May 23rd, 2013 at 10:00AM: If you're a parent who is interested in an international career, you've probably worried at one point or another what impact your peripatetic lifestyle will have on your kids.
One of the most common questions I get about the Foreign Service is how the lifestyle affects children. Careers in the Foreign Service can take 1,000 different directions around the planet and the only predictable factor is ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
atravelerintheforeignservice posts
A Traveler In The Foreign Service: What Impact Does Moving Have On Children?
May 23rd, 2013 at 10:00AM: If you're a parent who is interested in an international career, you've probably worried at one point or another what impact your peripatetic lifestyle will have on your kids.
One of the most common questions I get about the Foreign Service is how the lifestyle affects children. Careers in the Foreign Service can take 1,000 different directions around the planet and the only predictable factor is ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Tribute To Slain Diplomat Anne Smedinghoff
Apr 9th, 2013 at 9:00AM: The Foreign Service lost one of its own on Saturday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives that killed 25-year-old Foreign Service Officer Anne Smedinghoff and four other Americans, three soldiers and one civilian Department of Defense employee in Afghanistan. Smedinghoff was a second-tour public diplomacy officer who was part of a convoy that was delivering donated books to a new school in ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: What's It Like To Work In The Foreign Commercial Service?
Apr 5th, 2013 at 10:00AM: Janice Corbett has been a diplomat for more than 21 years. She has lived in South Korea, Spain, Ecuador, Brazil and Canada. She's on a first name basis with several heads of state and has even met the King and Queen of Spain. Her lifestyle of international travel and adventure started in Cleveland, Ohio, of all places.
After getting an M.B.A., the Washington, D.C., native landed a job as a ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Coping With Loss Overseas
Mar 6th, 2013 at 10:00AM: Coping with a personal loss overseas in an alien culture without your normal support network can be one of the most challenging things about life in the Foreign Service or indeed any peripatetic international career. I've been blessed to reach age 40 without ever losing a close friend or relative.
But six years ago this spring, while living in Budapest, my wife and I lost a beloved pet, Homer, ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: A Guys Road Trip To Transylvania
Jan 24th, 2013 at 10:00AM: In the Foreign Service, it's easy to calculate who your best friends are. They're the people who will come visit you in places like Khartoum, Yekaterinburg or Bujumbura. Diplomats who get posted to London, Paris, Rome and a handful of other cushy places find themselves running informal bed and breakfast operations, as marginal friends and distant relatives come out of the woodwork to claim a free ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: 10 Tips On How To Get Into The Foreign Service
Jan 4th, 2013 at 10:00AM: For those with incurably itchy feet and an interest in serving their country, the State Department's Foreign Service is a great career option. As a Foreign Service Officer (FSO), you'll spend the bulk of your career overseas, moving in 1-4 year increments and you'll actually get paid to learn languages. You're also signing up for worldwide availability and could be sent to a war zone without your ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: I Was Once An 'Ilegal Immigrant' In China (Part 2 of 2)
Dec 19th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Read Part One of This Story
The Urumqi Airport Aviation Hotel had a huge bug zapper behind the reception desk that gave off a piercing blue glow. I was handed a room key and a glossy brochure that brightened my mood considerably.
"Built in 1974, Airport Hotel locates in Urumqi ariartion airport that today is over 6000 meters! It joints the terminil building by a bridge. It is such a perfect ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: I Was Once An 'Illegal Immigrant' In China (Part 1 of 2)
Dec 18th, 2012 at 11:30AM: After three months of arduous solo travel along the Silk Road, I was ready to cross my final frontier. I'd been forced to deviate from my plan to travel overland from Cairo to Shanghai, and was on a Xinjiang Airlines flight from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to the Chinese city of Urumchi when a moment of terror washed over me.
While leafing through all of the exotic visas in my passport, I began to ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Navigating The State Department's Byzantine Foreign Service Selection Process
Dec 18th, 2012 at 10:00AM: If you want to join the State Department's Foreign Service, you need a solid resume, plenty of time on your hands and the patience of Job. When I joined the Foreign Service back in 2002, Colin Powell spearheaded the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, which aimed to increase and streamline the hiring process. Ten years later, the Foreign Service selection process for generalists is even longer and ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Interview With A USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Diplomat
Dec 3rd, 2012 at 9:00AM: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is very much an under-the-radar career opportunity for Americans who are interested in trade promotion and living overseas. Compared to the other Foreign Affairs Agencies, the FAS is quite small. At the moment, there are only 166 FAS Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) but they serve all over the world in 96 offices in ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Don't Take Your Thanksgiving Turkey For Granted
Nov 20th, 2012 at 10:00AM: For some Americans living overseas, finding a Thanksgiving turkey can be an ordeal. Not every American eats turkey on Thanksgiving Day, but when you live outside the country, these kinds of cherished American traditions can take on a sense of heightened importance to the point where re-creating an American style Thanksgiving dinner, even if you're in Dushanbe or Khartoum, becomes an obsession.
