• Sia and Mikael Lilja spent six years building their dream family home in Sweden.
• When they decided that kids were no longer part of the plan, they moved to Japan for a fresh start.
• They paid 8 million yen, about $49,000, for an akiya, one of Japan's old vacant houses in the countryside.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sia and Mikael Lilja, who moved from Sweden to Japan, where they bought and are restoring an old house. It's been edited for length and clarity.

We've been together for 12 years and married for the last 4.

In 2020, we bought a piece of land in a small town about 15 minutes outside Malmö in Sweden, and started building our dream home. We were planning for our long-term future: have kids and live close to family.

By the end of 2023, we were able to move in, although there were still projects — including an upstairs bathroom — that we'd take our time to complete.

However, by then, our plans had already begun to change.

We joined the waiting list for IVF in 2021, but the process was delayed because of the pandemic. We had a lot of hard conversations about the future we'd imagined for ourselves. By the time it was finally our turn to begin IVF, we'd already decided it wasn't the path we wanted.

The house felt too big for just the two of us and our dog. The life we'd planned around it no longer existed, so we started thinking about what else we could do.

A change of plans

Back in 2019, we'd spent six months traveling around Asia and fell in love with the region. We'd always imagined that if we ever moved abroad, it would be somewhere like Bali or South Korea. However, as we looked into both places more seriously, neither felt quite right.

As we explored other possibilities, we came across a podcast about buying a house in Japan. We'd been wanting to visit Japan for years, so we booked a trip for the end of 2025.

Even though we'd never set foot in Japan, it already felt like the right place to begin our next chapter. Before our trip, we started browsing Japanese property listings online and began selling our home in Sweden.

By the time we arrived in Japan for our 3-week trip in November 2025, our house in Sweden had already been sold, although we still had until May 2026 to hand over the keys.

The trip was our chance to make sure Japan really was the right place for us before buying a home there, and it did exactly that. Over the next 3 weeks, we explored different parts of Japan, including the Kansai region, to decide where we wanted to settle. We eventually narrowed it down to places within a 90-minute drive of Kyoto.

When we returned to Sweden, we stepped up our house hunt. We hired a buyer's agent and set up alerts for akiya — old, vacant homes — that matched our criteria.

We wanted a traditional home with natural light, a wraparound veranda, and a rural setting while still being close to a train station and other amenities.

In January, we finally got the alert we'd been waiting for.

Our agent quickly arranged a viewing. Since we were still in Sweden, he walked us through the house over a video call. When we saw it, we knew it was exactly what we were looking for, so we made an offer immediately.

Our offer was accepted, and the purchase price was 8 million yen, or about $49,000, before taxes and other fees.

The start of a new chapter

We decided to look at this time as a gap year for adults, so we both left our jobs.

With that, we turned our attention to wrapping up our lives in Sweden. In May 2026, we handed over the keys and flew to Japan.

When we saw the house in person for the first time, we were pleasantly surprised; it had been incredibly well-maintained.

The kitchen looked almost brand new, and the bathroom was much nicer than we'd expected. It almost feels strange calling it an akiya because it's nothing like the old, half-ruined homes people often imagine.

Everything is in Japanese, so we're constantly translating labels with an app. We spent almost two weeks eating convenience store food before we'd bought a fridge and could finally cook our own meals.

Thankfully, our neighbors — mostly older Japanese residents — have been welcoming. Our house sits on the edge of a small village surrounded by fields and bamboo forest, and they've already shown us how to weed the property and look after the bamboo shoots.

We spent about a month settling in, cleaning the house, and buying simple furniture and appliances. We ordered new tatami mats, had the roof inspected, and started planning the work we'd tackle before returning to Europe.

We're back in Europe for a few months, visiting family while we wait for our dog's vaccination paperwork to be finalized. We're aiming to officially move to Japan in September.

Once we're back, we'll start renovating. Unlike our house in Sweden, we don't want this project to take over our whole lives. Instead, we want to travel around Japan and renovate the house little by little. There are plenty of places we'd like to visit with our dog.

We're looking forward to starting this new chapter.

