Teachers choose a different life abroad because teaching overseas combines steady work with travel and cultural discovery. A contract covers rent and food, while weekends hand you a country you’ve only seen in photos.
Still, the gap between wanting it and doing it stops plenty of people. They picture the classroom but not the paperwork, the visa, or that first week of feeling foreign. That messy middle is where the stories on Tales From A Barstool begin.
This guide covers how three teachers made the jump, what a day in a foreign classroom feels like, and what your salary buys. You’ll also see why some contracts end early.
Teaching Overseas Stories: Teachers Who Swapped Routine for the World
Teaching overseas stories usually begin with one conversation, not a grand plan. Someone forwards a job advert, a friend mentions a recruiter in Seoul, and the flight gets booked before doubt catches up.
Three teachers share their stories below, from the first application to where they are now. None of them planned beyond the first contract.
Trading Office Life in London for a Korean Classroom
She spent years at a London desk before a colleague sent through a list of teaching jobs abroad, most of them in Busan. Her application took one weekend, and the TEFL course filled her evenings after that.
Her first term tested her, because a room of nine-year-olds doesn’t care how nervous you are. By the second term, she knew every name and half the playground jokes (the jokes took longer than the names, obviously).
Three years on, she’s still teaching in South Korea. She has no plans to go back to the desk, which never gave her a Saturday in a new city.
Why One Teacher Stayed in Thailand for Five Years
He stayed because the work kept changing while the life around it stayed warm and affordable. One school year he taught beginners, and the next he ran the English language club for teenagers.
Money played its part too, since his teaching job covered a flat, a motorbike and a trip somewhere new each month. Beyond the budget, he’d built a circle of friends.
Five years in, he still signs a fresh contract each spring (his parents have finally stopped asking when he’s coming back). He has now taught abroad longer than he ever worked at home. Thailand is no longer just a posting. It has become his home.
The Teacher Who Writes the Expat Lifestyle Down
Our third teacher started a blog during her first week teaching English in South Korea. She wrote about her first classroom mix-up, and plenty of others record their experiences the same way. Those posts are worth reading before you apply. They record the small things recruiters skip, like buying a SIM card or greeting a head teacher.
Honest writing about the expat lifestyle mentions the quiet Sunday as well as the beach photo. Across the accounts teachers send us, that balance says more about teaching abroad than any brochure does.
Reading a few sets your expectations at the right height. You’ll know what the first month asks of you.
What Does Teaching English Abroad Feel Like Day to Day?
Teaching English abroad feels like steady lesson planning mixed with cultural surprises and small wins with your students. Most of the week looks familiar to any English teacher, though the surprises usually land outside the lesson plan. Every placement differs, but the weekly rhythm rarely changes.
Here’re the three parts of the week you’ll meet in your first month:
- Lesson Planning and Prep: Most evenings include an hour of prep, and that hour shrinks as your materials pile up. Schools hand you a curriculum, yet you decide how the grammar sticks, and that choice is the craft of English language teaching. Games and short videos beat worksheets with young learners.
- Culture in the Classroom: Rules you take for granted shift once you cross a border. Greetings, school etiquette and how parents contact teachers all work differently. Asking a local colleague saves you weeks of guessing. And respect for the culture carries you further than fluent language does.
- Small Wins With Students: Expect progress in sentences rather than chapters, long before a test records it. A quiet student answering in full English can carry your whole week. Those are the teaching experiences that keep English teachers signing another contract.
Keep a folder of the lessons that worked, because your second year as an ESL teacher leans on it. This job rewards preparation far more than natural talent.
Building an Expat Lifestyle Through Travel and International Teaching
Beyond the classroom, the best part of international teaching is that your salary funds travel across a whole new region. A long weekend from Hanoi reaches three countries, and a half-term break from Dubai opens the Middle East (your passport fills up faster than your savings account does).
Your money also behaves differently once you land, and any UK income you keep earning has its own rules. Many English teaching jobs include accommodation or a housing allowance, which frees the slice of your pay that used to disappear on rent. You’ll feel it the first time a weekend away costs less than a night out at home.
Many international teachers plan by region instead of by year. They keep the UK government’s travel advice open next to the job adverts. Two contracts in East Asia, then South America or New Zealand, is the simplest way to see more of the map.
From what teachers tell us, the ones who settle fastest treat the new country as home rather than a long holiday. They join a club, learn the basics of the language, and collect experiences that outlast the contract.
Friendships form instantly in staffrooms, because someone there arrived six months before you did.
Why Some Teachers Stay and Others Leave Early: Experience and Posts
Plenty of teachers extend their contract after the first year, yet few talk about why others fly home early. The difference rarely comes down to the destination itself.
Support, friends and motivation decide how the year goes. The table below compares the two groups:
| What shapes the year | Teachers who extend | Teachers who leave early |
|---|---|---|
| Support at school | Mentor plus a clear curriculum | No handover, constant cover |
| Social circle | Friends outside work by month two | Flat, phone, repeat |
| Reason for going | Curiosity about the place itself | Escape from a bad job at home |
Your first year abroad depends more on support, friends and motive than on the postcode. By the end of a term, you’ll know which column describes your year.
Ready to Start Your Own Teaching Journey Abroad?
The teachers here didn’t start with a plan; they started with one small step and a signed contract. Your version of that step might be pricing a TEFL course this week.
Pick the region you’re curious about, then work backwards through the qualifications and the visa you need to teach overseas. That research takes a few evenings and saves months of second-guessing.
Ready to swap the routine for a classroom somewhere new? Read our teaching stories and see how other people made the same call.