living abroad – Under 6 Overseas

344 Days Abroad

Published on July 26, 2019January 29, 2020 by karaLeave a comment

We have been abroad for 11 months and during that time we have travelled to 13 countries (14 if you count an afternoon killing time and dodging vendors at the border in Myanmar for a visa run.) We have been on more flights that I care to count and probably triple that in hotel rooms. We have dipped our toes in the Andaman Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the South China Sea, the Java Sea and the Mediterranean. We have hired Ubers, GoJeks and Grabs, and ridden bicycles with kids in ergos, kids in seats, kids in tag-a-longs, and kids holding on for dear life. We have been in a horse-drawn cart and several bicycle rickshaws. We have chartered a helicopter, a flight and several boats. We’ve ridden in tuk-tuks, in songthaews and on the back of scooter-taxis. We’ve been on underground boats and open-ocean ferries, taken light-rail or subways, a diesel train through the countryside and a kiddie train around the mall. We’ve travelled by water buffalo, double-decker bus, gondola and longtail boat. We have rented cars and driven on both the right and the left-sides of the road and we have walked hundreds of miles.

The vast majority of the 344 days we’ve been away from home were spent just living a regular life, you know, grocery shopping, going to work or school or running errands, exercising and playing at parks. But strings of normal days have been punctuated with special events–the bucket list items–where we found ourselves awestruck, or dumbstruck, or starstruck, or physically struck (by cars, which actually happened twice.) We climbed the ancient Mesoamerican pyramids of Teotihuacan and stared into the blank eyes of the mummies of Guanajuato while in Mexico. We have kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland, visited Stonehenge in England and participated in the Highland Games in Scotland. We searched for the Loch Ness monster, saw the Mona Lisa and stood in the front row of a Mumford and Sons concert. We bungee jumped. We hand fed elephants in Thailand and were blessed by a monk for safe travels. We visited the Angkor Wat temples and donated blood at a local hospital in Cambodia. We watched the light and sound show featuring over 42 buildings in Hong Kong from a sky bar patio. We released a lantern at the Loy Krathong festival and took a cable car over waterfalls and jungles before crossing the Golden Bridge in Vietnam. In Indonesia, we swam with sea turtles and snorkeled over a sunken statue. We saw both the Himalayan mountains of Annapurna and Everest. We witnessed the washing of a body with holy water from a Hindu temple and the cremation of the remains on the river bank in Nepal. Of course, Ben trekked to Everest base camp where he stared with his bare eyes at the tallest mountain in the world in all of its glorious wonder. We stood in Catherine de Medici’s bedroom and saw the collapsed roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral. On a brief layover in the United Arab Emirates, the kids and I visited the Burj Khalifa-the tallest building in the world. We have swung over the rice terraces in Bali, visited the Hanoi Hilton and broke into an abandoned women’s prison in Chiang Mai. We have seen the Liberty Bell, the White House and the Discovery space shuttle. And thanks to that monk’s blessing, we have managed to do with only one visit to ER and one minor bout of food poisoning.

Visiting the elephant sanctuary in Thailand

We have also grown a lot as individuals on our journey. The kids have been forced to travel for nearly a year without a stroller, making them confident road crossers and traffic minders. They have learned how to step off of escalators without help and how to buckle their own seatbelts. They have learned to drink out of water bottles in a moving car, to hold their own umbrellas upright, to get by with only a handful of toys and to go to bed by themselves without constant cuddling. We are impressed by both kids’ resilience with which they accept that they have no home, can’t speak regularly to their old friends, have to constantly leave new friends and have no control over their environment. And they have become more resourceful and patient than I could imagine. We have also travelled for 11 months without losing Falcon’s beloved Monkey Man which I consider a straight up miracle. We have kept our special, plastic, color-changing Chewbacca spoon that Falcon uses daily for his cereal, as well as more important items such as our wallets, ID cards, and cell phones.

Personally, I have gone a year without really wearing any make-up. I haven’t curled or blow dried my hair once. I occasionally pluck rogue eyebrows (although I don’t think that they ever really recovered from the over-plucking look of the 90’s.) My clothes are tattered from months of wear and line drying, and they have weathered the loss of 15 pounds in Nepal and gain of 10ish pounds in France. Grey hairs and sunspots have popped up like left and right, despite lasering the crap out of them in Thailand. Overall, one could say that I have succumbed to a low maintenance, somewhat cavewoman-like appearance. And to compound any stress that I have about returning home, I have agreed to attend my 20-year high school reunion on the way back. In fact, I will fly straight from Mexico into the heart of that madness, stretched out clothes, frazzled hair and all.