• Moving to Japan from New Zealand gave my family cheaper living and better healthcare.
• Inexpensive flights and Japan's rail network made frequent travel part of everyday life.
• Less financial stress and a slower lifestyle improved my mental health and overall quality of life

Three years ago, my family of three left New Zealand for Kobe, Japan, desperate for a total reset. We were running on empty, exhausted by skyrocketing living costs, limited career growth, and relentless financial stress.

We already loved Japan as tourists, but moving here permanently felt like a massive gamble. Instead, trading hemispheres didn't just change our coordinates; it completely rewrote our quality of life.

Same-day medical care is possible

Back in New Zealand, my husband once waited months for an MRI after a severe work injury, while I spent years and thousands of dollars chasing answers to chronic health concerns through a clogged public system.

When his back pain returned, I braced for the same exhausting delays in Japan. Instead, I laughed out loud when the clinic doctor asked if he'd prefer his MRI in three hours or later in the day, after he'd had some lunch. The total cost was just ¥6000 (around $38 USD).

While New Zealand's healthcare is technically free, accessibility was often the real issue. I now feel an enormous sense of relief knowing affordable and timely care is available when we need it. My 10-year-old daughter's monthly pediatric specialist appointments cost just ¥280 — less than $2 USD.

Ditching our car improved our lives

We don't own a car, so movement is embedded in our daily life. Between train stations, school runs, and grocery trips, I easily clear 10,000 steps a day.

In my first four months here, I lost 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds), though I quickly found them again thanks to Japan's incredibly delicious bakeries.

Increased walking has also changed how I connect with my environment. In a car, seasonal changes passed me by. Now, I slow down to notice spring buds, cherry blossoms hanging over train tracks, or autumn maples turning a deep crimson. I even took extra winter walks just to feel snowflakes settle on my cheeks as the hills behind my home turned white.

We can travel frequently

In New Zealand, international trips were a rare and expensive treat. In Japan, cheap flights across Asia and an extensive rail network make travel effortless and affordable.

Last summer alone, we visited Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, Bali, and the Setouchi Islands. Our multi-stop summer itinerary — flying from Osaka to Singapore and Bali before heading back to Japan — cost just 212,587 Yen ($1,332 USD) for all three of us on budget carriers.

Traveling to Beppu this May made me realize just how lucky we are. As I rode the Yufuin no Mori scenic train past mountains covered in vivid green cedar and purple wisteria, I looked out the window and actually cried out of pure gratitude for this new life.

Having affordable international flights at our doorstep and a domestic transit system that makes spontaneous weekend trips easy has turned travel from an occasional luxury into a normal part of our lives.

Our housing and grocery bills plummeted by more than half

In New Zealand, we paid NZ $1,680, or about $985 USD, a month for a small two-bedroom unit outside Christchurch's city center. In Kobe, we now pay around $450 a month for a much larger three-bedroom apartment.

The first time I did a week's worth of grocery shopping in Japan, I walked into the supermarket with ¥50,000 (about $315 USD) in my wallet, expecting to spend most of it. When the total came to just ¥15,000 ($95 USD), I genuinely thought there had been a mistake at the register.

While rising prices and the weak yen have made everyday life more expensive for many families in Japan, it still feels far more financially manageable for us than life in New Zealand did, especially when it comes to housing, groceries, internet, and eating out.

Living in Japan has reshaped my perspective and improved my mental health

Starting over in Japan wasn't a magical fix; navigating a new language and culture was lonely at times. Yet immersing myself in a completely different way of living reshaped my perspective, teaching me to appreciate more and fight the current less.

They say money can't buy happiness, but the financial stability and lifestyle shift here reduced my stress so drastically that eight months ago, I finally came off antidepressants after relying on them since I was 17.

Japan didn't cure me, but it created the conditions for recovery, which reignited my curiosity for learning about the world.

• Laura Pollacco was struggling with depression and moved to Japan for two years to teach English.
• After returning home, she realized her career prospects and professional network were stronger in Tokyo, so she moved back.
• Now 31, working as a freelancer, and engaged, she's torn over where to build her future.

At 22, heartbroken, depressed, and unsure about my future, I craved novelty and adventure, so I packed up my life in England and moved to Japan.

Now, 31, living in Tokyo, and more secure than I've ever felt in my adult life, I can't help but feel that creeping depression, pushing me to pack my bags once more.

