Choosing Where to Land: The Search For Our Next Home

Part 1 of a 3-part series on choosing where to live abroad as a family

As you may have read in a recent post of ours, our family has decided that it’s time to find our next home so we can settle down, find routine, and enjoy the comforts of having our own home. Prior to departing on this worldschooling adventure, we knew that we were likely not returning to our home in Vermont and that our next landing spot would likely be the Washington, D.C. area or somewhere abroad.

We are on the other side of a “research” trip in which we visited two countries we considered living in. We know enough about life in the states and the area we’d live in there, so more time on the other side of the Atlantic was necessary to make an informed decision.

This Felt Different than Planning The “BIG TRIP”

When planning our year abroad this past summer, our focus was on exploring new cities, experiencing different cultures, and making memories. We made sure to hit the must-see places like the Eiffel Tower, the Tower Bridge, Sagrada Familia, and Retiro Park. This second phase of our travel was to explore areas that might become our eventual home.

Our Short List

Visa eligibility was a leading factor in creating our short list. The reality is that we can’t just live wherever we want to, so after doing some quick research, we decided that Spain and The Netherlands were our most realistic options.

We started by visiting the Netherlands where their DAFT visa allows citizens of the states to apply when starting a business in their country. This visa requires little monetary investment (about $5kUSD) and registering your business with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Having put my organizing business on hold due to our worldschooling year, we considered relocating my talents to the other side of the Atlantic.

Jay has been wanting to live in Spain for nearly 10 years now, so this is not a new idea to us like Holland. Where exactly we’d live in Spain was a new conversation. We love Madrid and knew we wouldn’t want to live in Barcelona…but what about the rest of the country? We decided to revisit Madrid but with a wider net into the suburbs, Zaragoza (conveniently located between Madrid & Barcelona so easy to access by plane or train for Jay’s commute), and Valencia (is our family a beach family?).

Visiting In Person

What was important to us while visiting these places? First of all, our instincts. Immediately upon arriving in each city, we asked ourselves, “How do we feel here?”. We believe it’s important to recognize those immediate feelings and take them seriously. What I didn’t expect was that for the most part, our family was on the same page during these check-ins! I predicted more of a range of reactions but when it came down to it, it turns our all 6 of us are generally looking for similar things.

Another consideration in each place was accessibility – how easy (or hard) would it be to get from where we might live to say a grocery store or school? Could we walk or bike or would we need a vehicle? Is it safe to bike here? Spoiler: It’s probably safer to bike in the Netherlands than to drive. Public transportation is a huge bonus for us so we made sure to take the trains and trams and buses to see how doable it felt to us. Bigger picture: knowing Jay would be commuting to work via a major airport, we also needed to take that time and cost into account. A 5-hour train ride then a flight to D.C. wouldn’t be ideal.

Visiting grocery stores was a common theme for our city visits. What kinds of foods did they have? What types of our usual staple ingredients would be a challenge to find (maple syrup is at the top of the list – don’t worry, we have friends in sweet places), and how did the prices feel compared to the states? For the kids, the best part of this scouting errand was leaving with a treat to keep the home-shopping energy going…

We were very interested in the traditional housing options each city we visited. Do most people live in apartments, townhouses, or stand-alone houses? Was it really loud or quiet? Clean or dirty? Did we feel safe walking in the areas where we might want to live? Our plan is to be able to give the kids lots of freedom in our future home which includes the ability to take public transportation to school or activities by themselves. We never felt unsafe in any of the places we scouted, but some definitely had more of a “we could live here” vibe than others.

Weather is a consideration that needs to be considered. Having lived in Vermont, we are tough when it comes to cold, but do we want more of that or do we want to try living somewhere with a milder climate? Can we handle the cool and rainy days in Holland or the oven-hot summers in Spain? How the weather affects daily life is important too – if we are planning on taking public transportation, how do we feel about waiting for the bus in the cold? Or riding our bikes in the snow? It’s an important consideration to take when researching where to live.

Finally, access to parks & green spaces. There were cities on our trip that felt very…urban – where “parks” were slabs of concrete with playgrounds on top. Our kids need grass and space to run around, whether it’s in a park or our back yard. Needing to drive or take public transportation isn’t enough – we need walkable access.

Education & Language

Worldschooling will be coming to an end and all of my sweet students will be going back to “real” school this fall. The Netherlands posed a bit of a hurdle for us with the Dutch language. We have been working on our Spanish over the last few years and Dutch…well, let’s just say, it sounds really different from Spanish. The language barrier translates into the schooling as new students in Holland usually spend a year in a special school where they learn the language before entering the public school system. In Spain, the kids would be able to enter into public (or private) school immediately and already have a small head start with some Spanish experience (thanks Guatemala!).

Financials & Healthcare

Visiting another country that uses a different currency feels very different than living in it…we now need to consider what the financial implications of actually living abroad under the Euro would be. We talked a lot about the costs of food, activities, housing, and more.

Healthcare is a big concern when moving a family abroad. In The Netherlands, we’d be elibible for Dutch healthcare which is a public/private system, and in Spain we’d need to purchase private health insurance with no copay. Both options are much more affordable than health insurance in the states as you can imagine.

Community & Lifestyle

The biggest thing that we’ve missed since leaving Vermont is our community. Will we ever be able to find that again? Gulp. Let’s just say this is the big question that our friends and family are asking the most. Can we integrate into a new community, especially one in which we don’t speak the primary language? Our answer is: We hope so. While I have never worried about the kids making friends (they seem to have no issues in new places with new kids and on top of that they will have school and extra curricular activities), Jay and I will have to make an effort to create our circle and we are willing to put in that effort. There are expat groups all over the world and we would be sure to connect with other families that have made similar moves and that can relate to being the “new kids”.

In this same category, I’d also consider the vibe of the city. Again, this goes back to instinct. That gut feeling when you arrive somewhere and you can just feel it almost talking to you. You know when it’s right and when it is probably not a great fit. A big contributor to this feeling is the pace of the city and how it felt being around people that live there. While we are looking for something more urban than in Vermont (we loved the country, but the isolation is real), we are not looking for a major metropolis either.

The Question We Keep Coming Back To

“Are we doing the right thing?”

Let’s be real. Don’t we ask ourselves that question as parents all the freaking time? I know I do. It’s normal to overthink and to wonder and to worry because we care. This decision is big though, so I would be lying if I didn’t say that my worry is elevated. There is so much unknown, a lot of which we won’t be able to know until we have moved in, unpacked, and taken some deep breaths. Even then, it could be years. One thing I do know is this. If we don’t like it we can always make a change. Our decision is not meant to be permanent and the next year or two will be a very telling time for us to reassess and reevaluate. Until then, we remind ourselves of this: our family is doing something brave and exciting and scary and perhaps a little stupid…but we are doing it together and man will we have stories to tell about it someday.

Have you recently made a life-changing move? Was there anything you wish you did differently or sooner? Do you have any regrets?

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