Relocating abroad often coincides with parents growing older, leaving many expats balancing opportunity with caregiving concerns. This guide explores how to plan early, manage guilt, coordinate with siblings, build local support networks, and redefine caregiving from a distance, ensuring you can pursue your life while supporting theirs responsibly.
Relocating to another country often coincides with life getting serious: partners, children, careers. Somewhere along that journey, a new reality creeps in: your parents are getting older, and you are suddenly balancing your next chapter with their later-life needs.
Many expats do not leave to get away from family. They leave for opportunity, and only later realise they have also become long-distance carers.
Naming that truth helps you move from anxiety to action.
Caregiving often arrives gradually. People set out for a year or two, then eight years pass, a career and family take root and a health scare back home turns vague concern into practical questions, for example:
The emotional load is real partly because you cannot just “pop round” when something happens. Yet it is precisely the act of moving abroad that can prompt more thoughtful planning than many people ever do when they live nearby.
You are far from alone in these dilemmas. Recognising that this is a common expat experience can soften the isolation and make it easier to act.
If it feels too early to plan, it is probably exactly the right time. Planning before a crisis gives everyone more options, reduces stress and keeps discussions calmer because mortality feels distant rather than immediate.
That is when conversations are more productive and less threatening. You cannot always predict a crisis, but you can prevent it from turning into chaos by preparing when your parents are well.
Think of the bare-bones essentials as the “Big Five.” Get these in place before you go, and encourage your parents to review them even if you are not leaving yet.
Using US to UK relocation as an example, these are the POA options that someone would have to consider setting up. You should check the legal requirements in the country your parents live before moving to ensure everything is in place.
UK: Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) for property and financial affairs.
US: Durable Power of Attorney.
Prevents lengthy, expensive administration that distance makes harder.
One place, physical and digital, containing emergency contacts, conditions, medications and dosages, clinicians, insurance details, and the names of trusted neighbours or local contacts.
Even a simple encrypted shared folder with key documents and contact details reduces panic when time zones and distance are working against you.
Care is not only a bedside vigil. From overseas you might:
Broadening your definition helps you see what you can do, rather than fixating on what you cannot.
Guilt is normal. Say it out loud: “I feel guilty about being far away.” Then watch how guilt tries to hijack decisions: over-spending to compensate, over-promising emotionally, bankrolling family travel, or flying back constantly even when it is unsustainable. Instead, reframe guilt into action: “I am moving.
How do I set this up for success?” A good plan often makes you more attentive than if you lived 30 miles away, because you stop relying on proximity and start relying on structure.
You may also feel judged by siblings, extended family or your cultural community. That pressure can be real. Meet it with clarity.
Decide the roles you can play, given your time, finances and strengths, then communicate them. Intergenerational care is valuable, but it has many forms. When you turn “judgment” into a practical roles-and-responsibilities plan, emotions become logistics and logistics are solvable.
Co-create a simple care plan with siblings or nearby relatives before anything happens. Write it down and keep it somewhere everyone can access.
This clarity reduces resentment and guesswork and keeps everyone pulling in the same direction when stress hits.
Distance matters less when your parents have nearby, capable people such as a trusted neighbour, a faith-community contact, a local care manager, reliable tradespeople. Identify them, brief them, and add them to your crisis packet. This matters whether you live overseas or 40 minutes away. A strong local network is one of the highest-value protections you can put in place.
Communication is your early-warning system. Many problems, from hygiene issues to low mood or cognitive change, develop slowly. You spot them only if you are in regular contact.
Perfection is not required (and is actually impossible): a five-minute call on your commute beats a fortnight of silence.
Schedule the calls (for example, a scheduled weekly video) and it is important to treat them like a meeting you keep. For technophobic parents, you calling them at a set time is often easier than asking them to initiate. If they repeatedly miss a routine call, treat that as a signal to check in.
When conversations are emotionally complicated, consistency still helps. Showing up again and again, within safe and healthy boundaries, often makes later practical discussions much easier.
Remember that older adults’ developmental needs include retaining control and leaving a legacy, so forcing decisions tends to backfire, while making time to listen, learn and honour their stories often opens doors.
A simple way to reconnect when talks feel tense: share a positive shared memory that includes your parent. It is a low-stakes bridge to warmth and trust, and it can lead naturally to the tougher topics.
Families sometimes plan for the “likely case” and then life does the opposite. Ask, What if Mum dies first? What if Dad does?
Who becomes the primary carer then? What changes overnight, such as finances, housing, transport, social connections? Write two or three plausible scenarios and the first three actions for each. When you have rehearsed the decisions on paper, you are less likely to be overwhelmed in real time.
Convert feelings into momentum with small, visible wins. Use this four-week sprint as your baseline:
Create a secure shared folder and add the will, powers of attorney, clinician list, medications and dosages, insurance, and emergency contacts (including neighbours). Put a printed copy of the crisis sheet somewhere obvious at your parents’ home.
Set up a shared calendar for appointments. Lock in a weekly video call time and treat it as non-negotiable. Add reminders for prescription renewals and routine checks.
With siblings or relatives, list tasks and divide into in-person vs remote. Agree who does what in an emergency, and who has keys and alarm codes. Capture it in a one-page plan.
Identify at least two capable local contacts and brief them. If appropriate, introduce them to siblings via a quick group message. Add all details to the crisis packet and shared folder.
Along the way, practice “sitting on your hands” when appropriate. Not every wobble needs a dramatic response. Plans and roles give you the confidence to pause, observe and act only when action helps, not when anxiety demands it.
Even with good planning, needs can rise quickly. Keep these options on your radar:
Think of these as tools you can dial up and down as circumstances change, rather than all-or-nothing decisions.
Moving abroad for a better life, more fulfilment, improved finances, healthier routines, does not make you a worse son or daughter. In many cases, it prompts you to be a more intentional caregiver: you plan earlier, communicate more deliberately and build a stronger safety net than proximity alone ever guaranteed. Name the guilt, then channel it into structure.
As Emily Sharpe, founder of Guiding Generations, puts it, “We can’t predict every crisis, but we can prevent it from turning into chaos.”
This article is based on a recorded conversation between Robert Hallums and Emily Sharpe about caring for ageing parents while living abroad. Guiding Generations is a service helping adult children successfully navigate eldercare from afar. They specialise in supporting Americans living abroad whose parents need care back home. Learn more about Emily’s work at Guiding Generations: https://guidinggenerations.co/
