Moving Abroad: Is it a Goal or Just a Wish?

On the last day of December I asked, “The year 2010 is almost over. Will 2011 be the year you move to a new country?”

Is moving — or retiring — abroad a goal, or just a wish for you?

If you’re thinking, “Gee, someday it would be nice to live in a place that. . . ,” that’s a wish.

If you’re thinking, “By the end of this year I’ll be living in a place that. . . and here’s my plan to get there,” that’s a goal.

Sometimes goals need readjustment along the way. I really thought I’d be living my expat life by now, but we’ve had some delays. That doesn’t mean we’ve given up on our goal, but we’ve had to rejigger a few things.

We had planned on having the house on the market several months ago. However, necessary repairs (and the finances to do them) resulted in a delay.

I’m happy to tell you now that we’ll be listing it before the end of this month. Our daughter goes back to college in a few days, and after that we’ll kick into high gear, cleaning and staging the house to show well.

We’re still trying to get rid of excess stuff, mostly through Craigslist.

And we’re planning an exploratory trip this spring, to Panama. We’re working out our itinerary now, planning to visit the cities and towns that — on paper at least — are most interesting to us as future places to live.

I’ll keep you posted on that process as it evolves, along with a list of the resources we’re finding most helpful.

Have you found some useful tools for planning your overseas move? I’d love to know about them. You can share by adding a comment (below). Or, if you’re reading this in an email, click the link to go to the website to comment.