23 Habits I Picked Up While Living Abroad

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After living in more than 20 countries, I started carrying small habits from one place into the next. Some made conversations easier. Others produced a puzzled look because I had applied one social rule in a setting where nobody expected it.

These are personal memories, not rules for entire nationalities. Customs vary by region, generation, situation and individual. The useful lesson is to observe, ask and adapt instead of assuming that one person represents a country.

Here are 23 habits that followed me home or turned up again on later trips.

A note from the Fluent in 3 Months team before we get started: You can chat away with a native speaker for at least 15 minutes with the “Fluent in 3 Months” method. All it takes is 90 days. Tap this link to find out more.

1. Offer a Guest a Shower

During a year in Brazil, several friends offered me a shower when I arrived at their homes on hot days. I understood it as hospitality: a chance to cool down and freshen up after the journey.

The question became automatic for me. Elsewhere, guests sometimes heard it as a comment on their hygiene or an unexpectedly intimate invitation. Now I offer a towel or show them where the bathroom is only when the context makes sense.

2. Receive Cards and Money with Both Hands

In Taiwan, I noticed people often giving and receiving business cards or money with both hands. I adopted the gesture because it made me slow down, look at the card and acknowledge the person who handed it to me.

I still tend to receive a business card this way. It is a small courtesy, although I do not assume every person in Taiwan or elsewhere expects the same ritual.

3. Point with My Lips

Friends in the Philippines and Colombia sometimes indicated a direction with a quick movement of the lips instead of an index finger. I copied it so often that the gesture began appearing alongside my hand pointing.

Like any gesture, its meaning depends on the setting. I watch how the other person points before deciding that my version will be understood.

4. Check Before Flushing Paper

In homes and businesses with plumbing that could not handle toilet paper, I learned to use the bin provided beside the toilet. After repeating that routine, flushing paper elsewhere could feel wrong even when the system was designed for it.

The practical habit is not “never flush”. It is to follow the local sign or ask the host, because plumbing can differ from one building to the next.

5. Communicate with a Missed Call

When I lived in Italy, friends used a brief call called a squillo. The caller hung up before the other person answered, and context supplied the message: “I’m on my way”, “I’m thinking of you” or “call me”.

Messaging apps have changed how many people communicate, but the old habit stayed with me for a while. In places where nobody shared the convention, people simply called back and asked what had happened.

6. Relearn How to Cross a Road

Road-crossing behaviour was one of the most dangerous things I absorbed by imitation. After navigating streets in Cairo with few convenient pedestrian crossings, I became too willing to step into traffic. Back in places with frequent crossings, I had to slow down again.

This is not a local habit to copy. Use marked crossings where available, follow signals and prioritise safety even when people around you take risks.

7. Tip When Nobody Expects It

Living in the United States and Canada made me think about a tip whenever I paid for a meal or service. Then I carried that reflex into places where service was already included or tipping was uncommon.

Once, a server in Taiwan followed me to return money I had left behind. The lesson was simple: check the local expectation instead of treating one country’s tipping system as universal.

8. Give Every Hello and Goodbye Time

In several Latin American settings, I became used to greeting people individually with a hug, cheek kiss or warm handshake. Leaving could take just as long because I said goodbye to each person rather than addressing the room.

The number of kisses and the amount of contact vary widely. I let the other person lead, especially when we have just met.

9. Misjudge Conversational Distance

After getting comfortable with closer conversational distance, I sometimes stepped towards a person who preferred more space. They stepped back, I moved forward again, and our whole conversation travelled across the room.

Personal space is personal as well as cultural. If someone shifts away, I now take the hint instead of trying to restore the distance that feels normal to me.

10. Let One Espresso Last

In France, I learned to treat an espresso as a reason to sit, read or talk rather than a drink to finish quickly. One small cup could accompany a long conversation.

I still like that unhurried café rhythm. It is not how every French person drinks coffee, and it contrasts with the quick espresso I often saw at a counter in Italy, but it changed my own pace.

11. Use a Tighter Definition of “Friend”

While trying to build a social circle in the Netherlands, I began distinguishing close friends from acquaintances more carefully. I stopped treating one pleasant meeting or an online connection as proof of a friendship.

That led me to reduce a very large social-media friends list. The useful change was not a particular number; it was giving more attention to relationships that were actually mutual.

