If you are in desperate need of inspiration before you make the big jump, and you are preparing to study or relocate abroad, then you are in the right place. In besides helping you confirm your decision and educate yourself in the process, reading books that are set in a foreign country can help you feel as though you are totally immersed in a location that you are not familiar with.
The following is a list of the best novels or books to read during your downtime. These books are all about migrating abroad or studying in another country that will make you laugh or cry too with the characters detours and adventures!
1. Eat, Pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert
American journalist Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love chronicles her travels through Indonesia, India, and Italy, and it has become a New York Times bestseller for good cause. Her painful ordeal of being a divorcee and her subsequent search for love elsewhere. Also included are the author’s anecdotes, travel, culture, and self-love.
If you’ve ever been through a devastating loss. If you have ever felt trapped by overwhelming emotions like fear, rage, or disappointment and have had to endure what feels like an unending road of healing, this memoir will help you find your way and alleviate feelings of isolation.
If you share my enthusiasm for exploring the globe. Leaving your comfort zone and fully embracing another person’s narrative is the surest path to self-discovery. For a more in-depth account of her adventures and other excursions, we recommend Eat, Pray, Love.
2. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
This award-winning novel is a must-read if you’re planning to move abroad for good! The Ganguli family is at the center of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, a novel about Bengali immigrants to America in the 1960s. The story starts with the life of the first immigrants to the nation, a young couple named Ashoke and Ashima, and then moves on to follow their offspring.
This book will teach you a lot about the challenges of migration, adjusting to a new culture, and discovering who you are as an individual. You’ll learn from this book what it means to be proud of your culture no matter where you are, and what sacrifices you have to make to make it abroad.
3. The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
This is the perfect book for you if you enjoy reading about two people who are complete opposites but who end up bringing out the best and worst in each other in an enthralling romance full of intense feelings, passionate glances, and amazing chemistry. Enjoy the finest of both worlds with a plot that spans from New York to Spain!
An internet hit, this romantic comedy follows a young woman as she pretends to date a coworker in order to invite him to her sister’s wedding. Someone urgently has to be asked to her sister’s wedding by Catalina Martín.
4. Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
If you are planning a move to Italy, you must read this book! Love & Gelato follows protagonist Lina as she spends the summer in Tuscany, despite her distaste for the region’s famed warmth and picturesque scenery. Her mother’s dying request was for her to meet her father, and it is the sole reason she is there. Still, for sixteen years, what sort of dad doesn’t stick around? Lina only wants to return home.
However, during her time in Italy, her mom wrote a journal, which is later entrusted to her. Lina finds herself swept up in a wondrous realm of clandestine art galleries, elusive bakeries, and secret loves. A world where she finds the motivation—and the irresistible charm—to discover a long-buried secret, just like her mother did. This secret will alter her perception of her parents, herself, and her mother.
5. People we meet on vacation by Emily Henry
You might think of People We Meet on Vacation as an ordinary love story about travelers. There are amusing and startlingly touching moments in it that will make you feel all the feels! The story is about the main characters Poppy and Alex couldn’t be more varied. Surprisingly, though, they are also best friends and have gone on a summer vacation together every year since students.
But their entire world was turned upside down when an incident occurred during their trip to Croatia. It’s a second chance romance, opposites attract, and friends-to-lovers! Poppy and Alex had incredible chemistry. You will have enjoyed the “then and now” aspect, which allowed you to chronicle their summer vacations from one year to the next while still keeping up with the present.
6. We are okay by Nina LaCour
Sometimes, we feel like running away from our life. Sometimes, we think going abroad can make the pain go away. Marin, an 18-year-old protagonist in We Are Okay, has her best friend pay her a visit months after she suffered a terrible loss, forcing her to face the reality she had escaped.
Feeling like you’re always in need is how you live your life. Until the day you pack up your belongings and leave with nothing except your phone, wallet, and a photo of your mom.
On the day she left her old life behind, Marin didn’t speak to a single soul. The reality concerning those last weeks is unknown to everyone.Not even Mabel, her best buddy. Marin may be hundreds of miles away from the California coast, but she is still haunted by the life and tragedy she has fought so hard to escape, even while she attends college in New York. Currently, Marin waits for winter break in a deserted dorm, months later. Upon Mabel’s arrival, Marin will be compelled to confront the unspoken things .
7. Anna and the French kiss by Stephanie Perkins
If romcom is your guilty pleasure, you’ll can’t get enough reading Anna and the French Kiss which is the part of a series and takes place at the School of America in Paris (SOAP) academy. Despite Anna’s preference to remain in Atlanta during her senior year and spend time with her friends and potential lover (Toph), her parents insist that she attend SOAP. Feel like you’re a student in Paris and experiencing the magic of falling in love with this romantic comedy! This novel is so charming that reading it will make you wish to uproot your life and go to Paris for college or a year of exchange.
8. Call me by your name by André Aciman
This poetic book will make you want to take a summer vacation to Italy and film the country’s allure! In Call Me by Your Name, an intense and unexpected love affair develops between a young man and a summer visitor to his parents’ Italian Riviera estate. At first, they both act unconcerned about the potential outcomes of their attraction. However, as they explore the heated ground between them throughout the restless summer weeks that follow, their passion is intensified by unending buried currents of obsession, fear, intrigue, and need.
9. In the country by Mia Alvar
Filipinos and its diaspora are heard and is the main characters in these nine stories that take place all around the world, written by award-winning Filipino author Mia Alvar. The stories told by Alvar touch on a wide range of characters, from mothers to sons, housekeepers to instructors, and they all share a common feeling of displacement, grief, and the need to connect with others beyond physical and imaginary bounds.
An impressive new literary voice has emerged in In the Country, a book that will resonate with anybody who has ever looked for a permanent residence. It’s an ode for Filipinos who have taken up residence abroad and is longing for their true home.
10. Wild by Cheryl Stayed
This memoir won the Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Memoir & Autobiography in 2012.It’s about Cheryl, the author who felt like she had lost it everything when she was twenty-two years old. Her own marriage quickly fell apart once her mother passed away, and her family as a whole dispersed. After four years, she finally decided on her most rash move, realizing she had nothing to lose. She was determined to hike almost 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, which begins in the Mojave Desert and continues through Oregon and Washington state, all by herself, without any prior training or expertise. You will be inspired to live your life to the fullest after reading this book. It will also inspire you to pack your bags and hit the road, far from home!
11. Again, but better by Christine Riccio
If you ever dreamed of study abroad in London then this book will be your cup of tea! It’s a story about Shane where college has been a complete and utter bust for her. Shane has made no friends, returns home every weekend, and has no romantic interest, despite the fact that he is pre-med, has excellent grades.
Dorm, dining hall, classroom, repeat. That’s her life. The clock is ticking, and she needs a change—relocating to a different nation is the best way to shake things up. Shane enrolls in a London study abroad program. Making friends, pursuing boys, and experiencing adventure are all things she intends to rectify during her time at university.