You did it! You’ve found an opportunity to go abroad and now you’re here. A new city, a new country, a new language.
And it’s amazing. Every day, you walk around exploring your new neighborhood. The novelty of discovering what’s around each corner doesn’t seem like it’ll ever wear off. This restaurant looks delicious; that bar looks fun. Every alley and street opens up a new world that didn’t previously exist to you.
Then the third (or fourth or fifth) month hits and the honeymoon high wears off. This isn’t an extended vacation; this is your daily life. You can’t explore new streets and restaurants and bars every night. It all begins to wear you down, make you tired, and make you miss your home comforts. Did you make the right decision coming here?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The 3-month culture shock wall is a completely normal, predictable phase of international relocation. Almost every person who moves abroad will experience this, not just you.
My wife and I have lived abroad since 2017. The first three years in Thailand, three in Germany, and the last three here in China. So I know what you’re feeling: that lost, somewhat scared moment thinking, “What am I doing here?”
I’ve seen many (most? all?) of my friends in the same spot as well. But don’t worry, there are ways to move past it, or even to avoid it entirely (if you’re reading this early enough).
Shift From “Tourist Curiosity” to “Local Anchors”
In the beginning, you spend your time exploring randomly. This is a great way to discover what’s around you and find a few new routes to get around. But by month three, this lack of routine causes decision fatigue. Especially if you’re eating out often, each night trying to pick a new restaurant on a different road, all while attempting to translate menus in a language you’re just beginning to learn. This quickly becomes exhausting.
Your first step is to start building a routine. You need two or three weekly, non-negotiable anchors added to your daily life. This can be a gym (or running routine), a neighborhood coffee stand that you frequent, or a weekly market stop where you can pick up groceries.
When my wife and I first moved to Thailand, we quickly set up a routine that covered three evenings each week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we had Thai language classes. And on Wednesdays, happy hour with a few of her coworkers. Nothing exciting, but something we knew was happening every week.
Once we moved to Germany, we had to create a new weekly routine. Thursday nights were dinner with our friend group, and I had weekly coffee shop dates with myself to get me out of the house (I work from home).
After moving to China, we’ve repeated this necessary step, though having a baby here has thrown a bit of this into disarray. Once our lives settled down a bit, we were back at our routine. My wife meets a friend every Monday/Wednesday evening to exercise, and now we’ve added weekly events for our son. First it was swimming, and now he’s going to gymnastics each week.
For more, read Why “Just Immerse Yourself” Won’t Teach You Spanish, No Matter How Long You Stay.
Build a Micro-Community Outside Your Job
This step is necessary because of two problems. First, your initial calls with friends and family back home are frequent and exciting. As your life slows down to a mundane routine (which it should), the calls become more and more unnecessary.
The second problem is who you’re hanging out with in your new home. The quickest, easiest friendships will be your coworkers. You see them every day; they are just as new to this world as you are, and you’re relying on each other to help with many issues. These friends are important, but they can’t be your only friends.
If they are, you never leave work. Dinner with friends, drinks with friends, weekend brunches with friends: all of it will be about work. Every conversation, every complaint. This will ultimately burn you out, make you feel like you’re never away from the job.
So you need to find a micro-community of people with similar interests, doing similar activities. This can be a writing group, fitness classes, language swaps or classes, anything that connects you with the community and with people outside of your job.
In Shanghai, I have plugged into existing groups and helped build new ones. Historic Shanghai has a monthly book club, and I attend whenever I can. It’s a great group of locals and expats who love to read/talk about Shanghai’s and China’s history. And each Thursday, I have a group that meets for pub trivia.
These communities are also your chance to meet locals who will ground you to your new home country. They’re excited to learn about you and your home, and will probably be a big help at some point for you as well. So check out the Meetup app, look for Facebook events, or just do some general searches online and find the community that fits your interest.
Pace Your Administrative Burnout
Setting up a new life and a new routine means numerous different administrative processes. Visas, bank accounts, local payment apps, and housing logistics. The longer you don’t do everything, the more you feel unsettled and unconnected.
But don’t run yourself down trying to accomplish everything all at once. Whether it’s Germany’s slow and complicated bureaucracy or China’s impressive reliance on phone apps in an ecosystem completely separated from the West, it will feel overwhelming to work your way through everything.
These issues are heavily dependent on how helpful your employer is and how much you have to do yourself. While we’ve never been too swamped with administrative tasks, there was a bit of whiplash going from Germany’s bureaucratic, cash-based society to China’s fast-paced, app-driven world.
Our initial weeks in China were spent setting up apps because you cannot function here without them. Pulling out cash here will earn you confusion and desperate searches for change. Until we had WeChat set up, necessary for payments, communication, and practically everything else, it didn’t feel like we could be a part of Chinese society.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your to-do list, the answer is one task a day. Don’t try to knock everything out in one weekend. You’re still working full time, you’re still learning a new language and culture, so you still need some downtime. Break these administrative tasks down into manageable bits and celebrate each win, each accomplishment.
Embrace the Acceptance Phase
Dealing with culture shock, dealing with this 3-month wall, doesn’t mean you made a mistake moving. Your brain is actively processing a brand-new operating system and has just hit a low point. And again, you’re not the only person who’s been here.
The mistake I have seen people make around this time is rash decisions. I’ve had multiple friends break contracts, tell jobs they won’t come back after the next break, because of this culture shock. And every single one of these people, by the time their goodbye date arrives, regretted the decision.
Between ending the contract and actually leaving, they’ve made it past the 3-month wall. They’ve built up routines, made friends in and out of work, and have created home comforts here instead of dreaming about the ones they left behind. All of us have.
And this is where real, rewarding expat life begins: when every day feels like home and a new adventure, all at the same time.
Craig Storti’s The Art of Crossing Cultures is a short, practical guide to exactly the slump this piece describes. The revised third edition walks through each stage of settling into a new country, including the urge to pull back once the novelty fades, and offers clear strategies for working through it.
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Author Bio: Tyson Peveto is a freelance travel writer and copywriter based in Shanghai. His work focuses on living abroad, destination travel guides, and culinary experiences. Originally from Texas, Tyson has been traveling the world for 20 years, but he and his wife have been living abroad since 2017. Their son was born in Shanghai in 2024 and is excited to be part of the family’s adventures.
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