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My Research Protocol For Moving Abroad

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I want to travel the world. Worldschool.

The Process
A short while back I wrote that the light bulb went on for me, with respect to having the freedom to up and move abroad, after reading the book, Global Student. Suddenly, it started coming together as a reality. We could really do this. We can move abroad and travel the world. For as long as we want.
 
That reality, back then, meant that our time was T-18 months before moving. (It’s now about 15 months.)
 
Having 18 months to plan this adventure of digital nomadism and expat life is proving to be extremely helpful. We have tons of time to:
  • Research possible locations.
  • Get passports, banking, and things of the like taken care of.
  • Take in every present moment right where we are, Carefree (AZ) which we love.
Once the idea hit us about moving and we had a target date of June 2018, I started with Pinterest.
 
Pinterest!
From Pinterest I found hundreds of articles for different destinations that I could later dive into for research. I spent a few nights… Pin Pin Pin Pin. I created boards for Europe, Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand… of which later I created more specific boards: Mallorca, Tulum, Italy, France, Portugal, etc.
 
It was super fun. Here’s one of my favorite pictures I found on Pinterest. (source: Annelibush.com)
That sums it up for me. I’m going there.
 
Once I had my Pinterest boards figured out, each with plenty of Pins, I checked the various articles linked from them. That started a deeper dive.
 
Evernote!
It wasn’t long before it started to become overwhelming and I wanted a better way to organize it. Therefore, I chose to create notes in Evernote to keep it clean and handy. At first I had a Master list of regions with corresponding links to research later. It was one whole list of possible destinations with whatever links I thought might be interesting for each place. I set it all up to research at a later date (which I’ve since done) – deleting and adding destinations as I learned more.
 
From there, I added lists with links for things like:
  • packing lists
  • airfare sites and tips
  • expat experts
  • travel visa info
  • digital nomadism
  • technology for travel 
  • travel with kids
  • housesitting
  • rewards credit cards
  • travel insurance
 
Books!
Through my internet research, I learned of some great travel books and read a few with respect to saving money, traveling with kids, and housesitting. I even bought a book (couldn’t find it at the library!), The Art of Risk, which I’m hoping encourages me to push beyond my comfort zone. That will be helpful living abroad.
 
She’s a great travel writer and blogger.
 
Google Alerts!
I also set up google alerts of different towns/regions so I can get more familiar with them, including any potential safety issues. For example, we had Playa on our list for Mexico, but late last year there was some violence that caused me to keep an eye on the area over the next 15 months. I also learned about a supposedly amazing place for pizza in Oaxaca using Google Alerts, so there ya go.
 
Podcasts!
Both Greg and I are listening to podcasts of expats and digital nomads. It’s nice hearing the real life stories of people doing exactly what we plan to do.
 
For the first couple months I spent all of my spare time doing this research. After narrowing down our immediate destinations (looks like Mexico first and then Portugal or Italy), I’m able to look deeper in those areas and hold off on the other places. Side note: crazy awesome story is it looks like I’m eligible for Italian citizenship which would be game-changing for us.
 

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Hypermiling is Sexy.

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Bring it on! 77.6 MPG!
 
Remember when I told you (yesterday) my awesome story of downsizing our car by trading in the minivan for a Prius? 
 
Well, something else happened as a result of driving a Prius.
 
I not only saved money on the car and the gas it uses (because it’s a hybrid and smaller), but I started saving even more money through hypermiling.
 
What the heck is hypermiling?
 
It’s basically driving mindfully as f*ck to use less gas (and save money! yeah baby!).
 
Or according to a quick google search:
hy·per·mil·ing
the practice of making adjustments to a vehicle or using driving techniques that will maximize the vehicle’s fuel economy. 
 
My use of hypermiling:
  • I don’t speed. 
  • I use air conditioning and/or open windows wisely.
  • I pay attention to all cars and what they might do so as to plan my own speed/braking accordingly.
  • I’m slower to accelerate whenever I can.
  • I eliminate wasteful trips and plan multi-destination outings.
  • Walking when possible.
If we all hypermiled, then we’d have fewer car crashes because it really makes you pay attention at all times. For example, the second I look at my GPS I realize that, dammit, the light ahead turned red and I should’ve already been coasting! 
 
High-Five for the Prius in teaching me about hypermiling, because a Prius makes it easy to hypermile. The gauges let me know how many miles per gallon I’m using at all stages of driving so I can make smarter choices in how I accelerate and brake. I also get to see when my car is running on just the battery which saves gas.
 
Oh yeah! 52.4 MPG.
 
I wish I could get a picture of my dashboard featuring my hypermiling in action, but well, that’d take me out of hypermiling mode and um be dangerous. We’ll settle for post-driving pics.
 