We have missed celebrating holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. Mother’s and Father’s days fell on different days in Europe than America so we felt a little disconnected from those holidays as well. Several of our friends have moved away from our hometown and my sister welcomed a new baby in our absence. I never thought that I would say this but we miss having a routine. We struggle not being productive, having time to ourselves and exercising. Although we have thankfully avoided some of this bizarre American presidency, we have been completely out of the loop of American politics, including the ability of vote. And…we have spent our entire savings and then some. We have cycled through a bazillion pairs of sunglasses, umbrellas, chapsticks and jars of peanut butter. We left with about 220 pounds of stuff for our move to Thailand and we will be returning with 120 pounds of bare essentials.

Overall, it’s hard to put into words all that we have seen and done without sounding vain or crazy. This year abroad may not have had resulted in a spiritual awakening or significantly altered the course of our lives but we will be returning mentally renewed and more confident. Our goal was to learn things and to have fun, and I think that we achieved that. We have checked off a lot of the items on our initial bucket list. But over the course of the past year, our bucket list has probably doubled in size, as there are many places that we would like to revisit when the kids get older and new places that we have heard about but didn’t have time to visit. For now though, we look forward to settling down a bit, planning our next adventures and binge watching some good ole American reality TV.

Our Year of Adventure

Published on February 10, 2019March 11, 2019 by karaLeave a comment

Our plan to travel the world was conceived many years ago, but was set into motion in September 2017. It had been 4 years since Ben and I had gotten married, 3 years since we had become parents, 1 year since I had been laid off, and to be honest, our lives had become a little stagnant. In order to spice things up, I ended up drafting a list of options from which Ben could choose: 1) move to another town where I could find a meaningful job, 2) try for a third baby or 3) travel full-time with our children. Each option had implications for our careers, for our relationships with our friends and family, and for our finances. After careful consideration, we decided to follow our dreams and started planning for the trip of a lifetime.

From the get-go, I think most people doubted that this trip would come to fruition. We had jobs, a house, a small savings, cars, loans, friends and family, and commitments just like everyone else. It’s hard for anyone to imagine leaving it all behind. But honestly, the hardest part of this journey so far was merely just making the decision to go. The rest of the pieces fell into place after. Fast forward to now, nearly 6 months into said trip, and I still feel like our plans are met with incredulity. It’s probably just me, but I feel ridiculous when I call home and tell my mom things like, “Ben wants to hike to Everest so we are going to Nepal.” I know her brain is flashing red and she’s racing through questions like, “Who really goes to Everest? How does one afford that? Don’t you need oxygen and gear to withstand a polar vortex? Where do you find a sherpa? Where will the kids be?” I imagine her silently rolling her eyes when I tell her that we are considering a side-business selling cardstock (purchased in Vietnam, carted across the world for 6 months and then sold on Etsy), and how far-fetched is sounds to say out loud that we plan to live with a family we’ve never met–in France–for free–for a month. But all of it is true.

When we planned this trip, I anticipated having a grand adventure, full of family time, visiting new sites and ticking off a few boxes from our bucket list. However sappy it sounds, what we’ve found is that everything is possible. That is not to say that we haven’t had some misfires. Anyone remember THIS post? But overall, we are proud about what we’ve accomplished so far and are excited about what we have lined up for 2019. Here’s a peek into where we’ve been and where we are going.

I am acutely aware of how absurd it all sounds that we tote our toddlers around the world, but once we settled in Thailand, it just became the norm. We have been inspired by families we have met that piece together jobs that allow them to travel or live wherever they want, that don’t let having one or two or three or four kids keep them from going where their hearts desire and that support each other in following their dreams. We are so glad that we made the decision to live and travel abroad, and we feel incredibly lucky to be living this life.

I also want to shout out some families that we have met in person and/or communicate with on Instagram that are truly #livingthedream. 🙂 All have quit their normal 9-5 jobs and are traveling the world with their kids. If you have a minute, check them out.

