Moving overseas is something that only a very small percentage of the UK population ever does. By and large, we were born here, we live here, we work here, we retire here, and ultimately, we die here, leaving our legacy for the next generation. Sure, we may go to foreign countries on holiday from time to time and enjoy their culture, but ultimately, we come back to a place that we call home.

That is not a bad way to live a life at all, living in our own culture with our own laws and our own day to day expectations. It is a comfortable way to live a life and has a lot going for it.

However, there will always be a minority of people who, for whatever reason, decide that there are other countries in which they would rather live, and this may be for any number of reasons. It may be that they prefer the weather in a sunnier country. Perhaps they enjoy the fast pace of life in New York. Maybe they prefer the laid-back life of being a shepherd in New Zealand. Perhaps they want to teach English to Japanese children. Possibly they want to help less advantaged people in an African country. The list is endless.

However, all of those people have one thing in common and that is that, somehow, they have to move their whole life to that new country, and very often the lives of their families, or at least closest family, as well.

This needs a huge amount of planning. For example, you are 35 years old and a professor of scientific studies of space exploration. You want to join NASA and they are happy to have you. Where are you going to live? Where are your seven year old and five year old going to go to school? What is your wife, who is a nurse, going to do?

You can well see that moving abroad, however good your reasons, is going to make a dramatic difference to your life and those who are closest to you. Apart from any other considerations, you are going to leave all your loved ones – family and friends – behind you, and maybe you will never see them again. OK, so today we have the internet and mobile phones and tablets, but it’s not quite the same thing as popping around for an hour and having a glass of wine or three and musing on the events of Brexit that particular day.

Heck, unless you are going to move to a European country, Brexit is the least of your worries. (Some might say that that is as good a reason for leaving as any!).

But politics aside, it is going to be a huge change. Just to begin with, you have to move the whole contents of your home to wherever you are going, and that means that you will need the services of international movers and packers who can handle your move efficiently and ensure that all your belongings get to the other end in the same condition that they left the UK.

This is by no means the same thing as hiring a removal firm to move you from London to Preston, Leeds to Liverpool, or Plymouth to Margate. That is all done on English roads, and while it may take a couple of hours longer for one of those journeys it is still not the same as moving to the other side of the world. Or even moving to Spain or Germany. Let’s face it: if you move to Germany or Spain you can hop on a plane and be in Birmingham or Manchester in a couple of hours. You can’t do that from Grenada or Brazil.

Moving abroad requires the services of a removal company that has long experience of moving people long distances, and also has knowledge. Knowledge of what you can and can’t take to certain countries, knowledge of their import laws, knowledge of shipping, knowledge of the language of the country which is your destination.

If you are to get all your belongings across the planet to your new home, you really do need to find an international removal company with the experience to get you there in one piece.