From Switzerland to Turkey: How social media helped me settle in

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I love living abroad. Of course, I love specific countries but the very idea of being a foreigner appeals to me. So far I have lived in a number of countries, including (as far as Europe is concerned) Switzerland, Turkey and France (and outside Europe, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo). In all these countries, social media have helped me settle in faster.

Here’s how.

Finding accommodation

Social media, especially Facebook groups for sharing or renting flats, are a valuable tool for finding accommodation abroad. But don’t use them just any old way.

Let me tell you a story:

The first time I moved to Istanbul for an initial 3-month period, I thought I could make my arrival easier by securing a place in a shared flat, thanks to an ad posted by a Turkish woman on a Facebook group. The photos looked nice and I had good contact with her on Messenger.

But when I arrived, I realised that the flat was almost empty! The landlady had photographed all the nice details, which gave the impression that the flat had been decorated with care. But in reality, it was rather unwelcoming.

What’s more, my room was much smaller than it looked in the photo.

So please don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t think that booking your accommodation in advance will save you time. Use social networks wisely: Look for adverts you like on social media, but don’t book anything without visiting the property first.

In Istanbul, still using Facebook, I found other listings that met my needs, but this time, I visited the flats before deciding. As luck would have it, I met in my new shared flat a kind-hearted young woman who has remained my friend to this day.

Lesson learned.

My recommendations for finding accommodation abroad would be:

• book a hotel (or youth hostel, depending on your means) for the beginning of your stay – a week or two, for example;
• once you’re there, start looking at flats in the areas you like, with the help of the appropriate social media.

How to search

The best social network for finding accommodation is undoubtedly Facebook groups.

Here are the steps you might like to follow.

✅ Identify appropriate groups.

Enter words such as ‘rent/share a flat in [the concerned country]’ in the magnifying glass on Facebook home page, top left. Groups offering to rent or share a flat should appear in the results. Join them to see the listings.

Facebook’s search engine isn’t very efficient, so it’s quite possible that the most active groups won’t appear in the results straight away. But when you start commenting on certain ads, a list of similar groups will be suggested below the comments, which may reveal more appropriate.

✅ Review the group presentation before subscribing, paying particular attention to the following criteria:

• The number of posts per day: it must be high if the group is really active;
• The group founder: avoid groups set up by an estate agency, which can be identified by the words ‘Group by XX’ under the cover photo – they are less likely to offer ‘good deals’. Choose community groups, or ideally, groups that connect owners directly with renters. You’ll avoid commissions.

Exploring the neighbourhood

Once you’ve settled in, you’ll need to explore your neighbourhood to find, for example, restaurants where you can eat for the first few days, coffeshops where you can relax or – quite simply – grocery shops or supermarkets where you can do your first shopping.

Here your best bet would be to use Google Maps, preferably on your smartphone – it works also on your laptop, but the searches would be less precise.

How to search

There are two possible search methods.

• Method 1, for exploratory searches

Open Google maps when you’re at home, and use the tabs at the top of the screen to find the essentials: restaurants, cafés, supermarkets, etc.

For example, choose ‘coffeshops’. Google Maps will show you a list of cafés in your immediate vicinity. By default, the results are sorted by relevance, but you can also sort them by distance. You can select the ‘Currently open’ tab to exclude from the list places that are already closed. If, for example, you have just arrived from the airport, it’s late and you’re hungry, you can find the nearest café or restaurant that is still open.

While restaurants and cafés are very easy to identify, supermarkets and grocery shops are not always faithfully listed under the relevant tab. To find them, you may need to zoom in on the neighbouring streets until you see all the shops in the vicinity, especially the small ones that may have slipped under the Google Maps classification radar.

• Method 2, for targeted searches

This second search mode takes advantage of the option offered by Google Maps to perform more complex searches.

For example, if you’re looking for restaurants offering breakfast, type ‘best breakfast near me’ in the search bar and the app will refine its results based on reviews that mention ‘breakfast’ in their comments. That’s how I discovered the extraordinary ‘kahvalti’ (meaning ‘breakfast’ in Turkish) offered in the shady garden of a restaurant just 10 minutes from my flat in Istanbul.

This method can be used for a whole range of searches, including identifying ‘cafés with Wi-Fi’, for example.

💡 Tips

To make sure I’m not disappointed in my choice, I generally apply the following criteria.

✅ Number of reviews.

I take a look at the reviews left about the venue and choose a place that has many of them. The more frequented the venue, the greater the chance that the reviews are reliable.

✅ Quality of reviews.

In my opinion, reviews left on Google Maps are most often reliable. Of course, I don’t know every country in the world and it’s possible that in some cases, the lack of Google control over reviews has been exploited by cheats to falsify them. But I haven’t seen this in my personal experience.

I avoid places with a score of less than 4. When the score falls below 4, I generally expect there to be reasons for dissatisfaction: poor quality of service, irregularity of service (one day it’s fine, the next day it’s not) or problems with cleanliness, for example.

✅ ‘Best rated’.

In the list of results, filters allow you to select scores above 4. After a while, the app will realise that this is a criterion that counts for you, and will show you the ‘best-rated’ places on the map.

If none or few results appear following your search, you may be in an area with few shops. Move the map a little to an area close to yours and repeat the search (by clicking on a tab or typing in your targeted search) to find less residential areas in your vicinity.

Organizing your daily life

Once you’ve landed in a welcoming flat and explored your immediate surroundings, you’ll probably feel the need to organise your daily life and answer essential questions such as: where to find a good English-speaking doctor? What extracurricular activities are on offer (if you’ve come with your family)? Or how to take salsa lessons?

Here again, social media are a good way of accessing quickly reliable information. Facebook groups for foreigners in a given country are an excellent way of benefiting from the experience of those who have preceded you. But recently, WhatsApp has been gaining momentum and offering increasingly specialised groups. With its limited size of 1,024 members, it is suited to very thematic groups.

How to search

WhatsApp group options are endless and, thanks to popular creativity, they are growing every day.

Here are examples of groups I found so far:

• Good deals for French speakers
• Information on pets in Spanish
• Buy/sell/swap groups
• Job offers for women
• Cultural news

WhatsApp doesn’t currently offer group search options, so you’ll have to ask your colleagues or other foreigners in the country which groups exist and ask them to let you join. After that, it’s easy to access other existing groups.

Which WhatsApp groups you will find in your country depend on the local context.

In Switzerland, where the standard of living is high, I had access to groups that sell luxury clothes and quality furniture, at ridiculously low prices. That’s how I bought – and kept for many years – a magnificent Chinese desk in finely-decorated lacquered wood, for a rock-bottom price.

So get those keyboards clicking, and enjoy the adventure!

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Read more expat essentials posts here in Dispatches’ archives.