Was speaking more in the context of the OP. Living in a country for "a year or two" doesn't really qualify as being an expat IMO.

Have met my fair share of uni students on a gap year labelling themselves as such... maybe it helps with the women? Charisma man VS Western woman springs to mind.

Well, in french you're right: an "expat" is someone spending some years working in a foreign country while still being employed by a french company and such enjoying the french health care system and so on... A much better deal than what I'm experiencing now, being in Japan and being employed directly by a japanese company. And still I don't complain, but in french, being an "expat" means you generally have a good life: very high salary, lots of advantages, vry good job...

I'm zig-zagging between settling on New Zealand (likely easy), Germany (likely only moderately difficult), or Japan (likely very difficult). The only countries I've previously visited in my lifetime have been Germany (three times) and Japan (once).

The answer to "why" is a couple of reasons: 1) One of my main regrets is in not taking my (briefly-attended, ultimately-failed) foreign language courses seriously when I was in highschool and in university almost a decade ago, so if I choose Germany or Japan, a few years of immersion learning -- which I understand is the best way to learn a foreign language -- will easily alleviate that regret. And it's probably a very fun way to learn one, too. The other reason being 2) Because a sudden, jarring change of pace in my life might be what I need to make my life a little more interesting, and my own personality a little less myopic and less lazy. I originally had something else here typed previously but it was long and boring: TL;DR version is that I think some sort of travel (beyond a mere two-week vacation) might benefit me both professionally, socially, and hobby-istically (yes I just invented a word on the spot), and it might be what I need to chase the boredom-gremlins away from a daily routine that currently feels like the world's least interesting movie being put on Repeat.

Expatriate living is an idea that both fascinates and terrifies me. Perhaps there's no harm in sitting it out a few more months to give it some more careful consideration (though I've been thinking about it a lot for at least three years), but time is ticking and I'm not getting any younger either...

A lot of answers in this thread have been very insightful, and will be helpful in making me arrive at a more informed decision when I finally stop pussyfooting around and make a decision as to which path I should take at this fork in the road (boring comfort vs. mysterious risk), so thank you to those who've shared your experiences so far.

Exactly.

In all honesty, being employed by a J-Company isn't that bad unless you're a freelancer hired on a contractual basis. Seen some pretty piss poor treatment of those kinds of staff. There are far worse things I can think of though, third world countries spring to mind...

Well, it's rare that japanese companies offer foreigners life-time job contracts, as they generally do with japanese workers. So we're pretty much all "flexible time" workers. But you're right, there are very good places in Japan for that... and very bad. The ones that come to mind are for example teaching English in very small, local school. It can be either the best experience of your life... or the worst, according to how the boss pay you... It's because there are lots and lots of english-speaking foreigners in Japan, so the competition between people having a degree in teaching english and people not having one is fierce...

From my experience as an expatriate, I was asking these questions because, again, IMHO, it's not simply just a matter of showing up in the country of your choice and soaking in the sights and the culture. From a legal standpoint, you'll likely have to apply for some form of long-term Visa so that you can legally stay in the country beyond the typical 30-90 day Tourist Visa (though IIRC England does have a one-year Youth Mobility Visa specifically for young people seeking temporary work; you have to be >30 years old to get it, though).

Usually that comes in the form of a Working Visa, and in order to get the Embassy to sign off on that, you need to verify that you have a legitimate job secured, with a contract. To get that of course, you need to find a job. A job is also important as it's what will support you while you live there. That's what really concerns me about what you've been saying. You say you want to go, but you don't seem to have a clear picture on how you would work to support yourself.

So again, the question is, what jobs would you be interested in finding?

Alternatively, you could try to see if you could get to the country of your choice through a volunteer organization, but those usually have programs which are short-term, and a lot of them generally focus on international development work in third-world countries.