In my early 20s, upending my life felt exciting. Now, in my 30s, it just feels indecisive.

In 2016, I'd graduated with a degree in fashion photography and was working three part-time jobs in my university town to scrape by while simultaneously trying (and failing) to get over intense heartbreak. I was struggling.

Hobbies like theater and kung fu had lost their shine, my future felt vast and uncertain. I wanted a fresh slate.

During my personally elected studies into Japanese fashion and aesthetics, I fell in love with Japan. My dissertation was titled "The rise of gender neutrality and its origins in Japanese design." I even visited a friend studying abroad there in 2015, and that brief but fantastic sojourn left me thinking — somewhat naively — "I could live here."

A year later, in my depressed state, that thought resurfaced. Then it became all I could focus on.

I needed to move to Japan

The move wasn't completely off the cuff ー I'm not spontaneous enough for that. I applied to and was accepted into the JET Program, an organization that recruits thousands of graduates to teach English.

Rather than a traditional school placement, I was based at an education center in Kanagawa, about an hour from Tokyo, with occasional assignments at local high schools.

I threw myself into adapting: learning the rhythms of a new culture, working on my basic Japanese skills, and exploring my new environment. With every mountain climb, temple visit, and ramen bowl, I felt the blanket of depression start to fall from my shoulders.

I put myself out there once again, starting new hobbies such as MMA, kendo, and ikebana while reviving my old passions like drama. These led to new connections and opportunities. I felt reborn.

Japan had rekindled my passion for life. Feeling I'd gotten all I could from my teaching role, I decided to leave Japan with the goal of picking up where I was prior to my depressive episode.

Life back in Europe

I returned to the UK only for the pandemic to cut right across all my well-laid plans. Like most of the country, I was trapped inside, questioning my life decisions, especially about leaving Japan.

I was better connected in Tokyo's creative circles than in the UK, I had support in Japan, and the cost of living was considerably lower. I decided to move back, this time not out of depression, but out of hope and ambition.

In 2022, I returned on a working holiday visa, juggling remote freelance writing gigs with pitching to local publications. I pushed hard until, when my working holiday visa came to an end, I had enough work behind me to switch to the journalism visa in 2023.

Despite expanding my client list and gaining experience, my original fire began to flicker, then sputter, and more recently, it's felt like I'm helplessly blowing on the embers to keep them from going out. I was burned out.

Depression was setting in again. I experienced fatigue, a lack of interest in my hobbies, a desire to be left alone, all while self-flagellating my lack of ambition and for "settling" in my career.

My loving fiancé — whom I met here in Japan — was starting to worry to the point where he offered to cover the cost of online therapy. During these sessions, I realized that, for the first time since moving back to Japan, I was starting to feel homesick.

Living in a foreign country is tough

For starters, while I speak enough to get by, not speaking fluent Japanese is exhausting. As a multifaceted freelancer, immigration's restrictive boxes feel like a choking dog collar yanking me back from new opportunities, not to mention the new gray hairs I gain with every annual visa renewal.

On top of that, I've felt a rise of anti-foreigner sentiment, and Tokyo's concrete jungle is starting to feel claustrophobic and repressive.

In recent months, my brain has been flooded with ideas of returning back to the pastoral days of my youth. Stone cottages with actual gardens, walks down country paths with a dog by my side, fully understanding what's being said to me at a doctor's visit.

But I can't tell if I'm truly wanting to return to England or if I'm trying to escape back into a childhood where responsibilities were minimal.

I've worked so hard to get to and stay in Japan, I don't know whether to push through what could simply be a low period and wait to get to the other side, or whether my gut, my instinct, is trying to tell me something.

When it comes to big life choices like these, I realize I'll only find out if it was the right decision after the fact. I just hope that, whatever my partner and I choose to do, we make the best of that decision.

• Zachary Biss moved from the Tampa Bay area to Lisbon seeking a new lifestyle.
• Biss chose to take a cruise instead of flying and was able to bring more items with him.
• Biss appreciates the slower pace of life in Portugal and anticipates saving more money on bills.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Zachary Biss, 29, a musician from St. Petersburg, Florida, who moved with his girlfriend, Marina, to Portugal by boat. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a full-time musician. Back in the States, I played gigs at bars and restaurants with my guitar, singing and playing covers for a living.

