Chad Dunn spent years on the production floor of a Hyundai plant in Savannah, Georgia, counting minutes and feeling trapped by stress and routine. Today he lives in Da Nang, Vietnam, where he runs a small relocation service that helps Americans arrive and settle in quickly — airport pickup, phone and bank setup, and an apartment within days. Many of his clients first found him through TikTok videos that show everyday life abroad and prompt viewers to ask how they could do the same.
The trend Dunn represents is measurable. Using U.N. data, the Association of Americans Resident Overseas estimates the number of Americans living in Southeast Asia climbed from roughly 32,000 in 1990 to nearly 88,000 in 2024. And researchers at the Brookings Institution reported that U.S. net migration turned negative in 2025 for the first time in decades, suggesting more people may be leaving the country than arriving.
Scholars say these moves tap into longer forces: the expansion of remote work, the rise of digital nomadism, and growing appetite for lives organized around experiences rather than long office hours. Brooke Erin Duffy, a communications scholar at Cornell, notes that social platforms accelerate the shift by circulating bite-sized, aspirational images — laptop-by-the-beach clips, night market walks, meals at sidewalk cafés — which make relocation seem feasible and attractive. But she also cautions that those portrayals are curated and can gloss over practical difficulties.
For many expats the selling point is money. Mia Moore, a holistic nutritionist from Northern California, decided after years of travel to move to Da Nang. She now pays a fraction of her previous rent, spends little on utilities, and often eats out for cheap — a basic bowl of pho near her apartment costs around $2 to $4 with extras. The result, she says, is not a lower-quality life but one that feels richer because daily costs are smaller.
Beyond affordability, people describe a different rhythm of life. When housing, food, and transport are inexpensive relative to U.S. wages, priorities shift: some organize days around well-being and leisure instead of squeezing every hour for income. Chris Michaels, who left Chicago’s corporate toy industry to live in Thailand full time in 2018, says it took months to feel settled but eventually gave him the slower, less pressured pace he wanted. He now shares his experience on TikTok and regularly fields messages from viewers seeking help to leave the United States.
But the social feed rarely shows the full picture. One structural advantage many expats have is earning or holding savings in U.S. dollars while spending in local currencies, a gap that most locals don’t share. Finding stable local employment can be difficult: Vietnam limits many roles to citizens or requires special permits, and common foreigner jobs such as English teaching often pay far less than equivalent U.S. positions. Consequently, many rely on remote work, freelance income, pensions, or savings rather than integrating into the domestic labor market.
Practical challenges also surface around healthcare, visas, and long-term residency. Medical care can be affordable and high quality in major urban centers, but access and standards vary outside them. Routine procedures are cheap by U.S. prices, but chronic care, complex treatments, or long-term health planning can be complicated. Visas are another frequent headache: many Americans use tourist stays of up to 90 days and periodically leave and re-enter the country, a pattern known as visa runs. Thailand and Vietnam each have different and sometimes confusing routes to longer-term residency, and schooling, taxes, and legal residence add more administrative burden.
Personal trade-offs matter too. Moving far from family and friends brings loneliness and logistical strain: time zones complicate calls, and holidays are bittersweet. Some newcomers find that stress follows them rather than disappears; rebuilding social networks takes time, and many expats describe a persistent sense of being an outsider.
Still, for a growing number of Americans the move feels permanent. Dunn says the reaction has flipped — where people once warned him he was making a mistake, they now call asking how to leave. Social platforms like TikTok function as both inspiration and a practical entry point: videos create curiosity, demystify logistics, and connect seekers with guides and services. What they rarely capture are the quieter, harder parts of relocation — visa paperwork, health planning, cultural adjustment, and the occasional loneliness — which tend to live off-camera.
In short, TikTok and remote work are lowering the perceived barriers to moving abroad and helping more Americans test the idea of life in Southeast Asia. For many, the move brings real gains in cost of living and daily calm. For others, it exposes new uncertainties and trade-offs that only time and experience reveal.