31 Internationals Tell Their Stories

I now live in Barcelona, Spain, and couldn’t be happier about it. It’s funny how life hands us twists and turns. After deciding to leave Buenos Aires for financial reasons, I returned to L.A. for a brief stint before quickly realizing the expat life was the one to lead (although I never really doubted that). To me, Barcelona is the Goldilocks of the three big cities I have lived in.

L.A. was the type-A personality. You go to her when you want to see your name in lights, get to know amazing people, and network the hell out of your small-town roots. But L.A. was too loud, too busy, too superficial.

Buenos Aires was the lively bad-boy. The one you go to when you want to rebel, have a good time, and perhaps, fall in love. But Buenos Aires was too wild, and with no schedule, no aspirations, no future.

Barcelona is the take-home-to-mom kind of city. Reliable yet spontaneous, hardworking yet fun-loving, balanced.

Since 2016, my husband and I have been co-innkeepers at a beach resort in Bonita Springs, FL, and second-time housesitters on the Honduran Bay island of Roatan. Currently, we’re a year and a half in on a stint managing a mountain resort near Asheville, NC, where we rent cabins, tiny homes, and yurts.

For now, our household goods are in storage in FL, since part of our compensation here is a furnished home connected to the resort office. Although we’re not actively looking to leave, we always have feelers out for new opportunities, and our plan is to “continue to roam” for the indefinite future.

In 2016, we lived up to our adopted name of The Meanderthals since our lives consisted of house-sitting around the world, staying in other people’s homes, caring for their pets, and exploring parts of this planet we’d never heard of. We recently compiled a list of those house sits and they totaled 39!  

Since my husband and I are writers, we didn’t need a base so we left our three-year adopted home of Phnom Penh in 2014 after spending three years volunteering and working there. We’d fallen in love with Cambodia but knew there were other magical parts of the world for us to explore so we took off with two suitcases, two backpacks, and two laptops. 

Our house-sitting experiences took us throughout Europe, Central America, South America and as far south as New Zealand where we spent a month in a beautiful home near the beach, driving the owners’ BMW and hanging out with their two gorgeous dogs. Over the past four years, we’ve cared for an ecolodge on a volcano in Nicaragua, an orange plantation in Spain, a hilltop villa in Panama, and a house on a tiny Greek island — almost always falling in love with dogs and cats along the way. We wrote our book, Just Go, Leave the Treadmill for a World of Adventure, for other people like us who’d decided to pull the proverbial rug from under them and experience life in other parts of the world.  

Last year we decided it was time to slow down, primarily because my mother turned 90 and we wanted to spend time with her in England. So my husband obtained a UK spouse visa (no easy feat, despite being married to a Brit) and we’re now firmly ensconced in our little seaside pad on the sunshine coast. And, hanging on the wall in our front hall is a canvas with the photos of all the pets we’ve cared for around the world. 

Our travel now consists of hopping in the car, driving to a local market, hiking the Downs, and taking trains to London. And we love it!

I moved to Budapest with my Indonesian wife and our daughter. For us, being a mixed family, the “home abroad experience” never ends. No matter where we go, at least one of us will be an expat. I work in the film industry as an assistant director, script doctor, and writer. Various projects I deal with range from animation, TV series to historical period drama. I have never stopped writing short stories and tales.

Almost two years later and once again I find myself in Eastern Europe – specifically, Chisinau, the capitol of Moldova. For my devotees who have been following my travels, wanderings, antics and musings; Olga and I were married here in 2005 and returned for a vacation in the autumn of 2017.
Olga was raised and educated in Chisinau. This is where she received her university degree in civil engineering, having specialized in structural engineering.
From your travelin’ buddy on a budget.

I am still living in Northern Ireland at the moment, but May 2020, my partner and I will start full-time house and dogsitting around the world. I still have my travel blog (www.myfeetaremeanttoroam.com) and will work as a free-lance translator online.

I moved back to the US in 2015, to Michigan, to continue my graduate studies. I now have just two years left in my Ph.D. program in Rhetoric and Writing and am thinking about what my next move will be and how to prepare for it. I’ve kept friend and professional connections with many people in Shanghai/China and continue to do some consulting work that, fortunately, sends me back to China once or twice a year.

I never knew I’d have so many “home” spaces in my life, but it is a gift to be able to leave one home and return to another home in one motion. My “wanderlust” and need to be in and of the world have not dissipated, so I’m thinking about going back to the international school route when I’m done with the Ph.D.