I've always had the same job in music, and over time, I was able to play all my gigs and have enough money at the end of the month to put away in savings and invest in stocks.

That allowed me to buy a house in Florida in 2019. I was really proud that I was able to make that happen.

Ever since I moved into the house, I've kept a budget down to the penny, and the expenses got absolutely insane.

My electric bill roughly doubled over the course of five years. My utilities, which covered water and garbage disposal, doubled as well.

You have all these people telling you homeownership is the goal — that's the dream — but the bills kept going up. I'm like, "This seems backward. I feel like I should be paying something off to where eventually I'll be paying less."

Over the course of half a decade, everything has crept up to where I'm working harder than I've ever worked, and making as much money as I've ever made, but I have nothing to show for it here.

We knew we wanted to move to Lisbon

I thought, maybe it's time to go somewhere else and try something different, because otherwise I'm just going to float here and not really thrive.

I haven't sold my home yet. It's still on the market.

My girlfriend and I already knew we wanted to move to Portugal for a while. So by the time we were able to finally move, I was like, "I don't care. We just have to go."

It was a little bit emotional, but not really because we'd been planning it for so long. I had gotten to the point where I didn't want to wait anymore.

We decided to move by taking a cruise

We found a cruise that was actually going directly one way, because they do the transatlantic sailings to move the boats. After the season's over in the Caribbean, they move to Europe, so we found one that was going from Tampa and ending in Lisbon. It was a match made in heaven.

We did pay a little bit more than flying, but you're getting a two-week cruise: all the food, all the lodging, and a couple of stops along the way.

We stopped in the Bahamas, and then after the Bahamas were six days at sea, and that was pretty wild. I've never spent that much time at sea.

After that was the Azores, and then it was another sea day because they're pretty far off from the mainland. Then we did Porto, which was really cool, and then we ended in Lisbon.

All in, we paid $2,500 total, so definitely more than two flights, but I would say it was worth the cost. The transatlantics are usually a bargain because they're not that full and they're just trying to sell tickets to make the voyage worth it — we actually got a balcony room and everything.

But the biggest perk was that there was no hard luggage limit. I brought my guitar, I brought my suitcases, Marina brought a bunch of her suitcases — as much as we could fit — and we got to the port and the porter's like, "How many luggage tags do you need?" And we said, "However many."

Flying would have been a lot more restrictive.

We also thought that sailing would ease us into moving a little more than flying would, because there's really nothing worse than landing at Lisbon Airport after an overnight flight, not sleeping on the plane, and dealing with that brutal jet lag.

On the cruise, there were six days at sea in a row, and they would roll forward the clock one hour at a time; they did that five times over the course of the trip to get us five hours ahead to where we are now.

I would totally recommend moving by boat for the luggage benefit alone, but especially if you're a cruiser or you just like relaxing, it's like being at the spa.

It's fun, and at the end of the day, I don't think many people get to say they've sailed across the ocean.

We like the pace of life in Portugal

The first night, we were sitting at the dinner table, and we looked at each other, and we both started crying, like, "What are we doing?" But I think that's 100% normal for anyone moving, even just moving to another state. It's scary. This is the first time I've moved.

There were things pushing us out of the US and things bringing us to Portugal. Honestly, the biggest one was health insurance.

As a self-employed person in the States, I often feel punished for being self-employed when it comes to health insurance. The cheapest plan offered to me on the marketplace for this year was about $360 a month.

When I talk to my friends who live here or have moved here, and I tell them what I paid in a month, they're like, "Well, that's about what I pay in a year."

Affordability wasn't the only reason we moved. If we were going for affordability, there are definitely cheaper places in Portugal, and even more affordable places in Europe. It's all relative; what's affordable to me might be different than what's affordable to a local here.

The people, in broad strokes, are in a little bit less of a rush here. I made a joke that even the people trying to sell you something off the street, once they realize you're not going to buy what they're selling, they'll just have a conversation with you, which is nice.

The pace of life is not so much work, work, work all the time, rush, rush, rush. People here really will take a moment — it's built into the day to have a coffee, have your pastry in the morning, and you're not just grabbing your big iced coffee and getting in your car and rushing to work.

It's a breath of fresh air.

