The Cayman Islands tops this year's list of friendliest countries for ex-pats. (Photo: Valery Hache/AFP/GettyI …The Cayman Islands, Australia and the United Kingdom: Those are the three nations where it’s easiest to befriend locals, learn the local language, integrate into the community and fit into the new culture, according to the results of HSBC’s Expat Explorer Survey, which was released earlier this month.
The Cayman Islands scored well in all those categories, putting it first on our list of the Friendliest Countries. Seventy-five percent of expat respondents living there reported that they were integrating well in the local community; in Australia it was 72 percent and in the U.K. 73 percent.
HSBC surveyed 5,339 expatriates in nearly 100 countries between May and July 2012. Respondents rated their host countries on a slew of factors related to economics, raising children and overall experience. (Because countries with fewer than 30 respondents were deemed statistically insignificant, its final rankings include only 30 countries.)
To determine which were the friendliest, Forbes isolated the results in four categories: ability to befriend locals, success in learning the local language, capacity for integrating themselves into the community, and ease in which they fit into the new culture.
1. Cayman Islands
“There’s no income or payroll tax, summer all-year-round, hardly any crime, and no pollution,” notes happy Scottish expat Steve McIntosh. “Grand Cayman has all the amenities of a city with the close-knit community of a town. That’s why most people who come here for a short assignment end up staying long term.”
