The sorting rule, before any list
One question per object: can it be replaced easily over there, and at what price? A toaster can be replaced anywhere. A converter matched to your appliances cannot. A prescription cannot be reissued remotely. An apostilled birth certificate is ten times faster to obtain from your home country than from a consulate on the other side of the world.
So you sort into three piles: what cannot be replaced (documents, health, keepsakes), what costs three times more locally (imported electronics, in much of Latin America and Asia), and everything else, which stays behind or gets sold. If you work online, the work setup is handled separately in the digital nomad and expat kit: this page is about settling in, not about the desk.
1. Documents: the pile that decides everything
This is the part everyone underestimates, and the only one that can block a residency, a lease or a bank account. An incomplete file 10,000 km from home means a round trip, or three months lost.
- ✓ Originals, apostilles and translations in one object that never leaves the carry-on
- ✓ One compartment per person when the family travels together
- ✓ What to bring: passports, birth certificates, diplomas, licences, vaccination records, recent bank statements
- ✓ The habit: scan everything in colour BEFORE you leave
- ✓ One tropical downpour, one spilled bag, and a birth certificate is unreadable
- ✓ The RFID holder shields the passport chip in crowded transport
- ✓ Small enough to keep on you on paperwork days
- ✓ The holder: RFID passport holder
Apostilles and sworn translations. A residency file in Paraguay or Panama asks for recent certificates, apostilled, sometimes translated by a translator licensed in the destination country. Getting them at home takes a few weeks; getting them once you have left takes months and costs triple. Build the list of required documents before you buy the ticket.
2. Fitting a life into two suitcases
Sea freight only makes sense with a family and a home already rented: it is slow, expensive, and many countries tax incoming personal effects. For almost everyone the answer is two checked bags and one carry-on per person. What follows helps you fit more in, and avoid paying for excess.
- ✓ Cubes sort and compress: you open a suitcase without emptying it
- ✓ Compression bags swallow coats and duvets and halve the volume
- ✓ The first month is often lived out of the suitcases: sorting pays immediately
- ✓ The companion: compression bags
- ✓ Airport excess fees often cost more than what is inside the bag
- ✓ Twenty dollars once against a hundred per flight for an overweight bag
- ✓ Still useful afterwards, on every trip home
- ✓ The habit: weigh the night before, not at the counter
3. Health, for the weeks before you have a doctor
Between landing and a first appointment with a local doctor, a month is a normal gap. That is the window to cover.
- ✓ Handles a cut, a burn or a sprain without hunting for a pharmacy in an unfamiliar city
- ✓ Useful from the journey onward, and during a move, when boxes injure more than travel does
- ✓ Top it up locally once you know the local brands
- ✓ Reminder: this is a starting list, not medical advice
- ✓ The organizer keeps a treatment readable through weeks of disorder
- ✓ Carry medication in its original box, with the prescription and the generic molecule name, not just a home-market brand
- ✓ The filter bottle settles the tap water question for the first days
- ✓ The bottle: water filter bottle
A first aid kit covers a splinter, not a hospital stay. Settle the insurance question before you leave: your home country's public system does not follow you, and a night in hospital abroad runs into thousands. Our take, by profile, is on the health insurance for expats and nomads page.
4. The first apartment: power and security
This is the section nobody plans for, and the one that costs most when you get it wrong. A device fried on the first evening is a device rebought at local prices.
- ✓ An adapter changes the shape of the plug, never the voltage
- ✓ Chargers rated 100-240 V only need an adapter
- ✗ A single-voltage device plugged into the wrong grid destroys itself
- ✓ Read the label on every device before deciding to take it
- ✓ In many countries, outages and surges are part of ordinary life
- ✓ Protects the laptop and the work gear, which cannot be replaced in a day locally
- ✓ One wall socket then feeds the whole desk
- ✓ Check: the model must accept the local voltage
- ✓ The first weeks are often short-term rentals, with locks you did not choose
- ✓ The lock fits without tools and moves to the next place with you
- ✓ The safe keeps passports and cash out of sight during apartment viewings
- ✓ The safe: portable safe
5. The flight and the first nights
- ✓ Twelve hours seated with still legs: the circulation risk is real
- ✓ Recommended on long-haul flights, especially with connections
- ✓ Still useful later, on every trip home
- ✓ Jet lag is solved by sleeping, and the first apartment is rarely quiet
- ✓ Two tiny objects that save the first week
- ✓ The mask: blackout sleep mask
- ✓ You cannot carry a library, and books in your language become an import product
- ✓ Weeks of battery, readable in direct sun
- ✓ The first thing people wish they had packed
What NOT to take
- Large appliances and furniture: freight and import duties almost always exceed the price of buying new locally.
- Cleaning products and everyday pharmacy items: heavy, often banned from checked baggage, and available everywhere.
- Clothes for the wrong season: flying to South America with a European winter wardrobe means carrying kilos that will sleep in a closet.
- Single-voltage appliances, if you are heading to a different grid: the converter you would need behind them costs more than the appliance.
- Documents you only hold as originals: scan first, always.
Frequently asked questions
Plug adapter or voltage converter?
Not the same object, and this is the mistake people make most often. An adapter changes the shape of the plug and does nothing to the voltage. A converter turns 220 V into 110 V or the other way around. Almost every modern charger is rated 100-240 V and only needs an adapter. A single-voltage device needs a real converter, or it burns out.
What is better bought once you land?
Anything bulky, heavy or tied to local standards: furniture, large appliances, bedding, cleaning products, clothes for the local season. What travels with you: documents, prescription medication, tech, and anything depending on a standard that does not exist there.
What should I do with my documents before leaving?
Scan everything in colour, keep the originals in the carry-on, one encrypted copy in the cloud and one on a physical drive. And plan the apostilles and sworn translations: far easier from home than from abroad.
How much luggage for a move abroad?
Two checked bags and a carry-on per person covers the vast majority of cases. Sea freight only makes sense with a family, moving into a home already rented. A luggage scale prevents excess fees that often exceed the value of what you are carrying.
Should I bring my medication?
Enough to cover the transition, in the original packaging, with the prescription and the generic molecule name. Some countries strictly control molecules that are ordinary elsewhere: check the destination's rules before leaving and have a doctor plan the transition. This is not medical advice.
What about work equipment?
Handled separately, in the digital nomad and expat kit: laptop, travel router, power bank, headphones, backup.