• I left behind my plans in Poland and moved to the US after falling in love with my American husband.
• It took a while to adjust, but I eventually built a career and a life that I loved.
• Now, my husband wants to move to Poland — so we compromised and decided to eventually retire there.

When I first moved from Poland to Austin, Texas, for a short-term internship in my mid-20s, I never intended to stay.

As a new graduate, my goal was to get some hands-on experience in international business practices before returning home to work with my dad and teach fitness classes on the side.

Then I met the man who would become my husband. We crossed paths in downtown Austin, both waiting for a taxi after a night out. We started talking, felt an instant connection, and from that night on, kept finding reasons to see each other.

When the internship ended, I returned to Poland as planned. A long-distance relationship wasn't easy, but we made it work. One month after I left, he flew to Poland, proposed, and suddenly, the life I thought I was building there no longer felt possible.

I left behind a clear-cut path and rebuilt my life

When I moved back to the US and we got married, I left behind more than my country. I walked away from a defined career path, my family business, and the comfort of knowing exactly where I belonged.

Starting over as an immigrant was harder than I expected. As soon as I got my work permit, I took the first job offer I got. I felt pressure to prove — to my family, my friends, and myself — that I was succeeding in America.

Getting a job quickly felt like validation. In hindsight, it was a mistake. The role wasn't right, but I stayed longer than I should have. As a new immigrant, I didn't think I could afford to be selective.

When I became pregnant with my first child, I quit my job and made a difficult but necessary decision: I went back to college. I earned a degree in computer information technology and eventually started a new career in tech.

For the first time since moving to the US, I felt stable again. I had rebuilt my confidence and proven to myself that starting over didn't mean starting from nothing.

Still, something was missing. In Poland, I had always envisioned myself running a business. That dream never disappeared.

Alongside my tech career, I started my own fitness coaching business. Through it, I met inspiring women in the US — entrepreneurs, mothers, immigrants — who helped me rediscover my ambition and sense of purpose.

It took nearly 10 years, but slowly, the US started feeling like home.

While I was building a home in Austin, my husband was falling in love with Poland — but we've found a compromise

Just as I felt rooted, my husband started dreaming of the life I once left behind.

Throughout our marriage, we traveled back to Poland often. Over time, my husband fell for the things I once took for granted: the slower pace of life, the food, the walkable cities, the mountain views near my hometown, and the old architecture layered with history.

Eventually, his curiosity turned more serious. He began talking about what daily life there might look like, bringing up how it would feel to enjoy slower mornings and spend more time with my family. After one memorable visit last year, he asked if I'd be open to planning a future in Poland.

The idea no longer felt abstract. I agreed to start looking at property — maybe a piece of land, or even a small house — sometime in the next year or two.

We had a lot of conversations. We discussed our careers, finances, children, and what we wanted our future to look like.

In the end, we compromised: We'll stay in the US for the time being, but buy property in Poland within the next year or two. We'll visit as much as we can and plan to eventually retire there, about three decades from now.

Moving countries for love taught me that rebuilding takes time, and clarity doesn't come all at once. It also taught me that home isn't just about geography, but choosing each other, no matter where you are.

• At 35, I decided to leave Texas behind to live in Madrid. I didn't have much of a plan.
• After moving, my life changed. I felt inspired by the women I met abroad and started a business.
• Life hasn't been perfect, but I'm still glad I'm here a decade later.

At 35, I left my comfortable life in Texas and bought a one-way ticket to Madrid to teach English.

On paper, everything in Austin looked fine: I had a job at a tech startup, a condo, and a steady routine. My days were predictable, comfortable, and deeply unfulfilling. I felt like I was sleepwalking through them.

I'd studied in Spain and had attempted to move there three times during my 20s. By my mid-30s, I assumed I had missed my opportunity.

Despite being single and childfree, walking away from everything without a plan felt like recklessly blowing up my life.

However, I always had a nagging feeling that there was more to my story. So, I pushed past the voice in my head that said I was "too old" to start over and packed my bags.

Ten years later, I'm still abroad. This move reshaped my life in ways I couldn't have predicted. Breaking with society's norms and taking a chance on myself led me to build the life of freedom I truly wanted.

Here are three things I've learned since leaving the US for my new life in Spain with me, myself, and I.

