A lot of people don't know about Bahrain.
I think it's just an amazing, wonderful place that is really slept on.
It's a beautiful island, very peaceful, very safe.
Moving from Atlanta, I was a single woman by myself downtown.
I never really felt safe.
Coming here and not having to worry about safety is such a breath of fresh air.
There's little to nothing that stresses me out day to day.
Everyone is super, super nice and welcoming.
It has a deep, rich culture that they really, really preserve, which I love as well.
I've been here now for two different Ramadan.
This is a picture of my father.
He used to live in Bahrain.
He's been in the Navy for 40 years, and this was his suit shop.
They have made him over 40 custom suits.
My name is Makayla McGee.
I'm 29 years old, and I moved to Bahrain from Atlanta in December of 2022.
One thing about Bahrain is it's hot.
It's super hot here.
If you're not a warm culture person, this probably wouldn't be the island for you, but I love warm weather.
I would say probably the hottest day this summer was about 113, 114, maybe 115 Fahrenheit.
Here, you can order ice for your pool.
That's how hot it gets.
Bahrain and Dubai are like cousins, I would say.
Bahrain is about maybe like 20, 25-ish years behind Dubai.
Very similar in culture, very similar in nature, very similar in weather.
Now Bahrain is trying to catch up.
They're building a marina right now.
They're building a bunch of things to, you know, draw in tourism.
I'm a military brat.
Both of my parents are US Navy.
Growing up abroad, life was moving around from military base to military base.
I always knew that I wanted to live outside of the US.
The first time I went to Bahrain was in 2020, I believe.
And I actually came to visit my parents.
My dad was stationed here in the military.
I knew nothing about Baheim before visiting the first time.
But the moment I came, I became obsessed.
It's one of those things like, if you know, you know.
And it felt like home.
I met so many great people.
As soon as I got home, I started planning on how I was going to move.
I moved here in December of 2022.
Initially, I was on a tourist visa.
I initially moved in with my parents.
They had a three bedroom.
I just kind of wanted to test it out, see how I liked it before I got my own spot.
And I stayed there maybe six months and then I moved out on my own.
First couple of weeks were definitely lonely.
Even a lot of the people that I met when I initially visited in 2020.
They were gone by the time I moved here in 2022.
Bahrain is such a small community and culture.
Everyone knows everybody.
So you meet one person, they're going to introduce you to the rest of the island.
And I think probably by week three, I pretty much knew everyone already.
So it was really easy to make friends, to get acquainted with the island.
Anything that you would hear about the Middle East, especially coming from the US.
We have a lot of negative propaganda.
I really did have a bunch of preconceived notions.
I had no idea what to expect, but it was nothing like what I expected at all.
The culture shock was actually that things were better, not worse.
It wasn't anything negative.
I haven't experienced any xenophobia, any type of racism here.
You almost rarely ever see the police.
You won't see them pulling people over.
You don't see them just patrolling because this is such a safe country.
I think I went six months before I ever heard a fire truck or an ambulance.
You don't see any of that.
It's so calm.
It's so peaceful.
There was never a time where I didn't feel like I fit in or like I was standing out as a expat.
Every culture shock was a positive one.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Bahrain.
We are in Manama, but specifically Aliyah, and welcome to my home.
Let's go inside and take a look.
This is the living area of my home.
Inside of here, we just do all of our hanging out, playing cards, watching TV.
As you can see, I've already decorated for Christmas.
And then as you go into these double doors, this is where the kitchen is.
This is probably my favorite part of the house.
I cook quite a bit, so I love having a big, spacious, open kitchen. kitchen.
This is the main bedroom where I sleep.
Again, a lot of windows, a lot of natural light, and there's a lot of closet space.
That's the main reason why I chose this house.
And then also in this corner is my work from home station.
So a lot of times I do work from coffee shops just to get different sceneries.
But if I want to work at the house, this is kind of where I come to this corner.
It keeps me focused.
There's no TV in here, no distractions.
So this, This is the pool area, which is nice to have because the temperatures get pretty high here in Bahrain.
In the summertime it's great to be able to come out here, just get away from the sun, relax and enjoy friends.
This is a three bedroom, four and a half bathroom, with a laundry room and a private pool, one car garage and it is fully fenced in.
I work as a Senior Performance Marketing Manager for a B2B SaaS company.
A typical day in my life is backwards for most people.
Since I do work Eastern Standard Time, usually my day starts around 5 6 pm, which is around 9 10 am.
Eastern, and I'm wrapping up between midnight and 1 a.m.
Basically in my role, I run and manage and own all of our paid media budgets.
So that goes from paid search to paid social, display, YouTube ads, et cetera.
They're fully remote.
It's an international company.
That was my biggest thing when looking for a new role was finding a place that would let me live anywhere, that would give me the flexibility to work across time zones.
During the day, it's me time.
I usually take the mornings to go work out, do anything I want to do for myself.
People ask me, how do I manage that time difference?
It's very easy for me.
I wouldn't be going to sleep before midnight or 1 AM anyway, even if I wasn't working.
My annual salary is $140,000 and I am paid in USD.
So although I live in Bahrain, I still make a US salary and I still pay US taxes as well.
Me and my boyfriend do not split everything down the middle at all.
He is a true provider male.
He pays majority of it.
A lot of my paycheck goes to savings between my regular high-yield savings account, and then I also opened up an individual Roth IRA.
I also have a 401k with my job as well that I have an allotment going to.
Healthcare in Bahrain is free if you are a resident.
I have health insurance through my job, so even though I'm abroad, I could still bill my insurance and they would reimburse me.
I think I probably buy groceries like every two to three days because there's no preservatives and things like that in the food.
Your groceries do go bad a lot faster. in Manama, Bahrain, currently in the Middle East.
And I'll add a little map somewhere over here to show y'all exactly where it is.
A lot of people have never heard of it before.
Once I moved to Bahrain, that's when I got serious about content creation.
I realized that a lot of people never heard of this country.
So I just started doing day in the lives.
I did a few YouTube videos answering questions.
I know the misconceptions that I had, so I could only imagine what other people are thinking and believing about a country like this.
Because I love it so much, I hate when people think like the bad or think the worst.
So I'm like, it is my duty to make sure that Americans know how great this country is.
I just started doing like question and answering videos.
I did a day in a life and I started doing like Spend a day with me, like how much money would I spend in a day?
Maintenance videos, things like that.
I probably know maybe six words in Arabic, which I should know more, but everyone here speaks English.
They make them take English from their very first year in school.
So even when I first got here and I was trying to immerse myself and learn Arabic, I'm like telling my Bahraini friends like teach me Arabic.
I will say something to them in Arabic and they will respond to me in English, which doesn't help at all.
Maybe that'll be a goal for 2026 to really increase my Arabic skills.
I definitely would say that my life is 10 times better here.
My happiness has skyrocketed.
Even the weather alone has increased my mood because I just like to be at the beach.
There's not a lot of chaos.
There's not a lot of unknown.
There's not a lot of me turning on the news and this is the breaking news of the day.
I do plan to buy real estate here.
Even if I don't stay here long term, I think it'll always be a great place to have real estate.
I think I'll always want to have something here that I can come back to, that I can call my home.
Bahrain felt like home from the day I got here.
So in order for me to leave, another place would need to do the same.
