What is your ideal post/country if you got to choose anywhere in the world?
Tough question, but a fun one. Ask my wife and she is going to tell you Spain or Italy. Broadly, the ideal post is a place I am happy in my job, enjoy my coworkers, has good local and regional travel, is safe, has good schools, and most importantly, my family is happy.
If you ever read https://www.talesmag.com/, you will quickly discover that places you thought would be rough assignments in austere locations end up being very highly regarded time and again. You’ll also learn that dream vacation destinations turn out to be real nightmare places to live your daily life.
I would say that I am open to just about anywhere in the world so long as my family is with me. There are some places that I would rather not go, mostly countries with poor human rights records towards women, or places where they are legally second class citizens. Towing my wife and two young daughters along, I would ideally prefer not to be living in countries where their rights are overly oppressed, but if the job demands it, I will get through it knowing what I signed us up for. One good thing about this job is no rough posting is forever.
If you were to really twist my arm, I would be incredibly excited to be posted just about anywhere in Southeast or East Asia, or South/Central America. Korea and Japan are two of my favorite places I have been to in the world. Southeast Asia is my favorite travel region and would allow my wife an opportunity to get home more often to the Philippines. S/C America would allow my family and I to really polish up our Spanish speaking skills (assuming it’s not Brazil), and offers so many exciting travel opportunities. You also won’t see me crying if we end up just about anywhere in Europe, and I could see myself bidding on more desirable European posts as my kids get into high school since more remote locations seem to struggle with higher level education.
At the end of the day though, I applied for this job because just about anywhere in the world seems exciting to me. You won’t see me crying on flag day.