Yes, it takes me a tiny bit longer to get everywhere. Yes, people aren’t pleased when I’m a bit slower to accelerate after a red light (not dangerously though, duh). Yes, people would prefer I go beyond the speed limit and break the law.
 
But you know what?
 
Fuck ’em. I’m hypermiling and hypermiling is SEXY! I think of the money and lives I’m saving by doing this. A richer ($) and better driver? Sign me up.
 
And, as I mentioned before, it amps up my mindfulness muscle. As a person who meditates, I’m all over that.
 
As mentioned earlier, a tip for hypermiling that I practice: Combining trips for things. (I use to suck at that, but now I’m a pro.)
 
There was a time not too long ago, that if I ran out of eggs, I would just drive to whole foods. It was only 6 miles away. Big deal (or so I thought). I didn’t think twice about it. You know what though? It is a big deal. It allllllllllll adds up (time, money, wear on the car, gas, risk etc).
 
Nowadays, I stretch out the time between trips as long as possible. I create a list of places and things I need to do and when it gets to the point where I gotta go somewhere, then I strategize to make the most of my trip. Silly to some, but when I realize I can go somewhere and hit two (or three – gasp!) spots in the same trip… well., I jump up-and-down, clapping my hands while squealing. 
 
Cuz that’s a win!
 
That’s how I feel hypermiling.
 

(I’m still trying to talk Greg into selling the Mercedes.)

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Minimalism Time: Minivan to Prius Downsizing

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Big-ass minivan
 
Living a life with a minimalist emphasis is a work in progress, naturally.
 
Even though I’ve sold and donated many things and happily reduced my overall consumerism footprint, I’m continuously finding new things to let go.
 
For the next step in our minimalism adventure, I wanted to look at our two cars. We have an old Mercedes (sedan) and a pretty-new Toyota sienna minivan. Greg drives the Mercedes, primarily. I drive the Toyota minivan.
 
I told Greg that I thought we could survive with one car, because we’re both home a lot. He works from home and I’m retired (I homeschool our daughter and play domestic goddess, but I don’t report to anyone –> retired).
 
I figured there might be a bit of sacrifice with a one-car plan, but nothing that we couldn’t handle. I loved the idea of getting a bit of cash for the Mercedes, too.
 
He was reluctant though.
 
Since the Mercedes is paid for (though it frequently hates us and has issues), he thinks we should keep it around. Just in case. 
 
Then, he dared to suggest something. Since we’re interested in saving money, and going minimalist, I should pursue the idea of reducing the impact our awesome, gorgeous, fun, big minivan has… by going for something smaller. He offered trading in the minivan for a used car that is smaller and less expensive. 
 
Oh shit. I didn’t expect that.
 
Ummmm…. I. Love. Our. Minivan.
 
I squirmed and got a bit uncomfortable, berating myself for opening this shit-can of worms.
 
Whoops.
 
Fast forward only a day or two later and that damn planted seed was taking root in my soul. 
 
Why do I even have a minivan? Well, I know why I bought it originally. I didn’t care about gas prices. We like road trips. It’s new and has a nice warranty. It can handle a lot of groceries. I can move a table in it. And… for everything else… just. in. case.
 
Hhhhmmmmmm….. well. Let me be honest with myself.
 
I rarely move tables. I don’t buy that many groceries. I DO (now) care about gas prices and the impact a larger vehicle has on our earth. And, although we like road trips, we’re planning to move abroad in a little over a year so we will be selling (both) cars by then anyway.
 
Fast forward another day and I’m driving our BIG minivan with Kamea in the back to run some (local) errands. Wow. There’s a lot of space in this vehicle for ONLY TWO PEOPLE. Kamea and I are the primary users of this BIG minivan and it has a LOT of room in it for only us. Even with Greg, it’s still overkill for three people, especially given our future abroad.
 
Well, whaddya know? I’m starting to dislike my minivan. I’m starting to feel wasteful driving it. I’m starting to give it the stink-eye.
 
WTF? Less than a week ago I was loving it, and now I can’t wait to downsize. 
 
Off to the Internets I went to car shop. 
 
Long story short, I fell in love with Prius cars because they’re hybrid, smaller, made by Toyota, and fucking cute as hell. 
Let’s Dance.
 
Done. Minivan traded in. Used Prius bought. 
 
I’m crazy happy with our choice and wish I’d done it sooner. 
 

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Expat Preparation Means Minimalism, Living Leaner, More Badass

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A tiny purse (instant pot for scale)

 

Another step in preparing to be expats, digital nomads, slow travelers, worldschoolers… whatever we want to call it… minimalism plays a part.

