- Home
- Inside the guide
Everything a family decides, in the order they decide it.
One guide per city, in three sections that follow the move: before you go, the first months, and the settled life after. Behind the articles sit the listings: every school, clinic, apartment, restaurant, gym, shop, place of worship and consulate, verified at its own source and pinned to its map.
The three sections.
Each section carries one or two of the five pillars — prepare, choose the right school, choose the right neighbourhood, create community, have a great time. Choose one to see what it covers.
Choosing a curriculum: IB, A-Levels, AP, IGCSE, French, German or Montessori →
Preparations
The pre-arrival phase. Understanding the country before you commit to it, and getting the consequential decisions made while they are still cheap to change. For a family with children, that means the school: the highest-consequence decision of the move, and the hardest to reverse mid-year.
Carries Prepare · Choose the right school
The questions it answers
- What should we understand about the country before we say yes?
- Which paperwork has to start early, and in what order?
- Which schools fit our children, and how do we compare them fairly?
- Which decisions are cheap now and expensive after we land?
Listings behind it
- Schools
- Consulates
Soft Landing
Arrival and the first months. Neighbourhoods, healthcare, banking and schooling in practice, and the harder work of building a life rather than just a household, especially for the accompanying partner, who arrives without the structure of a job.
Carries Choose the right neighbourhood · Create community
The questions it answers
- Which neighbourhood fits the way our family actually lives?
- Where is our doctor, and where is the nearest hospital?
- How do banking and everyday admin work here?
- How do we find people, purpose and belonging in the first months?
Listings behind it
- Serviced apartments
- Clinics & hospitals
- Consulates
Living the Life
The settled, experiential phase: where to eat, drink, train, shop, worship, and take the children on a wet Sunday. The experiences that are the reward of the posting, and the proof that the move was worth making.
Carries Have a great time
The questions it answers
- Where do we eat on our first Friday night?
- Where can we train, shop and worship?
- What do we do with the children on a wet Sunday?
- What makes this city worth the move?
Listings behind it
- Restaurants
- Gyms
- Shops
- Places of worship
Plan your first 30 days, by arrival date →Explore the live Ho Chi Minh City map →
Turn through a sample edition.
Twelve mock-up pages showing how the guide is laid out: a cover, contents, section openers, an article with its verified-facts box, listing pages and a colophon. Every page is marked Sample; none of it is guide content. Or turn the real pages of the first edition as it is being laid out →
SampleThese pages are design mock-ups made for this website. They show how a guide page is laid out; they are not guide content. School, clinic and restaurant names are placeholders.
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Sample Going Global · Relocation guide
Ho Chi Minh City First edition
Sample cover · design mock-upGoing Global · ContentsSampleIn this guide
Three sections, in the order the move happens.
- 01PreparationsBefore you commit · paperwork · schools—
- 02Soft LandingNeighbourhoods · healthcare · banking · community—
- 03Living the LifeEat · drink · train · shop · weekends—
Sample page · layout only2 -
Sample Section one
Preparations
The groundwork before departure, and the decisions far easier made early than late.
Carries: Prepare · Choose the right schoolPreparations · SchoolsSampleArticle layoutHow to read a school listing
The finished article explains, in plain language, how to compare schools before you visit.
This is placeholder copy, written to show the type, spacing and structure of a guide article. The published article is written and checked by the editorial team and replaces this page in full.
Verified facts · sample box- Curriculum
- Year groups
- Admissions
- Last checked
Boxes like this carry the short, checkable facts on a topic, with the date they were last confirmed at the source.
Sample page · layout only4 -
Preparations · ListingsSampleListing layout
Schools, A to Z
Schools are always listed alphabetically. No school can pay to move up.
Example International School A
District — · Curriculum —A short description, written by the guide and never by the school.
MapWebsiteReportExample Bilingual School B
District — · Curriculum —A short description, written by the guide and never by the school.
MapWebsiteReportExample Primary School C
District — · Curriculum —A short description, written by the guide and never by the school.
MapWebsiteReport
Sample page · layout only5Sample Section twoSoft Landing
Arrival and the first months, and the harder work of building a life rather than just a household.