Full-blown Crisis Mode

Published on November 30, 2018January 29, 2020 by kara2 Comments

Existential crisis, that is. One might expect this from a recent college grad: someone undertaking a gap year abroad, before they start their career, find a significant other to settle down with and have kids. This is not what is expected of a 35+ year old woman who has graduated from college twice, who can count trips abroad on hands AND toes, who has had a career, found a significant other (uhhh, twice), settled down and had kids. We have just completed 100 days abroad and I thought that I would have been neck-deep in projects by now. I would be volunteering in an orphanage, I would be amazing my family with culinary Thai-American fusion delights, I would be on my way to fluency in Thai, driving a scooter carefree down the roadways, writing children’s travel books, maintaining a successful travel blog and spending my spare time becoming a svelte, tan Muay Thai fighting mom warrior. Alas, this has just not been the case.

Ben finished his TEFL (teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification and began working part-time as an English teacher to young teens. This has really challenged him and generally keeps him out of trouble most weekends. His obsession with CrossFit resurfaced briefly until a new, minor injury sidelined him. He is taking some private Thai lessons and has a scooter to zip around town. The kids have found their groove going to daycare twice a week and have made some expat friends that meet around town for playdates. However, we had an epic fail trying to enroll them into extracurricular activities. It turns out that American kids (or maybe just my American kids) are not as disciplined as Thai kids, and they spent the majority of a karate class making faces at themselves in the mirror. Needless to say, the teacher very politely refused to let them return so we spend our afternoons playing soccer in the yard instead.

I’ve found that even abroad, I’m only really good at cleaning the house. I compared my idleness to all of Ben’s activity and started stressing out. I also found myself wondering why we came here. What did I want to get out of this trip? Was it meeting my expectations? And most importantly, how will things be different in Oregon when we return home? I looked back on my original bucket list to see how we were faring and I was pretty pleased to see that we had ticked off many of the items.

Make paper out of elephant poop
Take a Thai cooking class
Ride a motorcycle across Laos (Ben)
Lose the baby weight
Scuba dive (Kara)
Raise a lantern during Loi Krathong –the Lantern Festival
Fight Muay Thai
Volunteering TBD
Take a junk cruise in Halong Bay, Vietnam
Eat lots of new fruit
Explore the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore
Teach the kids how to swim
See the sunrise over Angkor Wat
Master the art of using chopsticks
Teach English (Ben)
Jump off the cliffs at Chiang Mai’s Grand Canyon (Kara)

I started to have a change of heart about this crisis-thing. Moving abroad with two little kids and setting up a new life takes time and the fact that we got on a plane with one-way tickets is an achievement all on it’s own. It doesn’t necessarily have be defined by rushing through the typical backpacking checklists of 1) see the temple, 2) ride the elephants, 3) try Muay Thai once, 4) ride a tuk-tuk, etc. Furthermore, I should be proud of the things that I have accomplished this week. I rented a car and taught myself how to drive on the left-hand side of the road–in traffic–where lanes are just guidelines and speed limits don’t matter. I completed a doula training course and I can either use these new skills to help my friends in labor or start a brand new business. And I weighed myself at the little gym in our building and I have semi-intentionally lost 10 pounds since we arrived 3 months ago. Ben may be more decisive and outgoing in his planning, but I was accomplishing things too.

I’m still hoping to discover some hidden talent for like, reiki, drum circling, essential oil application, or shamanism. 😉 Instead of fretting over getting weird diseases, I really want to rekindle my passion for studying diseases. I dream of learning a useful language or writing something and getting paid for it, starting an Etsy shop, or even doubling down and getting all those plastic surgeries I’ve joked about having over the years. Ultimately, I decided that the goal of this gap year should be to do what makes us happiest. If that means that we move to Nepal for a month so that Ben can hike to Everest base camp, then that’s what we do. If it means that I get Thai massages twice a week and grow out bushy eyebrows from not plucking, then that’s what I do. If Falcon wants to eat peanut butter for every meal, and Blue wants to play in the sand on a beach for hours then we will try to accommodate them (within reason). Hopefully, in the process we will learn more about ourselves, discover new passions and skills to achieve them, at the very least, get all this stuff out of our systems so that we can return home refreshed and more well-rounded.

