Can I Really Live in a Foreign Country?

We all have problems to deal with in life; we have to pay our bills (and taxes), eat, exercise, raise offspring, etc… When we choose where to live and work, we are simply choosing which set of problems we are willing to tackle. Would we prefer to be somewhere that it’s always warm while knowing that the humidity may always be high? Would we prefer to live remotely knowing that internet service may be lackluster? Or, is a bustling city that has nightmarish traffic our ideal? Prior to reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson, I did not, and had not, viewed life in this way.

Have you ever daydreamed about moving to your version of a tropical paradise? What about taking the steps to make that a reality? This is where most of us would say that’s not possible or I can’t afford that, but it’s honestly not much worse than moving to another city. This mental block of sorts is really more about how you perceive the difficulties than the problems themselves.

My family (my spouse, son, and daughter) came up with a list of what is truly important to us in life. We absolutely need to be somewhere that is warm year round. My spouse and daughter both have a diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome; if you’d like to know more check out ehlers-danlos.com. This disease and cold weather are a terrible combination (the pain in causes severely decreases the quality of life), so being in Pennsylvania, United States was no longer going to work for us. Honestly, when we began looking at options of where to live, somewhere warm, i.e. without snow, was the single qualifying factor we started with.

Initially, we were only looking within the greater 48 states in the US, but there are honestly few viable options when we began adding in other important factors. Cost of living in a warm location that isn’t prone to flooding or large scale natural disasters really narrows down the playing field. We quickly eliminated the common go to options such as Florida, Texas, California, Arizona. The one remaining location that we were left considering was Virginia; however, in order to live somewhere that didn’t require driving excessive amounts for even basic medical care and had close to gigabit internet speeds, the cost of living quickly accelerated out of our price range. Ease of access to top medical care for the rare genetic disease that is within our family and high speed internet for our remote work are absolute necessities. After ruling out the final US state, we were at a loss as for what to do and feared that we may be in for another brutal winter. We were feeling defeated, like there really were no current viable options, until we began considering other countries.

A terrific resource to explore if you are considering such a drastic change in your life is Nomad List. The platform, after a one time payment, easily allowed us to enter in our specific requirements of warm weather, good healthcare, affordability, and safety for families. From there, we were provided with a list of potential city matches in various countries to compare the multitude of boons and unique set of problems that each location has to offer. This did allow us to narrow down to a country, and even a specific city, that we are in the midst of relocating to. I hope you’ll tune in to find out more about our journey of relocation, international schooling, working remotely, and traveling/living in a foreign country with disabilities.