It’s the end of 2024, and unlike other companies that look back in self-congratulation over what they accomplished during the year, I’m looking back with tongue-in-cheek “TP Awards” for this year’s articles.
One quick explainer about the name of the TP Awards: Yeah, not so glamorous (sorry, Mom!), but the reality is that every single expat has some kind of bathroom horror story. If you’ve ever been in a restroom without TP, you’ll know the importance of being a Prepared Expat… and so, yeah, the TP Awards.1
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2024 TPE Was Like Charles Dickens
TPE articles are intentionally thorough (read: long). The 48 articles in 2024 (44 mine, 4 by guests) totaled over 114,000 words. That, according to a handy word-to-page calculator, would fill a paperback book that is 489 pages long, which just so happens to a tad longer than my favorite “long” novel, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
That’s right, Mom—I’m like Charles Dickens.
The People’s Choice Award
For the first time ever, I’m giving out a People’s Choice TP Award for the best article of the year, chosen by readers of The Prepared Expat. The voting actually produced a tie, which I broke by seeing which article was most read. With no further ado, the winner of the inaugural People’s Choice Award is:
It’s All In Your Head: Fostering a Growth Mindset for Language & Culture Learning. I’m super pleased this was the winner, as a growth mindset is so key for thriving as an expat. Well voted, folks.
Runner Up: Culture Connection: Learning What Everyone Knows. I’m glad y’all liked this one as well. It’s a great piece to help you learn the cultural and historical references everyone else in your host culture knows.
The It’s Just TP Award
Readers of The Prepared Expat also voted for the worst article of the year! I’m happy to say that the literal winner of the award was “Write Your Own Choice,” where people refused to vote. Instead, one person wrote, “None. All articles are friendly information.”
Aww, thank you.
The Accidentally Viral Award
This award for the most-read article of 2024 goes to…2FA or Not 2FA: The Expat’s Guide to Secure Logins. Like last year’s Accidentally Viral Award, I would never have guessed that this article would take the top spot. It makes sense, though—getting those bank codes is a pesky problem worldwide for expats. Glad I can help!
Runner-up: Play to Learn: Language Is Like a Sport, Not a Science. I kind of wish that this was the most popular article of the year, as it was one of my favorite ones to write. Second place is excellent, though, especially since 2FA or Not 2FA was published 5 months before Play to Learn and thus had a much longer time to rack up the views.
The Validation Station Award
This award is for an article that I knew was good but wasn’t sure others would think so too—and so I’m glad to see that you liked it too. This year’s award winner goes to The Humble Expat: How Humility Transforms Expat Life. Who knew that humility would be a popular topic?
Runner-up: The Write Defense: How Tactical Pens Keep You Safe. Tactical pens. I knew they’re awesome, but I had no idea you would think they are too!
The Gold Star Guest Award
This award goes to the best article written by a guest. There were some awesome articles this year, but my favorite is Babies Without Borders, Part 2: Dispelling Birth Assumptions. If you or your wife are pregnant, it’s a must read.
Runner-up: Flight Hacks for Expats: How to Buy Cheap Airplane Tickets. I learned more from this article than I expected to, which is why you ask someone else to write it!
The Biggest Flop Award
You win some, you lose some. This year’s Biggest Flop Award goes to Privacy Armor for Expats: 10 Simple Tools to Shield Your Digital Life. Which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise, as that one is a little bit tin foil hat (but not really, I assure you!) Still, I get why it didn’t go viral.
Runner-up: Lessons Learned: The Good Earth and How Movement Saves Lives. Ooh, this award hurts to give out because the lessons from this article are really important for expats. I’m squirming in my chair with discomfort right now.
The Can’t Unsee That Award
This award is for a graphic that proves AI is still not as good as a human-created graphic. This year’s award goes to Flight of the Passports: Navigating the Chaos of Passport Renewal. Spelling is hard for AI, as is, apparently, drawing straight lines.
Runner-up: Expat Tech Survival: Implementing a 3-2-1 Backup Strategy. Just try using that keyboard. Or watch. But at least it has the right number of fingers!
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 winner is Flights and Heartstrings: Navigating Family, Friends, and Feelings from Afar. Following that article’s advice will save you and your family a world of hurt, but I get it—talking about sickness and end-of-life things isn’t the most popular topic.
Runner-up: Frame of Mind: Your Perspective Matters More Than Your Problems. It’s hard to shift from complaining to reframing, but it’s massive if you’ll learn from it. Definitely underappreciated.
The Eye Candy Award
I’m graphically challenged, but sometimes AI nails it. This year’s award goes to Ink Therapy: The Power of Journaling in Expat Life. I love the way the image captures the idea of getting things out of your brain and onto paper.
Runner-up: Light Bags, Heavy Reading: A Bibliophile’s Journey as an Expat. This graphic moves from weighty books to the lightness of digital books in a beautiful way.
The Most Likely to Confuse a Genius Award
Sometimes my thoughts aren’t clear, even when written out thoroughly, with headings, footnotes, hyperlinks, bullet points, and… well, that may be why some things are confusing, come to think of it.
This year’s award goes to the oddly named Cows, Curry, and Contrasts: Learning Language and Culture Through Comparisons. The information there is solid, but it dives a bit too far into the weeds for all but you language nerds.
