Make Malaysia Home
Make Malaysia Home is a free weekly email for foreigners thinking about living in Malaysia long term. It helps you understand daily life before you move, so you can choose where to live, what to prepare, and whether Malaysia is the right fit.
Each week, the email will help you avoid costly mistakes, reduce stress, and plan your move with more confidence. No spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
Who it is for
Make Malaysia Home is for people who are not just curious about Malaysia, but seriously weighing up whether to build a longer-term life here. You might be relocating with an employer, taking a job with a Malaysian company, retiring, or exploring routes such as DE Rantau, MTEP, MM2H, or another option.
The email helps you understand the practical realities before you commit your time, money, and energy to a life-changing move abroad.
What’s inside the weekly email
Living in Malaysia can be a great decision, but it is still a big life move. The wrong assumptions can cost you money, create avoidable stress, or leave you stuck in an area, rental, or routine that does not suit the life you wanted.
Each week, the email will help you understand one part of the move more clearly, from choosing where to live and preparing before arrival, to settling in, managing everyday life, and knowing what people often wish they had understood sooner.
Understand how cities and neighbourhoods feel for daily life. Get advice on convenience, transport, noise, groceries, and whether places like Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, and others may suit you.
Know what to think through before you arrive, including visas, paperwork, money planning, temporary accommodation, first-month costs, what to bring, and which decisions are easier to make once you are here.
Get practical help with the early weeks after arrival, including SIM cards, internet, banking, healthcare, transport apps, groceries, rentals, utilities, and the everyday systems that can feel confusing at first.
Understand what daily life is really like after the excitement fades, including routines, weather, food, safety, social life, culture, frustrations, benefits and the small details that shape long-term comfort.
Written from Malaysia
I’m Darren, an Englishman living in Malaysia and building my long-term life here in real time. I write Make Malaysia Home from my own experience, not from a distance.
After visiting every state in Malaysia over the last 10+ years and moving here long-term in 2025, I’ve learned from experience the challenges that can come up when you’re moving to a new country and settling into a new life.
My aim is to help you understand the reality before you arrive, settle in with fewer surprises, and decide whether Malaysia could genuinely feel like home long-term.
Join the weekly email
Get one useful email each week to help you understand the details that can affect your money, comfort, housing, and confidence before and after you arrive. Practical advice from someone living here.
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