I’m going through each room, closet, area of the condo and deciding what I use, love, and want to keep.

Are there things that I like but aren’t used often? Are there things that spark joy but that I would’t buy again if I were deciding today? What am I attached to? Do particular items bring me happiness or do they just satisfy my ego? I think ego plays a big role for some things. 

For the next year we will slowly rid ourselves of a lot of… stuff.

I’m partial to my Le Creuset collection (quality pots and pans), but I have to ask myself, “Is it worth paying storage fees to keep these?” What if we’re gone for years? That monthly storage rent adds up, and I could probably buy these things again for the same price that paying to store them for so long would cost. If we’re lucky, fingers crossed, my mom and mother-in-law will give us a bit of space to store things there. 

My passion for minimalism actually started last year. I was tired of decision making fatigue so I started making fewer daily decisions. Ergo: minimalism. 

  • Have fewer clothes (I wear most of the same stuff day in and day out anyway) and less to look at in my closet, fewer decisions, more energy.
  • Having fewer lipsticks, believe it or not, is less decision making fatigue. 
  • Having a regular rotation of meals and foods so that I’m not constantly thinking about what to make for breakfast, lunch or dinner. 
  • Having less to dust gives me more time and energy to do other things. 

Recently, I downsized my purse, but it wasn’t without stress. After multiple attempts, I finally said, “Fuck it, I’m going lean.” I went from a larger purse packed with a large essential oil spray (cuz I might need it), snacks (cuz if I don’t have snacks I’ll be hungry), pens (cuz my kid needs to draw at the restaurants we don’t go to), various membership cards (rarely used), makeup, bandaids (cuz you never know), earbuds, cell phone, car keys, kleenex, handkerchief (cuz it’s pretty), and more ——> to ——> a tiny 6-inch purse that fits very little. 

For the tiny purse, I opted for lip balm, lip/cheek stain (two in one – yeah!) plus my phone, keys, a small bottle of essential oil (I had to), earbuds (I use these a lot), wallet minus membership cards (those I’ll keep in the car). I decided to carry a few snacks in the car for desperate times. 

I’m feeling badass as a result.

Risky behavior to be so spartan – or so I thought.

Turns out I love the freedom of the small purse. I might not have a bison bar in it, but forcing myself to be hungry once in a while isn’t going to kill me. It’ll make me stronger? 

Minimalism is giving me a lightness, a leanness, and an overall badass experience. To know I require so little in the way of material possessions is empowering. 

Let’s see. That’s more energy from less decision making fatigue. More time from less dusting. More freedom from having less. 

Minimalism for the win.

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The Book, The New Global Student, Lit A Fire Under My Ass

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This book inspired me to move abroad… sooner than later.
Image credit

I bought the book, The New Global Student, to inspire my family’s future travels around the world. I don’t recall how I came to know of the book, but when I read the description, I knew it was destined to be in my library.

From Amazon.com 

In 2005, Maya Frost and her husband sold everything and left their suburban American lifestyle behind in order to have an adventure abroad. The tricky part: they had to shepherd their four teenage daughters through high school and into college. This hilarious and conspiratorial how-to handbook describes the affordable, accessible, and stunningly advantageous options they stumbled upon that any American student can leverage to get an outrageously relevant global education. 

Sounds good, eh? 

It is, though I didn’t devour the book in one sitting. Actually, I started and stopped the book a few times over the past year (or two?).

I guess I didn’t feel a need to rush through it, seeing as my daughter was only five years old at the time. I figured I had a while before I would take action on anything I was reading. Not only that, I didn’t see the reality that we’d be moving abroad any time soon, because, like, THAT seemed a daunting idea… so why rush reading through the book? I could take my time.

As I was reading it one day, however, I wanted to share some of it with my husband, Greg. So I did that. We were driving to my mom’s which was about 45 minutes from our home and I started reading some of the really cool things I’d highlighted. As expected, he loved what I was reading to him, and his excitement served to inspire my continuing the book. 

Over the following weeks, I read the book at a faster clip. It became more and more exciting, as I imagined the life we could give Kamea… helping her become  The New Global Student. Wow, the advantages were numerous and awesome. 

So. Yesterday, I wrote that we’d always known we would travel the world. Honestly, though, I never knew when that would be. I really didn’t know how to make it happen. It seemed like a dream. It was a dream I felt would come true, but I didn’t know when “someday” would be. 

I mean… how does one just up and travel the world or move to another country?

