Moving to Europe- The Dream Has Begun

Yesterday I may have planted the seed that will forever change my direction in life.  Moving overseas.

I was looking at housing prices in the LA (Calabasas) area and realized why.  I only have about 5-7 more years before my kids are in their 20s and most likely on their own.  If I were to purchase a 3 bedroom home now I would probably be upside down on it 5 years from now paying mostly interest to begin with and be worse off then renting.  Not to mention I wouldn't need a 3 bedroom at that time anymore.

Then the thought occured to me.  What about moving to Europe (even for a year or so)?  So I brought this info to my wife and suddenly we were having a real discussion about it like it could actually happen.  Of course I was talking about 8 years down the road but we were surprisingly open to the possibility of it being sooner if things happened that way (bringing our kids along with us).  The funny part is that I'm not scared of it at all.  So where would we move to?

I have always thought about retiring to Tuscany Italy (Around Florence area).  Having a really cool base to travel wherever we wanted as well as living a simplier life in a foreign land.  But I am not even thinking of retiring yet.  So then I thought about France.  Paris could work for my photography, however I would have to become stronger on my French speaking and my wife knows none of it.  Strasbourg was an awesome place to visit and seemed like home- not to mention driving around to all the nearby wine towns was a neat experience.  And they cater to English speakers much better so that may work as well.  But if our kids go then we have to think about English speaking schools.

My other thoughts were of the UK and Ireland.  I think London would not really be ideal as I wanted to be more in an old world atmosphere (and not a mega metropolis).  If I wanted that I would simply go to NY instead.  So that leaves me with Ireland- the home of my ancestors.  Even though it's expensive as hell I could definitely see us living there.

What it all boils down to is a combination of where work would be and where we would want to go.  Something I will have to do plenty of research on before it becomes fact.  The cool part is- the dream has started.