A Travel Bloggers First Attempt At European Living
Well, the first attempt at remote living and working is coming up fast. September 20, 2014 will find us in Paris. We love Paris and that is where it all started. I mean 30 years ago this year; Gloria and I got married and did our first “Grand Tour” of Europe. We have been back many times since, but this time is different.
We are now ready to go for broke in a year or two, and travel worldwide. Maybe not all year round, but the goal now is to travel at least 6-9 months per year. This Paris trip is our attempt to “live like a local” and see if we love it as much as the one or two week vacations we have taken in the past. This will be for 20 days in Paris, and then 5 days in Turkey, mostly Istanbul (this is for another article).
So, I hope to provide some pre-trip information you may find helpful in subsequent articles.
For now, let me give a general overview of the trip. We are staying in two separate short term rental apartments, one on the left bank, and one on the right bank. The idea is to find an area in Paris that we like to live and can see ourselves there for months at a time. If you can afford Paris, you can afford anywhere, is our theory. So, we will be doing a dollar by dollar expense reporting to determine the actual costs. I have read a lot of other blogs, articles, used some app based software for budgets, and frankly, find the results dubious (based upon my prior trips to Paris). So, I will make a very concerted effort to keep detailed expenses so as to establish a valid baseline amount.
At any rate, I digress somewhat, we have purchased all airlines tickets, paid for the apartments, and travel insurance so far. The goal is to have everything paid for prior to departure, except for food, fun, and ground transportation.
This is a real experiment for both of us. We say we want to live aboard, and have found many places we have either been to and want to return, or want to visit. But to actually live for months at a time, is a totally different game. We are so excited yet have fears too.
