The first full year of The Prepared Expat is complete! There’s some great new content in the pipeline, but before forging ahead, I want to look back at 2023! Unlike every other company that looks back in self-congratulations, I’m looking back tongue-in-cheek with “awards” for articles this year.
Since this blog’s name, The Prepared Expat, abbreviate to TPE, I’m calling this the annual TP Awards. Because if you’ve ever been in a restroom that doesn’t provide Toilet Paper–a common experience for expats–then you know how valuable it is to be a prepared expat. Yes, Michael Scott, the awards would make you proud.
The ‘Accidentally Viral’ Award
I would never have guessed that Tips & Tricks for Flying with Children would be the most-read article on The Prepared Expat in 2023. Just goes to show that you can’t predict the future.
Runner-up: Get a Passport Card. Super pleased that y’all loved this one.
The ‘Can’t Unsee That’ Award
This award goes to an article that had a horrible graphic. How to Send a Fax as an Expat is the hands-down winner this year. No idea what was going on when I chose that.
Runner-up: Understand History. I don’t know why I thought the turban was a good choice. This was so bad I redid it, but the old, ugly graphic is preserved for posterity.
The Biggest Flop Award
I do my best, but some articles just flop. This year’s award goes to: Understand History. This article was published December 8th, so it only had a couple weeks before the awards, but its utterly boring title didn’t help–so bad, I actually redid the title later. I do think it’s some of my most interesting writing, though.
Runner-up: How to Send a Fax as an Expat. Yeah, that one figures.
The Unappreciated Gem Award
This award goes to an article that I think is more helpful than people appreciated and deserves more attention than it got. This year’s award winner is, ironically, The Art of Gratitude: An Expat’s Journey to Joy. It came out the day before Thanksgiving, so I understand why it got lost. Still, the science of how powerfully gratitude can help you is compelling.
Runner-up: Use Forvo. A bad title probably sunk it (now renamed: Elevate Your Elocution: Tune Your Ears with Forvo’s Authentic Audio), but it’s a great resource for language learners.
The ‘Eye Candy in a Sea of Text‘ Award
Sometimes a graphic shines, despite my graphical challenges. Halsey’s Typhoon and the Paradox of Safety wins this year’s award because someone actually took that photo AND made it through the hurricane to develop it. Amazing.
Runner-up: Shake Off the Foreigner Label with Actionable Language Learning Tips. Somehow, this graphic almost looks like the author.
The ‘Most Likely to Confuse a Genius’ Award
Yeah, so sometimes my thoughts aren’t clear, even when written out with multiple headings, hyperlinked footnotes, bullet points, and more. Come to think of it, that might be why it’s confusing. This year’s award goes to How Not to Be Raging Mad at Your Host Culture, Part 2.
Runner-up: Tips & tricks for flying with children. There’s just too many tips.
The Spelling Bee Dropout Award
Yeah, spelling ain’t my strong suit. I got more comments about Build rhythms of rest to alleviate stress than I did about any other article. I fixed the mistakes ya’ll mentioned, but I bet you could find an ungrammatical phrase in there somewhere.
Runner-up: Use ChatGPT to supercharge your language studies. I now use ChatGPT to checking my spelling.
The ‘Not Everyone Gets It’ Award
I’m a nerd. What interests me won’t necessarily interest you. This year’s award goes to Secure Stays: Why Bringing an Extra Lock to Your Hotel is a Must. Either ya’ll aren’t as concerned about safety as me, or else you stay in nicer hotel rooms than I do. Probably the latter. I stay in some pretty cheap places.
Runner-up: Develop Bank Redundancy. I wish more people understood how important this is. I really do.
The Control-Z Award
This award goes to something I wish I could undo. When I wrote Tips & Tricks: Check (now) the requirements to renew your passport/visa, I had a great, specific tip, but then I realized it only applied to US citizens. I tried to change it to apply to anyone in the world, and it ended up being so generically bland, it was pointless. I never even promoted the article because of how bad it was.
Runner-up: I don’t know. Maybe giving out TP awards?
The Word Count Champion Award
This year’s award for longest article, at a whopping 3,885 words, goes to How Not to Be Raging Mad at Your Host Culture, part 2. Crazily enough, I cut out an entire section to be an upcoming part 3 and part 1 already was no Tweet at 2,678 words.
Runner-up: Understand History. Like a good history book, this one was too long.
The ‘Mr. Clark Would Be Proud of Me’ Award
My college English professor was Mr. Clark (incidentally, he lived as an expat for years as well). There’s a sentence in Discovering the Past: How History Shapes Cultural Understanding that would make him proud. And probably many other sentences that would make him cringe.
Runner-up: Can I give out future awards? There’s a pun coming up in a future article that I’m stoked about.
What did I miss? What are your favorite articles from the last year? Let me know in the comments below!