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If it makes you feel better, going abroad to become a (presumably freelance) foreign correspondent is hard and often doesn't work out.
The better way would have been working on a trade mag for two or three years then applying to the trainee scheme of a news agency to train you up and give you the skills then getting paid to see the world with them. But that's a short way of describing a lot of effort.
Fox
Once upon a time I wanted to try to move abroad and become a foreign correspondent type thing. Apart from the fact that I was increasingly aware that most of the people reporting on 'foreign' countries were locals who spoke impeccable English and would know more than I could ever learn about their home countries, there was the experience of working with a lovely German man whose name was the German version of mine and around ten years older than me. He'd been working across the world as a journalist, knew lots about everything - in particular Iraq, where he'd lived for a number of years among the Marsh Arabs and written a PhD about them - and was utterly broke. He was stringing stuff about Iraq for the tiny publication I worked for because we paid okay, but his main income was working for German TV news. Every now and again we'd have a pint and he'd tell me how he hated doing all this crap tabloid TV news ("Diana's fucking memorial, jah? Diana's fucking memorial.") but he was pushing 40, didn't have enough money to buy his own place and had convinced himself he'd never find a nice lady and settle down unless he was a man of at least moderate means. Hence doing the tabloid work he hated.
I was labouring to clear a hell of a lot of student debts around the same time, so the combination of the fact that parachuting white men (sometimes women) into foreign countries to indulge some neocolonial itches was not the future of journalism, and the impression this guy made on me, both put me off the idea.
Now I have the feeling that I've spent most of my 20s and 30s in an office instead of exploring and learning and enjoying life a little. I'm solvent but similarly jaded and miserable and thinking maybe if I'd gone the other route I'd be poorer but more balanced, feel more fulfilled, and would have met someone nice and settled down instead of having an overly intense relationship with whatever I'm working on at a given point in time.
Hey ho.