The internet may one day lead to sedentary dystopias of homeworking and virtual travel by means of cybersuits and streaming 3D videos, but not yet. Unsettled souls are still going overseas to work and sample life abroad.
Expatriates get a bad press. In their little bubbles in towns and cities around the globe, they are commonly viewed as eternal holidaymakers, tax dodgers or, according to JG Ballard's Cocaine Nights, exiles from social reality.
While good travel guides and relocation experts ease the move for some mobile workers, the internet can absorb these roles and more. Type "expat" into a search engine like Google and you get hundreds of company-based and amateur sites. These have recently been joined by professional operations such as Net Expat and Expat Financial.
Chue Chi Meng, who has edited a Singapore-based site since 1997, estimates that the country has about "400,000 white-collar expats, mainly from the US, Europe and Japan", working in high-earner posts. Chue's aim is to "establish a virtual expat community and bring together the advertiser and user. We provide useful content to all expats - from those arriving, looking for work, homes, schools, mobile phones, to those looking to travel and entertain themselves".
Chue owns the site with his wife and they have registered 12 domain names in Asia, shortly starting up sites in Hong Kong, Korea, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia.
Europe attracts expatriates in all sectors, from top-flight business positions to low-paid English teaching and catering work. Simon Payn, who left The Birmingham Post to join Expatica in January, is editorial director at the company's flagship Netherlands site. He sees the 250,000 English-speaking expats in Holland as a heterogenous community. "Some get their flights, accommodation etc found and paid for - they are really looked after by their companies. But many others, probably the majority, are not helped much at all and face the realities of Dutch life - finding a flat (which in Amsterdam, for example, can be difficult and expensive), registering with the authori ties, making friends, finding a school for their children."
Payn also sees the internet as an emotional resource. "Arriving in a new country can be a daunting and lonely experience. A website can provide a central point of reference for expats. As well as reading the site, our visitors can interact with other expats in our discussion forums, email the editor with questions and comments, place classified ads. A lot of our ideas for content come from our readers."
Expatica, which has received seed funding from the Dutch government, recently launched in Belgium.
Not all sites are local. Expat Expert, one of several global sites teeming with links, highlights the hassles experienced by spouses and families. Robin Pascoe, a Canadian author who edits the site, explains: "Many of the visitors to my site are unwilling expats. I write in the context that expat life is indeed a privilege and a wonderful opportunity. But having said that, I try to reassure women especially that they are still allowed some time for transition and have permission not to be happy 100% of the time!"
Certainly there can be a downside to being an ex-pat wife - particularly if you are caught in the middle of a riot while taking your daughter to a Girl Scout's show in Indonesia. You can read an account of such an experience at www.expat-moms.com a site especially for women who, as their motto says, "give their children the world".
The site offers advice on other important topics for mothers such as raising bilingual children and making a relocation checklist.
On the business side, tno single global supersite has emerged to date, though the expat-friendly European Internet Network has spread quickly across Russia, China, the Balkans and Eastern Europe (see www.russiatoday.com).
As markets go, expatriates are often a small but wealthy segment of any major city; globally, they are a very attractive proposition. On the e-commerce front, expatriate Brits for instance - who typically miss their M&S underwear, curry paste and TV comedy shows - are potentially a soft target for exporting.
So will future expats travel thousands of miles to stay in and check out the footie on the web at home? Will there be a global community of armchair expatriates, bonded together by nostalgia and friendlessness and the subconscious need to go home or, indeed, elsewhere?
Not likely. The spirit of most sites is basically "click on to get a life" and expats are often travel mad.
Virtual reality might have its advantages, but in the hazy, never quite real world of expatria, it is as liable to still itchy feet as driving to work in the rain back home.
• Chris Moss is editor of www.expatvillage.com, a site for expatriates in Buenos Aires, Argentina
