Create an Untethered Life Overseas
On Tuesday I flew from Orlando to Panama. The plan is that I will locate a short-term furnished rental, then my husband and the dogs will join me. It’s a little complicated because in April we fly back to Florida for our son’s wedding. If I find a rental quickly, we’re fine. If it takes [...]
When you decide to become an expatriate, to live in another country, you’re choosing to exercise options most of your family and friends don’t even know exist. So what happens when the expat move is the only option you see that makes sense? That’s how I’ve felt for a long time. Yes, I wanted to [...]
Little did I realize, when I told you last week we had vacated the Florida house, that the vacating process would take this long. . . We moved out, with our suitcases, dogs and laptops, one week ago. The estate sale happened on February 18. Somehow, I had visions of walking back in after the [...]
Well, it’s official. We’ve vacated our house in Florida. Even as I type this, the estate sales company is in there pulling everything out of cupboards and drawers, tagging it and getting ready to sell it all off on Saturday. And, frighteningly, even though we feel as though we’re selling off everything we own, we [...]
Tomorrow is February 1, the day we had planned to move to Panama. But we’re not going. Why? Still no tenants for our Florida house. Everything else is poised and ready. Once we get the go-ahead — in the form of a signed lease agreement — we’re ready to whip into our last-minute action. Until [...]
My parents both had hoarding tendencies. Oh, I don’t mean their house was like some of those horrible places you see on TV shows — you didn’t have to weave your way through towering piles of old newspapers or anything like that. But they held onto stuff. After my mother died last summer, we found [...]
As we approach our planned exit date, uncertainty has taken over. No, not uncertainty about whether we should go, uncertainty about the timing. Until we have a signed lease agreement for our house, we’re not buying tickets or going anywhere. Our rental agent had been very sanguine about finding tenants in the allotted time, but [...]
Wow, the time is really flying by as we get closer to our move to Panama. It seems just last week When I started this weekly recount of all the preparation steps we’d taken toward our upcoming Panama move. But actually, it was two months ago! Now we’re within 30 days of our projected move [...]
Last week we skipped the Countdown post because we were doing the 12 Days of Christmas guide to expat gift-giving, so we’ll combine weeks 6 & 7 this week. In this installment we’ll review the steps we took over the last two weeks toward getting ourselves moved from Orlando to Panama. At this point, I’m [...]
Wow, I can’t believe this is the fifth week of Countdown! posts. When we got within the 90-day window for our move to Panama, I started this weekly recount of all the preparation steps we’d taken during the week. Any move is a big undertaking, but the first overseas move is ginormous, so I thought [...]
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