...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: The Petraeus Fallout - Keep Your Pants On And Watch Out For Honorary Consuls
Nov 17th, 2012 at 10:00AM: In the wake of the David Petraeus-Paula Broadwell-Jill Kelley scandal, many Americans are wondering why General Petraeus felt compelled to resign. Shouldn't consenting adults be allowed to cheat on their spouses, so long as it doesn't impact their job performance? The most recommended comment on a New York Times story in the immediate aftermath of Petraeus' resignation follows this line of ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Dreaming Of The Balkans From A 'Tropical Paradise'
Nov 2nd, 2012 at 11:00AM: I might be the only person in human history to move from Macedonia to Trinidad. But in the peculiar world of the Foreign Service, unusual transitions across the globe are par for the course. I have Foreign Service friends who have recently moved from Ecuador to Poland, Paraguay to Bangladesh, Hungary to Zambia, and from the Philippines to Ireland. It's a nomadic lifestyle, where Foreign Service ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: When Bureaucracy Keeps Diplomats Grounded
Oct 19th, 2012 at 10:00AM: If you have a diplomatic passport, you ought to be able to use the damn thing. But the truth is that way too many American diplomats are grounded in their offices, buried in paperwork. Much has been made of the fact that enhanced security has made it difficult for diplomats to travel and interact with people on the ground in the countries they live in. And while that is definitely true at some ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Europe's 'Most Beautiful' Women And Other Reasons To Love Bulgaria
Oct 15th, 2012 at 10:00AM: I had to go to Bulgaria just to see if Bill Bryson was full of crap. In his book, "Neither Here Nor There," published in 1991, Bryson wrote, "Sofia has, without any doubt, the most beautiful women in Europe." I was in college when I read the book, and at the tail end of the Cold War it seemed like an improbable assertion. We'd been led to believe that women behind the Iron Curtain were ugly, and, ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: A Conversation With Ambassador Ed Peck
Oct 8th, 2012 at 9:00AM: Conventional wisdom dictates that there are two ways to become an ambassador in the United States: become a friend or big-time donor of the President or work your way up through the ranks of the Foreign Service by not stepping on too many toes. But there are a handful of current and former ambassadors that aren't always very diplomatic, and Ambassador Ed Peck is right at the top of that list.
I ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: The Best Foreign Service Blogs
Oct 2nd, 2012 at 10:00AM: The World Wide Web is saturated with amateurish blogs created by people who'd be lucky to command the devoted readership of their immediate family members, let alone the wider public. There are scores of blogs managed by Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) and while many of them are worth reading, some are downright bizarre. This post will steer you toward some Foreign Service related blogs that are ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Diplomacy Isn't Just For Diplomats
Sep 19th, 2012 at 11:00AM: Protests over a film that insults the Prophet Mohammed are still ongoing, but it's already clear that American diplomats and their families will bear a huge professional and personal burden as a result of the attacks on our embassies and consulates around the world. The Foreign Service community is still mourning the loss of Ambassador Chris Stevens, and his colleagues, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Thoughts On The Murder Of 4 American Diplomats In Libya
Sep 12th, 2012 at 1:30PM: On Tuesday night, the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, four American diplomats, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed in Libya when a rocket-propelled grenade struck their vehicle in Benghazi, Libya. They were fleeing the U.S. consulate, which was attacked by a Salafi Islamist mob that was outraged over a film that, according to the Telegraph, depicted the Prophet Mohammed as "a ...A Traveler In The Foreign Service: Free Alcohol And Other Reasons Why Ohrid Is Europe's Last Great Unspoiled Place
Sep 2nd, 2012 at 11:00AM: On a frigid day in January 2003, on the Feast of the Epiphany, dozens of men and boys were waiting to jump into the icy waters of Lake Ohrid. As hundreds of onlookers stood on the shore in Ohrid, Macedonia, an Orthodox priest threw a large cross into the water and the swimmers tore after it in the belief that capturing it would bring them a year of good luck.
One of the great joys of life in ...