The New Global Student was enticing me with fun stories of families traveling all over the world (many of whom didn’t even homeschool, by the way). Still… while I was reading it, I didn’t really make a connection of how I could relate to the stories I was reading. For example, I read about families selling their houses, cars, and/or businesses. They sold belongings, got rid of tons of stuff, and then had money to move somewhere else in the world. One family even bought a sail boat and took to the oceans for their epic adventure (turns out that’s a thing). 

Well, I didn’t have a business to sell. I didn’t have a house to sell either. I didn’t want to buy a boat (Greg gets seasick.) 

Hmmm… I just kept reading the book, figuring that someday we’d figure it out.

At the end of the book the lightbulb came on for me. At this point, the author’s husband chimed in and itemized the savings and expenses the family incurred while living in Mexico. I was blown away by the savings and cost of living that was possible. The book also illuminated the notion that any age is a good age to start (with respect to kids), emphasizing that younger is good and totally doable!

I salivated at how much money we could save living in Mexico (or other parts of the world). Savings plus the obvious awesomeness of immersing ourselves in other cultures, learning languages, and helping Kamea be a Global Student was just too good of an opportunity for which to wait. 

Turns out I wouldn’t have to… I realized that since we rent our condo, there would come a time when the lease ends and we won’t be obligated to pay that rent anymore. (Um, duh, Kristen. Why hadn’t I thought of this before now??) At that point, we could sell belongings (not a whole lot since I embrace minimalism these days), including cars. We could donate stuff. We could put anything leftover into storage (um, hello mom!).

Bam. We could take this dream of living abroad and make it happen when our lease is up. 

I know this sounds silly, but it just never dawned on me that we could simply not renew the lease. The veil had been lifted. The light was turned on. I could see our worldschooling path before my eyes.

At this point, I closed the book, having finished it, and called Greg into the bedroom.

The topic of living abroad was not new to us, as I’d just been reading him The New Global Student a few weeks prior. But, when I told him that we could actually do it when our condo’s lease ended, I think I took him by surprise. I filled him in on the details, and told him about some areas in Mexico where we could begin our adventure… and the wheels began turning in his head.

Now, mind you, he wasn’t jumping up and down with excitement (yet) like I was; but, truthfully, I’d had a whole hour to chew on it before I told him. :)

He raised a few questions about whether he could transfer his work successfully to a laptop only. He already works from home, and I told him we absolutely could (exciting details on that for another blog post). However, to make it easier on him, the lease wasn’t going to end for a good long while. We had time to figure it out and make it work.

The fire was lit under my ass… my deep dive into living abroad research began. Expat life is within reach.

It’s been about three months since that conversation in our bedroom, after I finished reading The New Global Student. I’ve gone from knowing nothing (other than it was possible somehow to do this because clearly other people are doing it) to knowing quite a bit about the how, when, where, and why for our adventure. 

I’ll share in the next post what I’m learning with my deep dive of research.

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How I Caught The Bug To Travel

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Has bag, will travel.
When I met my husband, Greg, on E-harmony over a decade ago, I had the tiniest reluctance about any potential success for us, because his featured profile picture was him standing by the door carrying a suitcase and he mentioned a love of world travel in his profile. 

Maybe it was silly, but I couldn’t help think to myself, “This guy likes to travel. Traveling dudes don’t like to be tied down. I can see it now. I’ll fall for him harder than he will fall for me. He will take off around the world, my heart in his hand. Better not respond to the eHarmony connection. It can only be doom.”

Not one to listen to myself, I pursued the eHarmony connection. (Luckily, he pursued back in spite of my not having a picture posted for my profile.)  

I was destined to be with him, because although, yes, he loved to travel, and, yes, that was a picture of him coming (or going?) from a long adventure in Peru, he longed for a traveling partner in crime.

Fast forward some years and we married.

In Bora Bora. 

Whisking me away to the most beautiful paradise on earth was a great way to get me interested in travel. (Smart fellow he was.)

Getting married in Bora Bora
Traditional wedding ceremony – Bora Bora
It wasn’t long before we were talking about how we couldn’t wait to travel the world, laptop-style. 

Working side by side, somewhere on a coast in Italy became a vision I couldn’t shake. I caught his travel bug.

I’ll be here someday. Amalfi Coast – Italy
*Photo credit

Now, I was determined to see the world. Having a family wouldn’t stop our dream either. We decided, even before trying to get me pregnant, that when we had a family, we would homeschool, because that would allow us to travel. The vision became of us working side by side, laptop-style, with a kid next to us reading a book (or writing his/her own blog).

The dream is finally coming true. Here we are homeschooling our daughter, and creating definite plans for living abroad in the future. 

It wasn’t until a couple of months ago, however, that this became a reality. 

I’ll tell you what lit the fire under my ass to take action in the next post.

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