Another One Bites the Crust

Published on September 6, 2018January 25, 2020 by kara3 Comments

Today marks a new milestone in our move across the world. For better or for worse, we have run out of Life cereal. To most people this is an inconsequential detail, I will even go so far as to say that it may be irrelevant. But for those of you who know our 4-year old son Falcon, the sunrise today ushered in a new era -one of immense power struggles, deprivation, and passionate fury. Our child loves bread, with every fiber of his petite and wispy being. He loves cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, toast, croissants, macaroni and sugar snap peas, but only the peas, not the pod. Running out of our last creature comfort from home is devastating for him and we are not above bribing him to try new foods at this point. Thankfully, he is showing a very slight interest in sticky rice which we are rewarding with heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter or ice cream or both.

The rest of us have been fairing only slightly better with this transition. Finding SIM cards for our smart phones…no problem, establishing residency in a foreign country…got it, opening a bank account…piece of cake. Did someone say cake? Finding food to satisfy an insanely ravenous bottomless-pit of a stomach, one picky child, a modestly discerning palate and one toddler who shouldn’t even be mentioned because she would eat dirt and be happy about it….tough. We have found a grocery store that sells corn flakes, peanut butter and macaroni and cheese so we won’t starve, but we may complain a lot. Nearly everyone who heard that we were moving to Thailand said, “Ohhh, the food! The food is amazing. Tell me all about it. I love Thai food. Send me pictures.” And while we certainly have had some good food, I have not experienced the culinary orgasm that I was expecting. We buy fruit at the markets and have indulged heavily in persimmons, avocados, pineapple and bananas. We also make our daily trip(s) to the food vendors for fried rice, mangoes and sticky rice, pad thai, omelettes and meat skewers. I make green and red curry at home and every once in awhile we go to restaurants for mystery meat noodle soup. So far, all of it has just been mediocre. I am really looking forward to going on a food tour and really trying some new things and having some explanation of what it is that we are eating.

img_4633-1 — Purchasing meat at the grocery store is intimidating me into vegetarianism.

Speaking of mystery meat, it’s everywhere…on skewers, in soup, by itself, on pizza (see below), in pad thai, freaking everywhere. It’s somewhere on the nugget-bologna-hot dog spectrum and it’s called misleading things, like “sausage,” which implies that it is meaty, fatty and/or peppery. But don’t be fooled, it’s none of those things. Now that I’ve written all this, I’m starting to doubt that it’s even meat. Maybe it’s tofu with the essence of meat. I need to investigate this further.

Although there is a lot of gastronomic uncertainty here, I have to admit that it is a little thrilling to order something new. I have found that Ben and Blue have totally different techniques than I do when it comes to the unknown. I’m an ease-into-it kind of girl. Have something familiar with a side of unfamiliar. I’ll try chips, but the seaweed flavor. I’ll have the pad thai but instead of chicken, I’ll have the teeny, tiny shrimps and wonton noodles. Usually, this technique works pretty well for me. Ben and Blue are the jump-in-with-both-feet kind. He’s like, “I’ll have the barbequed, purple blob.” Come to find out, it’s a whole, barely cooked squid on a stick. Not breaded or seasoned calamari as we know it, but straight up, out of the ocean, squid on a stick. Eat it like a rubber seafood lollipop. I suppose that there is some merit to their way of things, but frankly, I let the voyeur in me just sit back and enjoy the show.

If the dearly beloved Anthony Bourdain was still around, I would challenge him to live solely on the food of another ethnic group. Here is Ben’s attempt at “sandwiches.”

House Hunters International

Published on August 25, 2018February 10, 2019 by kara2 Comments

Once at home in a 2,000 square foot Queen Anne-style house with fenced yard, our family of four is downsizing in order to make our dreams of living abroad come to life. After spending a week exploring the neighborhoods of Chiang Mai, we have selected the Nimmanhaemin neighborhood. It’s full of bars, restaurants, hotels and community work spaces. It is touristy, but also home to digital nomads and expats. There are also a huge number of McMansions in the suburbs that are much, much cheaper than the centrally-located condos. While Nimmanhaemin (or Nimman as it is called) is more expensive than other areas, the proximity of this neighborhood to the city center allows us to experience all that Chiang Mai has to offer without the need for a car. Therefore, we are limiting our search to condos or townhomes with American facilities (no squat toilets for us!)