Carries: Create community · Choose the right neighbourhood -
Soft Landing · NeighbourhoodsSampleProfile layout
Neighbourhood profile
Feels likeGood forCommuteSchools nearbyEach profile describes daily life on the ground, so a family can shortlist before the look-see trip.
Sample page · layout only7Soft Landing · HealthcareSampleListing layoutClinics & hospitals
Every listing is checked against the venue’s own current source.
Example Family Clinic A
District — · Languages —What the clinic is for, and who it suits, in two lines.
MapCallReportExample Hospital B
District — · Languages —What the hospital is for, and who it suits, in two lines.
MapCallReportExample Dental Practice C
District — · Languages —What the practice is for, and who it suits, in two lines.
MapCallReport
Sample page · layout only8 -
Sample Section three
Living the Life
Where to eat, drink, train, shop, worship, and take the children on a wet Sunday.
Carries: Have a great timeLiving the Life · EatSampleListing layoutYour first Friday night
Listings are ordered by an objective rule. Advertising never changes the order.
Example Restaurant A
District — · Cuisine —What to order, and who to bring, in two lines.
MapWebsiteReportExample Café B
District — · Cuisine —What to order, and who to bring, in two lines.
MapWebsiteReportExample Bar C
District — · Style —What to order, and who to bring, in two lines.
MapWebsiteReport
Sample page · layout only10 -
Living the Life · FamiliesSampleFeature layout
A wet Sunday, with children
Placeholder copy. The finished feature gathers the indoor places a family actually uses, each one linked to its listing.
Features are where the guide stops listing and starts recommending an afternoon, still held to the same verification rule.
Sample page · layout only11Going Global · About this guideSampleColophon layoutChecked by a person
Every edition closes with how it was made, and when.
Every listing is verified against the venue’s own current source rather than an aggregator, and re-checked on a monthly cycle.
Advertising never changes what is in the guide. A venue cannot buy its way in, up the order, or out of a fair description.
This edition · sample box- Edition
- Last verified
- Languages
Sample page · layout only12
How the guide reads.
The full detail is in the Help centre. These are the parts people notice first.
Pages, not a feed
The guide turns pages rather than scrolling. It reads as a two-page spread on a tablet held sideways, and one page at a time on a phone. Every page is set as the editor set it.
Verified facts, one tap away
Where a heading carries the eye symbol, tap it for a short box of verified facts about that topic.
Listings that go somewhere
Each listing shows the description, address and the buttons to its map, website and social channels. Where a venue has more than one branch, you pick the branch.
Offline, city by city
Download a city for reading without a connection — on the flight, on the look-see trip, in a lift. Articles, listings and listing maps all work offline.
An assistant that cites
Ask a question and the assistant answers from the guide alone, says where the answer came from and when it was checked, and says so when the guide does not know.
Your language
English, with Vietnamese for Ho Chi Minh City; French, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese follow, each checked by a named native speaker. A hard fact is never softened in translation.
Your organisation’s front section
An employer or school that provides the guide may add a welcome and its own documents, kept separate and labelled. It cannot change the guide itself.
Report a wrong listing
Every listing carries a Report control. Each report is checked against the venue’s own source before anything in the guide changes.
No passwords
Sign in with your email and a one-time code. A new device signs in the same way, and you can use more than one.
They fail at home — in the gap between the city a family expected and the city they got.
Read a chapter free.
“Five Pillars of Relocation Success”, a chapter from the Ho Chi Minh City First Edition, as a designed PDF. Leave your email address and the download link appears right here.
What the guide will never do.
The limits matter as much as the features. They are why the guide can be handed to a family by an employer, a school or a relocation company without anyone wondering who paid for what.
- Sell a place in it. No venue can buy its way in, up the order, or out of a fair description.
- Let a venue write its own listing. Descriptions are the guide’s, paying or not.
- Rank schools. Schools are listed alphabetically.
- Guess. The assistant does not search the internet; if the guide doesn’t cover something, it says so.
- Move you. We are not a relocation company, and never will be.
Be told the day it is live.
The Ho Chi Minh City edition is being prepared for the App Store and Google Play. One email on release day, and nothing else.