Inside living-abroad.org: arriving in your new country

Visa, insurance, admission — done. Then you land, and the real work begins: registering with the authorities, finding a place to live, opening a bank account, building a daily life in a language that still sounds foreign.

The first weeks in a new country are often the most exhausting weeks of the whole journey. Not because any single task is especially hard. But because many small tasks come at once — and you don’t know the system behind them yet.

That’s exactly the phase www.living-abroad.org is built for — the sixth and final stop of the arrimundo journey: Arrival.

Why this stop exists

Many services around studying abroad end with admission or the visa. After that, you’re on your own — right at the moment when everything is new: the country, the language, the rules.

On top of that, a lot of things depend on each other. Some steps require an address, others a bank account, others a confirmation from an office. If you don’t know the order, you quickly end up going in circles.

living-abroad.org picks up exactly here. The portal guides you through the first weeks — so that landing in a new country turns into truly arriving.

Background and mission

living-abroad.org is one of six independent portals under the arrimundo umbrella. Each portal covers one phase of the path abroad, with its own strength. living-abroad.org takes on the final phase: life on the ground.

What this stop sets out to do is already written into the umbrella brand’s name. arrimundo comes from three Romance roots: arrivo and arribar (to arrive), mundo (the world) and arrimo (support, shelter, a steady hand). Together they form a promise: to arrive in the world, with support. No stop takes that promise as literally as this one.

That’s why the mission is deliberately bigger than a checklist: it’s not just about getting the formalities out of the way. It’s about truly feeling at home — with a daily life, a language and people around you. You can read more about what arrimundo stands for as a whole on our About page.

What living-abroad.org actually offers

The portal guides you through the first weeks along three themes:

• Registration & authorities. Which official errands are coming your way after arrival, what you need for them, and the best order to tackle them in.
• Housing & bank account. The two things your life on the ground rests on: a roof over your head and an account your daily life runs through.
• Daily life, language & community. Everything that comes after the paperwork — finding your feet, using the language in real life, making connections.

As with every arrimundo portal: plain language, step by step, built for non-native speakers. You should understand what you’re doing — not just tick boxes.

How this stop fits into the bigger journey

The arrimundo journey has six stops: Orientation, Language, Funding, Preparation, Coverage, Arrival. Arrival is stop 6 of 6 — the point where the preparation from all the other stops pays off.

Right before it comes the Coverage stop: www.student-insurance.com helps you sort out the health insurance your university requires for enrolment. You can read how that stop works in the profile inside student-insurance.com.

There is no next stop — after Arrival, your actual life in the new country begins. Instead, this stop draws on everything built before it: the language from stop 2 now becomes your everyday life, the funding from stop 3 carries your expenses, and the insurance from stop 5 becomes the safety net you hopefully rarely need.

And as everywhere on the journey: you choose where to jump in, and you go at your own pace. Some people only reach this stop shortly before departure; others read up months in advance on what awaits them. Both are fine. arrimundo holds the stops together — you can always see where you stand and what comes next.

For an overview of all six stops and their order, see our article on the study-abroad timeline.

Honestly: what the portal won’t do for you

One of our promises: honest, even when it’s uncomfortable. So let’s also be clear about the limits.

• The official errands are still yours. The portal explains the steps and documents — but showing up to appointments, submitting forms and standing in line is on you.
• Nobody will find you a flat. Looking for housing can be draining and take time. A portal can show you how the search works and what to look out for. Searching, reaching out and following up is up to you — plan in more time for it than you think you’ll need.
• Arriving takes effort — yours. Language, daily life and community don’t grow out of reading. You have to get out there, make mistakes, talk to people. The portal gives you direction — the step out the door is yours to take.
• It doesn’t happen overnight. Feeling at home in a new country takes time. That’s normal — not a sign that something is going wrong.

We’re not saying this to discourage you. We’re saying it so you start with realistic expectations — it will spare you a lot of frustration in the first weeks.

Your next step

Health insurance not sorted yet? Then take one step back to the Coverage stop — the profile of student-insurance.com shows you what matters.

If your arrival is already in sight, head straight to the portal: www.living-abroad.org guides you through registration, housing, your bank account and daily life — until you truly feel at home.