Living in France - January 2019!!

That's the plan.. to have an experience of a lifetime by living in France for 6 months. It still feels like a pipe dream.  Yet, with all of this research I'm doing via the internet and meeting those in person to discuss their travel experiences,  I think we're on the right track to success.

We have always wanted to spend time living in another country, and we have always had the travel bug. While the kids have been young we haven't traveled like we used to, but we knew we wanted to show our children the world somehow. When we moved to Victoria, and then when our first was enrolled in French Immersion at our nearby school, everything seemed a little more possible. We would try to live in France for a year. So what happened to the one year hope you ask? Fear of not getting back into our catchment school and having to split the kids up at different schools when we return. This is still a risk of course, but fingers crossed that the fact we are only going for the second half of the year will help us return to our lovely neighbourhood school.

We are hoping to live in the south of France for several reasons. The weather along with a certain beauty and feeling that I remember from traveling through the area as a teenager are a few of the reasons. The trouble is.. there are so many beautiful regions and so many stunning villages and towns. I have been googling, and google mapping, and google street viewing towns for several years.  I had to narrow it down a bit to help myself out. Here are some of our criteria....

Our criteria list:
- A small town under 8000 people (The fewer the people that speak English the better :)
- Must have a kindergarten and a primary school (in many towns these two are totally separate)
- Be close to a bigger town that has a train station and airport
- Have a few cafes, restaurants, and a grocery store
- Be bike and public transit friendly to avoid needing a car the entire time
- Have rental places available that are not astronomically priced so we can spend our money traveling around

Anything I should add?

- Some things that have been bonuses throughout my planning is that I have met several families that have done almost exactly what we are planning on doing and I have a few contacts in different towns. This has been huge in me favouring different towns. Knowing that I have someone to ask questions to about the local schools and events/activities of a town reassures me so much.

The Visa process - I have read about it and heard about. It sounds like quite the process and a lot of paper work. I will post more about it as I learn more :)


Here is a basic map of France with all of it's regions.  We planning on being in the Languedoc-Rousillon region, most likely in the Herault area, but who knows!




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The beautiful world of biking in France

The Incredible Forests of Vancouver Island

Je pense au fleurs