The best countries in the world to experience life abroad

If you want to move abroad for the experience of it, the best place is New Zealand, according to a survey of immigrants living in 45 countries.

In contrast, the UK ranked a lowly 30th for the 'experience' category of HSBC's Expat Explorer report 2016.

Picture: Louis Doré/Carto

The rankings were compiled by summarising immgrants' views on nine key questions about their experience in their adopted country.

Here are the full overall rankings:

Three of these questions covered lifestyles and quality of life in the country, three covered how easily they integrated with people round them, and three concerned how easy it was to set up in the country.

Here are the full scores for these categories:

Globally, most expats found living abroad to be a positive experience, with 52 per cent agreeing that their quality of life has improved since moving, compared with 22 per cent who disagreed.

Sixty one per cent said they were integrating well with the local people and culture, compared to 14 per cent who said they were not.

In addition, 52 per cent said they were easily forming new friendships, compared to 21 per cent who were finding this difficult.

In the UK, 48 per cent found it easy to form new friendships, while 29 per cent felt at home within six months. In Edinburgh, both of these scores were higher - 57 per cent found it easy to form friendships and 40 per cent felt at home within six months.

More: The best and worst countries in the world to move to, according to expats