Our wish list includes:

Over 50 sq meters (500 square feet)
2+ bedrooms
Close to the city center
Walking distance to a grocery store
Partially or Fully-Furnished
Community area
Pool
Under $1000/mo
View

Property Number 1: The Oldie but Goodie

Located in the heart of the Nimman neighborhood, this condo is the largest of the properties that we’ve seen at 110 square meters (1184 square feet). It is an old, slightly musty building, with no common area and no swimming pool. It has 2 large bedrooms with closets, 2 full bathrooms, and American-style kitchen complete with oven and plenty of storage space. It has real hardwood floors and kitchen table for 6. The highlight of this property is it’s immense size, and stunning view. It is on the 9th floor and looks out over the entire Nimman neighborhood, as well as the entire city skyline. The condo has large windows in every room and a patio with deck chairs for lounging. It would also provide enough space to host out-of-town visitors and has access to a nearby pool with a moderate fee. The railing for the patio is somewhat short, leading one to prohibit any small children from even looking at the patio, let alone ever venturing out onto it. (The patio doors could be double locked.) Listed for 28,000 baht or $860/mo.

Property #2: Far-out Farang (That’s Thai for Foreigner)

This 60 sq meter (645 sq foot) condo is found in a cement lego brick-like fortress, complete with security guards and key-code entry. With 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and community area with pool, gym and green space, it meets 99% of our wish list. It has a pool ready to host the most epic of spring-break parties, and being one of probably 10,000 condos in the area, it probably does from time to time. The downside, (in addition to the cookie-cutter nature of this unit) is that it is located approximately a 10-15 drive to the city center. There is near a suburban mall and some shops, but not the cultural center or university that we had hoped for. A taxi to our prefered neighborhood of Nimman costs about 100 baht or $3. The unit that is available is on the 7th floor and has a view of a massive construction zone with multiple cranes. This condo is listed for 22,000 baht or $675/mo.

Property #3: Cute but Cramped Condo

This condo is on the 4th floor of a modern complex. It’s a corner unit (which might save any relationships that we had hoped to have with our neighbors due to screaming children.) It is small at 60 sq meters (645 square feet) and has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Forget any plans of cooking in the nearly non-existent kitchen or any privacy due to the tiny footprint of this unit. On the plus side, it does have tons of natural light and floor to ceiling windows in each of the rooms. The condo complex also has a large pool and an astoturf play area (which sounds lame but is actually really nice in a place that rains daily and has clouds of mosquitoes that live in real grass.) Not to be forgotten are the sauna, large covered lobby, security, and small gym. Like Property #1, it is centrally-located in the neighborhood of Nimman and is 28,000 baht or $860/mo.

HELP US DECIDE WHERE TO LIVE! TAKE OUR POLL

South of the North Pole, East of the West Pole

Published on August 20, 2018December 28, 2018 by kara5 Comments

“Well guys, we don’t live in Ashland anymore.” -Falcon (4), giving us all a reality check as we drove away from the only place he’s ever called home.

Our journey to Thailand started with a 7-hour drive in a rental car to San Francisco, followed by a mere 14-hour flight to China, a 5-hour layover, and then another 2.5-hour flight to Chiang Mai. Not to mention, the immigration, customs, taxi ride and many frantic emails in the condo lobby to our AirBnB host to find the unit and key to the apartment. But truth be told, the travel was a piece of cake compared to the preparation. In the past few weeks, Ben and I have quit our jobs, sold a car, moved all of our furniture into storage, rehomed my beloved cat, paid off our cell phones, drafted a will and our advanced directives, spent numerous nights worry-sick about finding a tenant to rent our house only to have a lease signed and rent check deposited literally one hour prior to our departure, and said goodbye to all of our friends and family. I’m exhausted just writing about it all.

Today- our first full day in Chiang Mai- has been full of ups and downs. Let’s discuss the successes first, however minor. We managed to flag down a taxi, provide an unpronounceable destination in a language that we cannot write AND we negotiated a fare. We have not had any toilet accidents since leaving home. We have not had any mosquito bites. We have ensured that Falcon will not die of starvation by finding a grocery store that actually sells kraft macaroni and cheese. ——–I’m going to pause for a moment so that you can appreciate that last one because food is really the biggest challenge we have here. ——— Ben has scheduled a playdate with another expat family for tomorrow. Blue can say “hi” to people in Thai with a little prompting when she is in a good mood and we are working on getting both kids to say “thank you” in Thai. I have not had any alcohol in 3-4 days, depending on what continent you are in. (I am aware that this makes me sound like an alcoholic, but I assure you that I am not.) We have had a shockingly warm, if not downright steaming hot, reception from the locals. This place isn’t called “The Land of Smiles” for nothing. After being in Poland where people were not at all pleased with rambunctious children in public, the locals here seem completely delighted by our kids. Security guards play peek-a-boo or literally tickle the kids, a man at 7-11 bought the kids toys while we were shopping, and people seem to have infinite patience with how slow the kids walk.

