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For Americans Considering a Life Abroad

A practical guide for thinking clearly About Adapting Elsewhere in uncertain times.

Adapting Elsewhere is a framework — not a checklist. It was written by a financial advisor and world traveler who has spent more than thirty years working with clients across borders, and who now divides his own life between the San Francisco Bay Area and Malta.

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See HoW The Practice Works
14  Chapters
10  Country Profiles
220+  Pages
2026  Koda Publishing
Adapting Elsewhere Book Cover
About the Book

This book began as a series of questions — quiet ones at first, then impossible to ignore.

Field of inquiry
Cost & quality of life
— 01
Taxation & time
— 02
Safety & healthcare
— 03
Meaning & return
— 04
The shape of mobility
— 05

For much of the last several decades, the idea of living abroad belonged to a narrow corner of the American imagination. It was something one did after retirement, or briefly, as a kind of interlude before returning to real life. Home was assumed to be fixed. Stability was assumed to be domestic.

That assumption no longer holds. Mobility has become a form of optionality — an insurance policy against instability. Staying put is no longer the default choice it once seemed to be. And the people who are asking the question seriously about pulling up stakes, deserve a resource that takes the question back.

‍That is what Adapting Elsewhere is.

What it Covers

Most cross-border resources pick a lane. One country. One topic. Adapting Elsewhere takes a more meaningful look at motivations, logistics, and real world implications.

The chapters carry their weight through real people:

01 — The money

Cross-border tax, double taxation, FEIE, FTC.

02 — The legal stuff

Visas, residency pathways, digital nomad permits.

03 — The healthcare

What it actually costs. What it actually covers.

04 — The countries

Field reports from ten profiled countries.

05 — The life

Raising kids abroad. Working remotely. Sailing seasons.

06 — The arc

The emotional shape of expatriation.

The Johnsons
Discovered too late that Portuguese forced-heirship rules conflicted with their Chicago will.
Jeff and Sandra
Scott helped them set up the right retirement income structure for their move to Mexico.
Bill, Michelle & Jason
Moved to Lyon. Cost the family $300,000 in California tuition they assumed was secured.
Bob & Beryl
Retirement in Santorini turned on a heart attack and a helicopter evacuation to Athens.
William
Bought a Veracruz condo through a Mexican corporate structure. Lived there until ninety-five.
SU
Smuggled out of mainland China at ten under a tarp on a fishing boat.
William
Bought a Veracruz condo through a Mexican corporate structure. Lived there until ninety-five.
The Johnsons
Discovered too late that Portuguese forced-heirship rules conflicted with their Chicago will.
Bob & Beryl
Retirement in Santorini turned on a heart attack and a helicopter evacuation to Athens.
Bill, Michelle & Jason
Moved to Lyon. Cost the family $300,000 in California tuition they assumed was secured.

These are not hypotheticals. They are real lessons you will learn.

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About the Author

Scott A. Schwartz

CFP®  ·  CIMA®  ·  AIF®

Born and raised in the U.S. Currently splits his time between San Francisco and Malta and is an ocean sailor. Travels constantly through the Med, and the rest of the countries that show up in the book.

The one question Scott gets more than any other is "Where should I go?"‍

‍His answer: "Do you know anyone there?"
Learn More About Scott
Field notes

Writing from Scott on the topics his clients are actually working through.

Cross-border tax law as it evolves, country structures as they change, and the philosophical questions that recur in every move.

Book
June 18, 2026
Adapting Elsewhere Preface
This book did not begin as a manifesto or a plan to leave the United States. It began as a series of questions.
5
 Min Read
Book
June 18, 2026
Adapting Elsewhere Forward by Tom Zachystal
Scott asks important, practical questions and provides thoughtful answers based on his extensive experience and research.
5
 Min Read
Identity
June 18, 2026
What If Life Could Be Better Somewhere Else?
More Americans than ever are asking a fundamental question: What if life could be better somewhere else?
2
 Min Read
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