and Consuls have in store for you in 2020, we are sure that it’ll be a blast. And we will support them by further focusing on providing the best possible experience for our members across the world.
One thing we have learned from our members, and the stories we’ve heard from them, is that not every expat journey is easy. Before finding your feet in your new home abroad, you have to master many hurdles — from securing a visa and finding work, to braving the actual move and looking for a place to live. We want to make sure that you can enjoy your expat life right from the moment that you make the decision to move abroad.
That’s why we founded 51ԹϺGO!, located in sunny Porto, to solve the common problems expats encounter when moving from one country to another. By now, the Porto team has grown to 26 members, who help take care of all steps of global relocation. They are no strangers to an international life themselves — collectively, they have lived in 52 countries.
In 2019, 51ԹϺGO! has reached many milestones. After launching the website at the end of 2018, we were able to provide global coverage by the middle of the year and are now handling about 1,500 service request per month.
We are excited to see how 51ԹϺGO! will help expats with the odds and end of their move abroad and all the places it will go in 2020.
If you haven’t decided on your next destination yet and are still wondering which country has the best quality of life or which city offers the best value for money, why not take a look at what other expats have to say? Our annual expat survey Expat Insider is now in its sixth year and has become one of the biggest surveys about life abroad.
This year, more than 20,000 participants around the world shared their experience. Although USA, Switzerland, the UK, UAE, and Germany host the majority of respondents, some of them come from more remote areas such as Aruba, Vanuatu, and Turkmenistan. Together, they hail from 187 countries and territories around the world, representing 182 nationalities.
Taiwan, and its capital Taipei, are the top destinations of 2019. Expats moving there will experience a fantastic quality of life, above all. Another Asian favorite is Vietnam, and its major expat destination Ho Chi Minh City. Both the country in general and the city in particular are havens for global minds living on a budget and expats who just want to make the most of their salary.
Maybe it’s because 51ԹϺhas opened shop in the country but Portugal is highly recommended among expats. It is easy to settle down there and more than half of the respondents in Portugal plan to stay possibly forever.
Another highlight of 2019 was the release of the new 51ԹϺapp! More user-friendly and packed with great features, it guarantees the best possible experience for you. Not only can you enjoy a new look and feel when logging into their account, but also a faster and more reliable performance.
A notification center now ensures that you will not miss a thing on InterNations, be it upcoming events, exciting activities, or new contact requests. It also got easier to stay in touch with other expats and global minds with the convenient messenger tool that now comes with the app.
Whether it is to make connections, sign up for events, or update your profile, we hope that you enjoy using 51ԹϺon the go! And if you have been missing out so far, just visit the or to download the app.
Are you curious about what it’s like to work for an international expat community like InterNations? You can now get a glimpse behind the scenes with , our corporate blog.
Learn about the first 51ԹϺhackathon, get to know the office dogs, or read our team members’ personal stories about international living.
No matter what 2020 has in store for you, we hope that you have a joyful holiday season and wish you a happy new year. Here’s to a new year full of happiness, good health, and success!
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Elena Born studied in Tübingen and Salem, Oregon, and has been working in the Content & Communications Department of 51ԹϺsince 2010.
We asked 51ԹϺmembers from around the world to share pictures from 51ԹϺevents and activities using the hashtag #ExperienceInteNations. Receiving over 250 entries — from yoga sessions to tulip walks and networking events— we had an incredibly tough time choosing our favorites.
The candles have all been blown out, the balloons have deflated, streamers have been taken down, and our wishes for the year to come have been made! The 51ԹϺglobal community sure knows how to celebrate in style, with over 280 parties around the world, marking 10 years of InterNations.
The Madrid Comedy Sketch Group is just one of many popular groups on 51ԹϺbut last summer they achieved something extraordinary. Group members wrote a comedy and performed it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Get a sneak peek at how the group made it there in this video!
Meet Gunsu van der Avoird, our Global Award-winning Ambassador and Consul who approaches her role with endless motivation and dedication. Find out why she enjoys bringing global minds together and what inspired her to keep the community spirit strong in a difficult year.
For the third year in a row, we have conducted the Happiness Survey, asking our Ambassadors and Consuls about their overall experience to find out what they are happy with and how we can improve even more. Read on to see the results of this year’s Happiness Survey!