Now, enough of the rainbow and unicorn stories and onto the realities of traveling with toddlers. Just as you would expect, the jet lag makes us regret ever leaving Oregon with children in the first place. The kids wake up ready to rally at 3am and no amount of cuddling, ignoring, threatening or bribing works to calm them so I may or may not have given my kids Benadryl at some God forsaken hour for their “allergies.” I don’t want to jinx it but I do think that we may be over the hump after last night. They slept from 8-230 and then from 330-630. We have also significantly underestimated the difficulty of walking around with kids. Between the buckled sidewalks, curbs, scooters that frequently drive in the gutter, ankle deep puddles, aforementioned daytime fatigue, and general stare-inducing fascination with all new things, the radius of our explorations has been reduced to about 4-5 blocks from the apartment. In what seems like a lifetime ago, I would have been to many of the markets, nightclubs, tiger and elephant sanctuaries, temples and cafes by now. It humbles my soul to spend so many hours playing legos in the living room but that’s what make the kids comfortable in this new place. I have to remind myself that this move abroad is a long-game and if we want to ensure that they enjoy it (and therefore WE enjoy it) we have to let them adjust to it on their own terms.

You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers: Our Upcoming Trip

Published on February 10, 2018October 22, 2018 by karaLeave a comment

We have talked about moving abroad ad nauseum so it wasn’t much of a surprise to our immediate friends and family when we finally pulled the trigger. What is surprising though is how many people said that they would love to do the same thing. Nearly everyone has asked, “Why Thailand? What are you going to do there? How long will you be gone?” Well, I’m here to answer those questions and more.

Q: When are you leaving?

A: August 16, 2018

Q: How long will you be gone?

A: We are hoping to be gone for a year, but that really depends on our finances, how well the children adjust to the move and how much marital strife is caused by both the financial and emotional change.

Q: Why Thailand, and how did you decide on Chiang Mai?

A: Idyllic beaches and mountain jungles? Check. Good food? Check. Relatively safe and politically stable? Check. Cheaper cost of living. Airport. Job availability. Check. Check. Check. Ease of obtaining visas. Recommended by many people. Tourist hub. Lots of things to do with kids. Chiang Mai seemed to meet all of our desires and assuaged most of our concerns.

Q: What are you going to do for work there?

A: We are quitting our jobs back home so we will be free agents for the year. Ben is planning to take a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course and then teach English part-time. Kara is hoping to keep the kids occupied while Ben is bringing home the bacon, and will play travel agent for our excursions. In the rare few minutes of uninterrupted time, Kara will attempt writing for hire. That is unless we have a better offer…

Q: What about your house in Oregon and what will you do with all of your stuff?

A: We are currently entertaining many options, including selling our house, renting to friends, renting through an agency, keeping our stuff, selling our stuff, etc. In all likelihood, we will rent our house out for the year using a property management company and have a massive yard sale for most of our worldly belongings. The rest of our property will be placed in storage.

Q: What are the next steps in your plan to move abroad?

A. Where to start? Save money. Research health and travel insurance. Write a will and obtain life insurance. Get new cell phone contracts with overseas service. Obtain travel-friendly credit cards with no transaction fees. Potty training. Start to slowly purge. Pay off student loans. Apply for longer-term travel visas. Update passports since they will expire whilst abroad. Look into teaching English online and other internet-based jobs. Find a temporary home for our cat. Interview property management companies. Practice our Thai. And make sure our travel vaccinations are up-to-date.

Q: Are you going to have a car there?

A: Nope. Public transportation and walking will be our primary modes of travel.

Q: How hard is it to get a visa (as an American)?

A: Since we don’t have jobs, we can get a 30-day tourist visa upon arrival with the ability to extend it for a wad of cash for another 30 days. After that, we must cross the border. A person is allowed only two land border crossings and the rest must be through the airport. Fortunately, there are an endless number of places that I want to see so this will be the perfect motivation for getting us out of town.

Q: How can I follow your travels?

A: (Enter shameless plug here.) Follow our blog and follow us on Instagram= under6overseas