voluntary exile
Willing homeland abandonment
Voluntary exile is the choice to leave one's home country or community without being forced out by authorities.
Unlike banishment or deportation, the departure is self-imposed—often to escape political pressure, social disgrace, or personal circumstances: After the scandal, he lived in voluntary exile in Switzerland for a decade.
The phrase implies both agency and loss.
- self-imposedVoluntarily placed upon oneself
- emigrationLeaving homeland permanently
- leaving homeDeparting one's residence
- refugeePerson fleeing danger abroad
- expatriateOne living abroad permanently
man without a country · departure · homeland · far from home · wandering · solitude · sanctuary · escape · fugitive · longing · estrangement · rootless · diaspora · defection · homesick · isolation · wanderer · outcast
- emigrationemigrant, emigration, economic migrants, emigre, political refugees
- exilebanishment, banished, expulsion, deportation, deportee
- Shakespeare ExileProspero, banishment, Coriolanus, Richard II, Cordelia
- solitudesolitude, alone, isolation, aloneness, seclusion
voluntary exiledeportation
Legal expulsion from country
forced exile · expulsion · banishment · extradition · forced displacement
voluntary exilerepatriation
Formal return to homeland
staying put · staying home · homecoming · return home · homebound
voluntary exilerepatriation
Formal return to homeland
homecoming · return from exile · restoration · reinstatement · amnesty
voluntary, exile, voluntarily, volunteer, volunteered, volunteering, volunteers, involuntary, involuntarily