Here Are Some Things You’ll Need to Do.
It’s election season, and that means you should be doing a few important things: registering to vote, finding your polling place, getting your identification in order, educating yourself on the issues, and… making threats to leave the country if your preferred candidate doesn’t win.
Usually, that last election-season tradition is the province of Hollywood actors and prominent cultural figures. (We’re looking at you, Stephen Baldwin.) But in this especially contentious election cycle, in which 28% of Americans have considered moving out of the country if Republican candidate Donald Trump is elected, it might be good to have all your ducks in a row for a quick exit.
Here at Rentable, we specialize in finding apartments, no matter what your reasons for moving are. We’d love to help you find a flat or an apartamento in another country… but since we only list within the U.S.A., we can’t.
What we CAN do is provide this useful checklist of things to do to make your transition as quick and painless as possible. If you think election returns could turn you into an expatriate, try to check off as many of these boxes as you can before November 8:
1. Renew Your Passport
Though the wait isn’t quite as insane as it used to be, it still takes the State Department about six weeks to process a passport application. Expedited service brings the wait down to three weeks, but you’ll pay a pretty penny for it — an additional $60, on top of the flat passport fee of $110. Or, if you live near a passport agency, you can apply in person — but you’ll need an appointment and proof of immediate international travel. See this link for more details.
2. Learn A New Language… Or At Least a Few Phrases
Depending on where you escape to, you might need to learn a new language. No one wants to be the guy walking around with a travel dictionary in hand. And since you won’t have time to enroll in an intensive immersion course between now and November, try out one of these helpful language apps to get the basics. You can get a few phrases under your belt, all from your phone. (Just don’t clip your belt to your phone. Nobody likes a tourist.)
3. Sell All Your Belongings
It’s insanely expensive to ship things overseas, and you can’t drive a U-Haul into Mexico. (Although if you’re moving up north, both Penske and U-Haul allow trips across the Canadian border.) Why not just make a clean break with your former life? You’ll need the money — especially once the economy goes straight into the toilet, as you always feared, post-election day.
4. Get a Job
Maybe you work for a huge, multinational corporation that can re-assign you to a post across the world. (Let’s be real, though — with these candidates’ connections to big business, if you work for a company like that, you probably are staying right where you are, regardless of the outcome.) But if you don’t, and you didn’t make a fortune selling your possessions, you’ll probably need a new job. OverseasJobs.com, which aggregates thousands of jobs across a variety of industries, is a good place to start.
5. Change Your Address
Maybe you won’t want to keep tabs on the country’s quick trip to hell via a handbasket once you’re safely installed in a Montreal tavern, licking poutine gravy off your fingers. But the poor soul who inherited your apartment probably doesn’t want your copies of The Nation to keep showing up in his mailbox. So change your address, or at least get your mail forwarded to you. You can do both via the USPS website.
Feeling like you don’t want to go through with this? Good news: You don’t have to let it get this far. Obtain the proper identification for your state, make sure you’re registered to vote, and, most importantly, SHOW UP on November 8 to cast your ballot.
