Moving Abroad: The Process
As soon as I decided to leave the United States, I began to work diligently on getting out of there. Less than four months after making the decision, I was gone. I know that sounds virtually impossible, but I did it. Anything is possible when you are tired of your current situation and determined to change it. I was determined to get a life of total freedom; and I was willing to throw everything I had at achieving that goal.
The first thing I needed to do in order to leave the country was secure passports for myself and my children. Because we had only previously left the country on cruise ships, I had never needed passports for any of us. So I scheduled an appointment to apply for our passports and gathered all of the needed documents. There was a space on the application for you to state where you are planning to go. I knew I needed to figure that out before our appointment.
First, I made a list of everything I wanted in a location. I wanted to move to an area with affordable housing and affordable household help, like nannies, housekeepers, personal chefs, etc. This location would be safe and family friendly, offering activities for kids of all ages and a homeschool community. I definitely wanted to be close to the beach, no more than an hour away. My ideal location would have warm weather all year and be no more than four hours from the United States.
After my list was complete, I started Googling. I figured out that I would need to go to Mexico, Central America, or a Caribbean island in order to get the climate and proximity to the beach that I wanted, and still be less than four hours from the U.S. by plane. However, not all of those areas met the affordability requirement. Finally, I settled on Mexico.
I had an aunt that lived in Mexico and loved it, so I called her for advice. I originally planned to move to the area where she was located, but after watching some YouTube videos about life in Mexico, I decided to go to the Yucatan instead. I found the YouTube channel of a single mom who lived there and she had so many great things to say about the area. I literally watched all of her videos, subscribed to her private social media network, joined some Facebook groups for people in the Yucatan, and started watching videos of everyone I could find that lived in the area.
Once I was completely sold on the Yucatan, I had to sit the kids down and talk to them. The twins were just happy to be going somewhere, but the teens needed more convincing. When I first broached the subject of moving to Mexico, my teens looked at me like I had four heads. However, after I finished telling them about how we would have a nanny for the twins and more money to spend on entertainment, they were willing to give it a try.
Having my teens onboard to go was all I needed to finalize my plan. I was so ready to get my new life started that I actually purchased tickets to leave before all of the passports came in the mail. I had prayed about it and I felt that I’d had confirmation that this was exactly what I was supposed to do, so I stepped out on faith.
~ Faith ~
Because I hadn’t been working for months, I didn’t have much money left in my savings. That didn’t matter to me. I was determined to go, so I used the last of my savings to book a vacation rental for a month and started packing our bags. I told the kids that they could only take one small duffle bag and a backpack for each of them. I only had enough money to check one bag, so they needed bags that could go as carry-ons. Honestly, I think the hardest part of preparing to move was deciding what to take and what we could live without.
We usually traveled in a van and I would allow the kids to bring whatever they could fit in the van. It was very difficult figuring out how to condense a van full of stuff down to four duffle bags and four backpacks. The best part about the packing process was that we didn’t need any jackets, sweaters, nor boots, which would have taken up too much space in the bags. I told the kids to wear the sneakers they wanted to take, and only pack summer clothes and sandals.
The last passport arrived exactly five days before our flight was scheduled to take off, which was my final confirmation that I was doing the right thing. There had been an issue with the application for that particular passport and I was forced to submit a new passport application just twelve days before we were scheduled to leave. Everything on the US Department of State’s website said that passports were taking eight to twelve weeks for processing and delivery, and I only had twelve days. So I prayed. I told God that if I didn’t get the passport in time, I wouldn’t leave, but if the passport came before our scheduled departure, I would know I was supposed to go. It came and we left.
Looking back, there’s only one thing I would have done differently, I would have gotten some Mexican pesos from the bank before I left the states. Arriving in Mexico with no local currency was a little difficult. The US has become a cashless culture, but cash is still king in Mexico.
Thank you for reading. Stay tuned to our next blog, Moving Abroad: Moving Day. Be sure to subscribe.