We live full time (7 months of the year in Costa Rica), traveling to Massachusetts the other months. In honesty this schedule is getting a bit tiring at our age with medical issues etc., but we love it so far.

Last year we spent 7 weeks traveling Europe. Each day at around 3 we’d start to think of where we’d sleep that night. Pure spontaneous living. One afternoon while in the countryside outside Budapest, I said “we may need to find a church for tonight as there is nothing around here.”  The words no sooner left my mouth when I shouted STOP.  I saw a sign that said pencion. Turns out we stayed at a former communist commune. For $50 we had a two-room gorgeous suite and fabulous meals.
So who knows when our next adventure will be?

Judith

I left Istanbul in November of 2016 thinking that I’d head out to LA. I ended up staying in New York because my mom needed caregiving. My brother, sister, and I cared for her until she passed in November of 2018. I feel very blessed to have been able to spend time with her and also to be able to be with my family, since it had been a long time since I had spent time with them. Now I’m planning my next steps. I want to spend a couple of months in Scotland this summer and if I like it, settle there, or perhaps somewhere else in Europe, maybe Greece, maybe Southern Turkey. We’ll see! 

Sending all my best,

Alba

We had just moved to Erlangen, Germany, when the book was nearing publication. We stayed there 3 years (traveling as much as we could from that home base), then returned to Canada for various reasons (including aging parents). Now we’re looking into the home-restoring game, which I guess is another kind of slow travel; I’m doing (remote) writing, editing and translating, and still keeping up connections with European colleagues.
The move was a bit of a nightmare — very slow, way overpriced, and the movers lost (i.e. stole, I’m pretty sure) a prized Dr. Seuss painting. Thank heck the insurance money came through right away. We’ve never had a good experience with overseas movers, someone should do a story on it.
We’re now back in Hamilton, Ontario. We lived here 15 years ago, and it’s changed a lot. It was a steel-town in decline then, and now it’s undergoing a kind of renaissance, industry is picking up again, and lots of new arts and culture and food and other businesses, so it’s a nice change, and an exciting place to be at the moment. Melissa sells jewelry at the Art Crawls. And they do a lot of filming here now; we’re going to go check out the set for the next season of Umbrella Academy.
Back in North America, one of the first things we had to do was buy a vehicle — but now we can do road trips again! So we’ve also been enjoying trying our hands at house-sitting and pet-sitting. We spent a week in Charlotte, NC, looking after a chocolate lab and two cats. It took a few extra minutes to explain how this works at the US border. Now we’re scoping for the next gig.
What happens next is still up in the air.

Cheers, best,

Mike

As for me, I did three years in Madrid and Spain until my contract ran out and had to skip town since the Visa renewal was too daunting and unlikely to happen anyhow. So that’s how I ended up here in Belfast, working on my MA in English & Poetry this year, and hopefully starting on a PhD here at Queen’s University next year.

Really it’s always just kind of been about staying away from the states for as long as possible. Putting off going home in favor of seeing things from various other perspectives. The problem with other perspectives is that they can become intoxicating. And the longer you spend away from home, the harder it is to go back. This is especially true when your ideologies are so at odds with the place you’re from, a place like Texas being a pretty good example – haha. Although I do really miss the food. And the sun.

At the time I wrote my story, I had been living in Buenos Aires for about 2 years, following 6 months in Guatemala, 2 years in Australia, and about a year in London before that. Altogether, it was about 7 years living and working outside the US. I ended up spending another 2 years in Buenos Aires, and then I moved to Miami, Florida, to take a leadership position in the educational technology company I was (and still am) working for.
It’s been a very odd adjustment to life back in the US; nobody pays in cash anymore, people say weird things like “ratchet” and “lit”, and (my favorite part) there are dogs EVERYWHERE!
There are so many great things that come along with putting my career first for a change, and putting down roots (to some extent), but every day I wake up with a tiny tug in my heart to slip the trainers back on, get back out there and explore the world.
Do any of you ever contend with the “career advancement/growth VS travel” conundrum?
Anyhow, happy for now to just speculate the uncharted possibilities. 🙂

Last time you heard from me I was living in Brussels, working in a multinational company and adapted to the Belgian life after 4 years living in that country. I was happy there and finally I found the balance that cost me that much to find at the beginning. I made my peace with it. 

In January 2017 I moved to Chicago. It was not a hard decision as I always wanted to live in the US and America had been my dream since I was a kid. A good job offer was the reason. Although January is one of the hardest months in this city due to the severe winter in the “Windy City”, the adaptation was smooth and I started familiarising myself with the backstage of the third largest city on the US. 