Age isn't as limited as I'd been taught to believe — especially for women

In the US, we are repeatedly reminded of the typical "path of success": Get married, have children, climb the corporate ladder, buy the house — and do all of this before you get too old.

In my early 30s in Austin, I had a built-in social circle where everyone my age was coupled (or wanted to be), and many had children. As a woman who wasn't prioritizing marriage or motherhood, I felt strangely behind, despite not wanting the same things. I felt like an outlier.

That changed when I moved to Spain. Most women I met didn't follow conventional timelines, and I no longer felt subtle judgment about my life choices. I met countless women my age and older, without kids, and many of them were unattached.

No one ever asked me why I wasn't married. For the first time in my life, I felt like my life choices were normal.

I was also surprised by the number of women over 30 I met who had moved abroad. In Texas, I only knew of students and retirees making the leap, not people in the middle of their careers.

Most people my age were chasing stability, not a total life shake-up. Having no one who understood to turn to for support made me feel even more anxious about my decision.

However, I soon realized that moving in my 30s was actually an advantage. I had more financial stability, better self-awareness, and the wisdom to navigate challenges with perspective.

One of the biggest lessons from my past decade abroad is that there's no expiration date on reinvention. My 30s and 40s have been full of new beginnings, from moving abroad at 35 to starting a new career at 37 to building a thriving business at 40.

Rather than conforming to a path, I created one that fit.

Changing where you live can radically change your life

When you move somewhere new, you gain something very powerful: the ability to choose who you want to be. Distance from past identities, histories, and assumptions about who you are can be very freeing.

And that's the real gift of moving abroad, it's not just a change of scenery, it's a change of context. You can try, fail, pivot, and evolve without an audience.

Before I moved to Spain, my life in the US was characterized by serial job-hopping. I struggled to find my way in the corporate world, while everyone else seemed to move through it with ease.

I felt like something was wrong with me, and I constantly wondered why I couldn't just conform. In the US, work feels like it equals your worth, so what did not thriving say about me?

At 35, I knew teaching abroad wasn't my long-term plan, but I also didn't move across the ocean to chase the conventional path of success. For the first time, I felt free of societal expectations, family pressures, and cultural norms. That anonymity coupled with downtime was the catalyst for self-discovery.

I started asking myself questions that never fit within the conventional definition of success: What do I really want? What excites me? What kind of life do I want to create?

Outside the 9-to-5 grind, I found creativity and clarity. In Madrid, I started blogging, organizing events, and exploring ideas without knowing where they would lead.

Within a year and a half, they led me to start She Hit Refresh, a community and company that helps women over 30 move abroad so they can stop stressing over logistics and build a life that feels aligned with who they are internally.

If I had stayed in Texas, I'm not sure that this version of me would have surfaced. I used to think that I needed to become someone different to thrive in the US.

It turns out I didn't need to change who I was; I just needed to be in a place that allowed me to become myself.

Moving abroad isn't a cure-all

It would be easy to frame a move abroad as a fairy tale, but it isn't.

Navigating visa stress and bureaucracy (particularly in a foreign language) can feel impossible some days. Even easy tasks like grocery shopping or taking the bus can be hard at first and leave you with a stress headache.

I've suffered anxiety from navigating my first office job in Spanish, and it took me years longer than expected to build close friendships.

There were many times when I felt lonely, isolated, and financially uncertain. There were even moments when I doubted whether I had made the right decision. However, I've come to learn that all this is normal.

Life abroad will have its highs and lows, because life abroad is still life.

Overall, though, my day-to-day stress is significantly lower. I walk everywhere. Healthcare is affordable. Travel is accessible and affordable.

My social life is richer and full of friends whose stories are similar to mine. Most importantly, my life feels aligned with who I am.

Moving abroad did not magically solve any of my problems, but it did give me the psychological space to reimagine who I could become. By changing where I lived, I changed how I saw myself and what I believed I was capable of doing.

I took risks I wouldn't have taken back home, and over time, those choices compounded.

What started as a one-year Hail Mary became a new career, a business, and a life that fits me far better than the one I left behind.

• My husband and I sold our house in the US and moved our four-person family to a suburb in Spain.
• We made some mistakes, like not translating important documents and canceling our US phone numbers.
• Errors aside, I'm thrilled to be building a life for my family in Spain.