Runner-up: When Fluent Isn’t Fluent: The Art of Grasping Domain-Specific Fluency. This may be the most linguistically technical article I wrote this year, which is always prone to confuse. I think I did an okay job with it, though?
The Spelling Bee Dropout Award
I think I only got a couple of comments about typos this year, so that’s growth for me! Still, some slip through, and this year’s award goes to Play to Learn: Language Is Like a Sport, Not a Science. Though I suspect the reason people told me about typos on this one was because I was killing some sacred cows in the education industry.
Runner-up: Context is King: Discovering Language Through Life. I think they’re all fixed now?
The Not Everyone Gets It Award
I have eclectic interests, and what I write sometimes has more to do with my interests than with expat needs. This year’s award hurts me to give out, but it goes to Privacy Armor for Expats: 10 Simple Tools to Shield Your Digital Life. I wish more folks cared about digital privacy, but there’s a reason why data-vacuuming companies are some of the biggest in the world.
Runner-up: Bin There, Shred That: Protect Your Identity, One Document at a Time. Interestingly, this one’s also about privacy.
The Control-Z Award
This award goes to something I wish I could undo (or redo). This year’s choice is obvious: Money on the Move: How to Travel Safely with Cash. It’s a great article I’m super proud of, but I should never have written it as a guest post for another website—especially because, if any of you like my recommendations and buy one of the items I mentioned, the affiliate commission goes to the other website. Oops.
Runner-up: Having y’all choose a worst article of the year. I thought it would be fun, but people invested enough to vote for an article didn’t want to choose one. Point taken.
The Word Count Champion Award
This year’s award for longest article goes to Cultural Taxonomies, Part 2: A Deep Dive, which clocks in at 4,897 words. I mean, in fairness, the title is “A Deep Dive.” It’s quite pleasing to me, though, that this was in the middle of the pack in terms of being read.
Runner-up: The Humble Expat: How Humility Transforms Expat Life, which is 4,821 words. Surprisingly, this was one of the most read articles of 2024, and rightly so. It’s not all about length!
The Short and Sweet Award
Contrary to appearances and popular opinion, I can write things that are short. Well, relatively speaking. This year’s award goes to Check Out Anywhere: Your Portal to Your Local Library, which was just 1,229 words, or just one-fourth as long as this year’s Word Count Champion.
Runner-up: Ink Therapy: The Power of Journaling in Expat Life which was 1,453 words.
The Mr. Clark Would Be Proud of Me Award
My college English professor was Mr. Clark, and sometimes I use a turn of phrase that would make him proud (more often, I’m sure I’d make him cringe). This year’s award winner is Pillow Talk: How Sleep Solidifies Language Learning because I love the title.
Runner-up: The Write Defense: How Tactical Pens Keep You Safe, though I’m not sure how he’d feel about using pens as self-defense tools, hmm.
The Tried and True Award
A new award in 2024, this goes to an article not written in 2024 that continues to be popular. I’m excited to say that Banking on Backup: Financial Redundancy for Expats is the winner. This article was written in 2023, but was read more in 2024 than all but eleven of the articles from 2024. Nicely done, banks, people hate you.
Runner-up: ChatGPT: A Game-Changer for Language Learners. As much as ChatGPT has changed in the last year, the advice from this article remains tried and true.
The Y’all Are Nerds Too? Award
’m a nerd and I know that, but I figured all of you had your heads more in the normal world than I do. Still, sometimes the popularity of an article makes me think that more of you are nerds than I think. This year’s award goes to Learn Smart, not Hard: A ZPD Reality Check. I’m so glad that an article about the ZPD would so so well. Y’all make Vygotsky proud.
Runner-up: It’s All In Your Head: Fostering a Growth Mindset for Language & Culture Learning. This was not only popular, but it won the People’s Choice Award! I’m sure Carol Dweck doesn’t know about this blog, but if she did, I hope she’d be proud.
The Easter Eggstravaganza Award
I love putting Easter eggs into my writing, and I’m giving an award for my favorite Easter egg moments. This was a hard award to choose, but the winner goes to Stayin’ Alive Abroad: The Life-Saving Skills Every Expat Needs. I won’t tell you where it is, but it links to one of my favorite three minutes of TV ever.
Runner-up: Risky Business: What Free Solo Teaches Expats About Navigating Danger. Whenever you get to subtly criticize a politician and link to a hilarious comedy sketch, you know it’s a good Easter egg.
The Life-Changer Award
This award goes to an article that has the potential to truly transform your life—if you’re brave enough to embrace its insights. This year’s winner goes to The Humble Expat: How Humility Transforms Expat Life. Humility will radically change you.
Runner-up: Don’t Ring the Bell: How to Build Unbreakable Perseverance. Too many people quit when things get hard. This article will help you push through and change the world.
The Freebie MVP Award
In many of my articles, I give away a free tool to folks who subscribe to my email newsletter. This year had several tools that too me hours to make and design, the best of which hands down is: The Global Classroom: Navigating the Expat Education Maze. Macros, automatic calculations, and massive time-savings, all in one tool.
Runner-up: Flight of the Passports: Navigating the Chaos of Passport Renewal. I love how this tool takes what would be a pretty complicated process and calculation and makes it dead-simple for you.
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Footnotes
- I just hope that you don’t print out my articles and literally use them as TP. I mean, you could, and that’s not a bad solution if you literally have no other option. But real TP is cheap and WAY more pleasant. ↩︎