Although I had travelled to the States many times before and lived in Toronto which is a similar atmosphere, the first months I had a cultural shock, being amazed about everything: big stores open 24/7; no recycling conscience; huge consumerism; fast-paced environment, etc. Everything was the opposite from Belgium. 

Living in a high rise building in downtown Chicago with a stunning view day and night reminds me how lucky I am and how life can bring you to places and situations that exceed your own dreams. Now I can say that I AM LIVING MY AMERICAN DREAM!

 I work as account manager at GrubHub, one of the biggest startups in the States related to online and mobile food ordering. The work environment can’t be better and I am learning a lot about an industry that I never thought I was going to work for. 

Of course I miss Europe and the slow paced life where money does not have the same meaning as is a very supportive social security system and a great public education among other big differences. But I am lucky to be able to travel there almost once a month combining work and leisure to visit my family and friends as much as I can. 

When time allows, I keep some personal projects going on, like a book about Cuban history that I released last year in collaboration with a Cuban photographer whose benefits will go entirely to the island and to those families who shared with me part of their lives. It is such an incredible project! 

At this point I don’t know where life will take me in the next 5 years, but for the moment I am happy in this incredible city enjoying the Summer. Don’t hesitate to let me know if someone comes here, it will be a pleasure to be a tour guide. 

All the best,

Any

Since the book was published we continue to live a similar life which includes house sitting in San Miguel de Allende, MX for several months each year. We have added another favorite spot in Mexico to our life which is San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, where we enjoy the more youthful visitors and all that they bring to the day to day life. When we are not in Mexico we travel to worldwide destinations trying to spend a month in a new country. Favorites have been Germany, Portugal and Colombia. When possible, we try to go to Spanish speaking countries. 

 We have had some great adventures – walking the Camino de Santiago from Roncesvalles to Santiago, Spain and also from Porto, Portugal to Santiago. Upcoming in 2020 will be the Kumuno Kodo in Japan – walking from one Buddhist temple to another as well as a motorhome trip around New Zealand and travels in Australia to visit friends.. 

We had thought of returning to our rented home in the US but changed our minds as we are still loving the vagabond lifestyle and might as well do this while we can. 

 Being a world traveler has its difficult moments here and there but the great opportunities for meeting people from different cultures and experiencing the feeling of being in a world without borders far outweighs the moments of fatigue from travel which does happen.

 We are proud to be a part of this growing number of people who are able to carve out a unique lifestyle in this world.

 Please see more information on our blog at: http://mexicotravel-susan-ricardo.blogspot.com/

 Susan and Richard Neulist

Hello Wandering Souls,

 I continue to be based in Guatemala, working with journalists and reporting on Central America—for public radio and other venues.

 Since a bad knee has made travel more difficult in recent years, I came back to the U.S. for a knee replacement recently. I am praying this will be my ticket to more years of wanderings and adventures.

Soon headed back to Guatemala to follow up on a project about migrant families separated at the border…and other tragic stories. 

 María Emilia Martin
Centro GraciasVida Para los Medios de Comunicación
The GraciasVida Center for Media
Antigua, Guatemala

Hi Everyone,

After my three years based in Colombia, staying for 6 months each year, I knew it was time to move on. I spent three months travelling around the rest of South America before flying back to Europe.

Returning back to England in October I experienced reverse-culture shock. If you have ever experienced it, it is the feeling of everything being the same yet you aren’t. I felt trapped and if I’m honest, I think I was also a bit depressed. Not because I was in England but because I was not where I was meant to be. I was trying to settle back into something which no longer fitted. For the whole 3 months I was there I battled the feeling of not wanting to be there as well as the guilt for wanting to leave my family and friends.

On the 1st February I finally left. I had made the decision to move to Spain. I needed to be in Europe for personal reasons and as much as I missed Colombia, Spain seemed to be a good alternative. Yet I had no strong instinct of exactly where I was meant to be. My idea was to fly into Valencia to see how that felt then work my way up to Barcelona. To be honest, I was worried I wasn’t going to find somewhere that I loved as much as Medellin.

Getting on the metro into the city of Barcelona, I was filled with trepidation. What if it didn’t grab me like Medellin had? But as I walked in the Gothic Quarter looking for my flat share, I felt it. The magical feeling of being transported into a dream, and the tingly sensation of being completely aligned. I spent nearly two years in Barcelona and am now back on the road with my aim to reach my goal of 100 countries solo.

Best wishes,

Lisa

Founder, Girl about the Globe

Maximum adventure, minimum impact