When my husband and I decided to move our four-person family from the US to Spain, we had roughly two semesters of college Spanish between us and zero experience living abroad.

We didn't let that stop us, though. Beginning in March 2025, we researched obsessively, read books, made spreadsheets, and put together lists of pros and cons. The more research we did, the more confident we became that Spain was the correct place for our family.

Five months later, we packed up our lives and moved our 6- and 9-year-old sons from Northford, Connecticut, to Las Rozas de Madrid, a suburb northwest of the Spanish capital.

Despite our extensive preparation, lessons awaited us. After all, there's so much to consider while moving abroad (especially with kids), and slipups are unavoidable.

That said, here are five mistakes I wish I'd avoided when my family moved.

I wish I'd started building my community abroad before we left

Between selling our home in Connecticut, finding a place to live in Spain, and figuring out where our sons would enroll in school, I deprioritized my new social life.

I assumed we'd naturally meet people once we got here, and we eventually did. But those first few months were lonely.

We arrived in August, a month before my sons' school year started, and many locals were still away on summer trips. Once school started, it became easier to connect with other families. I also joined a few WhatsApp groups recommended to me by other expats.

I'm still very much in the early stages of building a network here. If I were doing the move over, I'd join related regional and professional groups, connect with families in our area, and start building relationships before I even left the US.

Having even one friend waiting for me in Spain would've made a huge difference.

My husband and I didn't ask the right questions about our sons' school curricula

My husband and I planned to start our boys in an international school to ease their transition into a new country and language, with the goal of eventually moving them into a local Spanish school once they were fluent.

We selected an international private school that follows an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum with Spanish language support. It seemed like the perfect fit — until we realized we hadn't asked the right questions.

We failed to realize that our boys, who didn't arrive speaking Spanish, would be learning alongside native speakers rather than building introductory skills.

They're getting an incredible education in Spain, but it's not the foundational language curriculum we expected. We now supplement school with online Spanish tutoring twice a week to fill the gap.

To other parents moving their school-age kids abroad to Spain, I'd recommend asking specifically about language use and requesting sample lesson plans before enrolling to see what language support looks like in practice.

Translating important documents into the local language would've been extremely helpful

Four months after moving, I had to undergo emergency surgery. I felt completely unprepared as I relied on Google Translate and my husband's elementary Spanish language skills to communicate with staff.

We got through it, but "getting through it" isn't the same as feeling safe, understood, and informed.

The scariest moment in the ER was right before I went under anesthesia. I was crying because I couldn't understand what the professionals were saying, couldn't communicate my allergies or medical history, and didn't know what was about to happen.

Luckily, the staff took good care of me, but the experience was harder and more frightening than it needed to be.

Before I left the US, I should have saved a translated medical profile with my allergies, medications, and past surgeries on my phone.

I also should've researched how to access medical translation services, so that if something unexpected happens, I wouldn't have to figure it out in the middle of a crisis.

We didn't know that we couldn't rent a car without a special driving permit

Las Rozas de Madrid is well-connected, so my family doesn't own a car here. When we went to rent one for a holiday trip to Cádiz, we assumed we could do so using our US driver's licenses, but we were wrong.

Without an International Driving Permit, renting a car was off the table. We made the best of the situation, but we were restricted in what we could see and do in Cádiz.

I regret not getting an International Driving Permit before leaving the US. It's easy and costs $20.

Canceling our US numbers created a logistical nightmare

My husband and I both canceled our US phone numbers when we left the country, thinking we'd just use Spanish numbers instead. It was a big mistake.

Accessing our US banks and some key services required us to complete text verifications with our US numbers. So, we've gotten locked out of accounts, struggled with two-factor authentication, and spent hours on international calls trying to fix it.

Rather than canceling my number, I wish I'd ported it, which would've let me move it to an online service while keeping my number, to save us endless headaches.

Even with all the mistakes we've made, I'm glad my family made the move

Six months into our new life in Spain, one thing is certain: I'm so grateful for this journey.

Seeing my kids build new friendships, learn a new language, explore new places, try new foods, and gain confidence as their world expands has made every misstep worth it.

Now, we look back on them as part of our story.