Oh, the Places We’ll Go!

After deciding to move abroad, the next daunting task was deciding where to move to. We considered several factors:

1. Easy visa requirements
   Baba and I wouldn’t be working while living abroad (at least not full time) so we don’t have the option of a work visa sponsorship. We also don’t have citizenship in any country outside the US so that route wasn’t feasible either. There are people who do “visa runs”, in which they fly out of the country for a day and their tourist visa would then be renewed for ~90 days upon their return. We considered this option but concluded it would be too stressful with the kids, and we wouldn’t be able to get the same benefits as someone on a resident visa. We had to find a place that offered other alternatives for long term residency.
   
   
2. Lower cost of living
   Since we wouldn’t be working, we wanted to find a place that has a low cost of living. Or, at least lower cost of living than SF which honestly, wasn’t hard to find.
   
   
3. Culture & language
   One of our goals for living abroad is to experience a different culture. So while we love our friendly neighbors up north, living in Canada would probably be too similar to our life here. We want to experience a bit of a culture shock that will challenge us. A big part of experiencing a different culture is learning a new language too. With that said, we want to learn a language that will be useful to us.
   
   
4. Weather
   As San Franciscans, we’ve been spoiled with year-round mild weather. We complain when the temperature is above 70°F or below 60°F. It’s naïve to think that we can find a place with a similar climate, but as long as there are no blizzards and intense heat waves, I think we can learn to adjust.
   
   
5. Good food
   With the exception of O, the three of us are big foodies. We will travel for miles in search of good food. So the country we move to definitely has to have a vibrant culinary scene. We often crave Asian food, so bonus points if a place has great Asian cuisine. Food is probably the second most important factor to us, after safety. I’m serious. We live to eat.
   
   
6. Safety
   As a young family, it goes without saying that we’re looking for safety. And with the rampant gun violence in the US, homelessness and crime in San Francisco, it wasn’t hard to find a place that is safe. We also wanted to live in a place free of trash, the stench of urine, and dog poop. Is that too much to ask? (We love you SF, but you’ve got some problems right now.)
   

Afterward, we created a spreadsheet of possible places to move to (it was allll over the map), and ranked them in each of the above categories. We eventually narrowed the list down to two options, which I’ll share more in the next post.

Moving abroad was something we planned and toiled over since 2017(!). Then Covid hit, and we encountered challenges that made it seem impossible for us to get a visa anywhere. So for awhile, we had to come to terms that this idea may never happen. We started talking about the next best thing, which was to spend the summers abroad.

But in 2021, there was a break in the clouds. Covid restrictions slowly lifted, and Baba found a workaround in the visa that we could qualify for. Moving abroad suddenly seemed viable again. It’s been a roller coaster ride…and we haven’t even moved!