How to start an expat journal

It's three in the morning, the jet lag still hasn't shaken, and you're looping the thing you didn't get to say in that meeting today.

Rainku has a flow built for this exact moment. Open it and you get rain visuals and rain sound, a blank page in the middle, and an AI you can talk to on the side. What happened here today doesn't need to be translated for anyone first — write it down here.

Why Rainku helps during the expat stretch

• Step out of the loop for a minute. With rain visuals and rain sound on, the wide-awake-at-3am thing the jet lag does will settle on its own.
• Things you can't get across to old friends across the time zone, you can write down. It's their workday morning while it's your night. Friends worry. They have their own opinions. A journal has no audience. What happens to it after is in the privacy policy.
• A few months in, you can still remember the first stretch. The first months abroad go blurry fast. Scrolling back to early entries shows you what that stretch was actually like.
• The line between "still missing home" and "what I actually want" gets clearer over time. Early entries are mostly about home. After a while, the entries fill up with things you care about for yourself.

5 things to try

1. Open Rainku and pick how you want to start tonight

• Speak. Full-screen voice-to-text. English works. Native language works. Mixing both works. Walking home from work, waiting in line at the supermarket — talk while you go.
• Type. Classic writing mode. Cursor on a blank page, every word deletable. Good for the late nights you can't sleep and want to think things through.
• AI conversation. It asks one question at a time. You just answer. Use this when there's a lot in your head and you don't know where to start.

2. Decide what tonight is for

• Dump. Get out the things from today here that don't translate to people back home. No order required.
• Mark it down. Save this stretch — first doctor's visit on your own, first time a local friend invited you to dinner, first time you ordered in the local language. Look back later and you'll see how far you've come.

3. Seven questions for when the page is blank

1. What's the strongest emotion right now, and where do you feel it in your body?
2. Write to the version of yourself who first decided to go: there's a thing you imagined back then that turned out completely different here — what is it?
3. What did you most miss from home this week? Be specific — a dish, a sound, a street.
4. If you had an hour to video-call one old friend tonight, which thing that happened here would you tell them first?
5. Why are you here? What small thing happened today that still ties to that reason?
6. Who made you feel seen this week? (Local friend, coworker, shopkeeper downstairs, stranger — all count.)
7. Write to yourself one year from now: what do you want that version of you to remember about this week?

Tip. You don't have to answer all of them. Pick the one that lands hardest right now. One sentence counts.

4. Give it a small fixed slot

• Rain visuals on, ten minutes before bed, write down what you've been turning over today, then turn off the light.
• After the family video call ends, write the things that didn't make it into the screen — while it's still warm.
• Voice on the walk to work, five minutes is enough. Streets here aren't the streets you grew up on — there's something to say.

5. Check your own progress

• Scroll back to early entries. The first month or two is easy to lose — the journal remembers for you.
• Same homesick feeling keeps showing up → mark it. You'll know which kinds of things still pull you under.
• Holidays from home, birthdays, festivals — flip back through. A fixed time to take stock with yourself.

Some days during the expat stretch you'll miss home hard. Some days here will suddenly feel like home too. The journal remembers this stretch, and that's enough.

One last line

Starting a journal during the expat stretch doesn't need you to have the language down or the place figured out. Rainku opens the first page. What to write next is yours to decide.

Rainku also has dedicated entries for other moments: breakup, postpartum, career pivot. And a broader getting-started guide.