12. Talk Informally to People in Authority

I grew up with an Irish instinct to talk to many people in the same friendly register, regardless of their job or status. That informality did not always work with teachers, police or immigration officials in places where the role called for more distance.

I still prefer warmth, but I pay attention to titles, pronouns and the level of formality the other person uses.

13. Ask Whether a Price Is Negotiable

Markets and accommodation searches in India taught me to ask questions, notice whether a seller invited bargaining and be willing to walk away. That helped me negotiate calmly instead of blurting out a counteroffer.

Not every price is negotiable, and bargaining norms vary by market. I do not haggle over a clearly fixed price or pressure someone after they have said no.

14. Carry a Lighter Without Smoking

While learning Turkish, I carried a lighter even though I did not smoke. People asking for a light created brief, low-pressure conversations and sometimes gave me an opening to practise the language.

I would not take up or encourage smoking for language practice. The broader lesson was to notice ordinary requests that make a conversation easier to begin.

15. Put Ketchup on Pizza

Friends in Rio de Janeiro put ketchup on pizza, so I tried it and kept doing it. The habit still draws raised eyebrows in places where people consider the combination wrong.

This is a food preference I picked up from a particular time and group of people, not a claim about how everyone in Rio eats pizza.

16. Take a Midday Nap

Long afternoon breaks during hot weather in Spain made a short nap feel practical. I kept the power nap even when I moved somewhere with a different workday.

Schedules in Spain vary, and a siesta is not a universal daily routine. For me, the habit was simply permission to rest when my schedule allowed it.

17. Adjust How Directly I Speak

I found that some German friends valued a direct answer, while people in other settings expected more cushioning around disagreement. Neither approach was automatically honest or dishonest; each carried different signals about respect.

Rather than turning that into a stereotype, I listen to how an individual gives feedback and ask what they mean when the tone is unclear. Our article on German stereotypes explores why bluntness and rudeness are not the same thing.

18. Exclaim in Another Language

Automatic reactions were often the last things I expected to change. After enough time in another language, I might say German Aua! or Spanish ¡Ay! when I hurt myself, even if nobody else was present.

These short expressions are tied to emotion and repetition, so they sometimes surfaced before I had time to choose a language.

19. Translate Expressions That Do Not Travel Neatly

Languages continued to influence one another even when I was not fully mixing them up. After Arabic, I overused “hopefully” where inshallah had become automatic. Spanish ¡Que te diviertas! sometimes emerged as the stiff “May you have fun”.

French si and German doch can contradict a negative question, but English has no single everyday equivalent. Saying “indeed” did not solve the problem. These awkward transfers reminded me to learn expressions in situations, not as isolated dictionary matches.

20. Mix Up Hand Signals

I picked up gestures for asking for a menu, showing that something was full and counting on one hand. Chinese number gestures were especially memorable because one hand can represent numbers beyond five.

Gestures can differ within the same language community, and the same shape can mean something else elsewhere. I demonstrate and check rather than assuming it is self-explanatory. This matters as much as the spoken words in non-verbal communication.

In this short video, I show how one gesture for “full” differed between Italy and the Philippines:

21. Remove My Shoes at the Door

Taking shoes off at the entrance became my default after staying in homes where outdoor shoes did not go past the doorway. In other homes, removing them without asking felt unnecessarily formal.

The easiest solution is to look for shoes by the door or ask the host.

22. Join the Applause When a Plane Lands

On some flights, one passenger began clapping after landing and others joined. I rarely started the applause, but I enjoyed participating once it had begun.

It is a harmless reminder that a behaviour can feel celebratory to one traveller and unnecessary to another.

23. Ask Instead of Guessing the Rule

The hardest part was not learning any one custom. It was switching between greeting styles, conversational distance, directness and formality without treating nationality as an instruction manual.

I still get things wrong. When I am unsure, I ask: “Do people usually take their shoes off here?”, “Is service included?” or “How formal should I be?” A small question is more respectful than a confident stereotype.

Language learning helped me notice these differences because communication is more than vocabulary and conjugation. Paying attention to the person in front of me matters more than performing a rule I once learned somewhere else.

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I made this video after my first ten years of travel. It covers the broader lessons that stayed with me: