by In “pseudo-nomad mode,” here’s what we’ve covered over the past 15 months.
The pandemic situation is slowly improving, but not as quickly as we had hoped. So we had to make some important decisions.
Buying our house
First big news: we bought a new house!!
No, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to do our family round-the-world trip! We simply reversed our plans—that is, we found our house before doing the trip. Which is actually a good thing! Otherwise, we would have had to plan our return toward the end of the journey. One less thing to stress about!!
But why? No surprise here: renting houses on Airbnb is expensive. On the bright side, we now have an excellent track record as tenants, which will be useful during our big trip!
After living in 14 different Airbnbs during this journey, it allowed us to experience life the way locals do in each place. That was actually the goal of our U.S. road trip (which was initially planned for only 2–3 months, but ended up lasting 15 months!)—to figure out where we wanted to live after our world tour.
We liked Flower Mound (Dallas) in Texas. A peaceful suburb, a bit hot and humid in the summer, and full of strange critters (both terrifying and intriguing). The two factors that worked against it: way too many people (endless stretches of densely populated suburbs) and a lack of nearby attractions (after six months living there, we were starting to wonder what there was left to visit!).
Then Houston. A big NOPE. Not for us, for various reasons. We mostly remember how eager we were to leave. Did the start of the pandemic play a role? Maybe.
A small Houston memory: a neighbor called the police when he saw our California license plate…!
Chattanooga, Tennessee was among our options, but we quickly changed our minds after seeing the suburbs and Tennessee itself. However, it’s a very nice city to visit.
Florida is pretty, but it’s for seniors or tourists. We had the chance to explore several areas (Panama City Beach in the northwest, and several beaches on both the west and east coasts of the peninsula).
We were truly happy in Kissimmee, near Orlando. Once again, we were a bit biased because we had rented a house in a “resort” with a guard at the entrance to the neighborhood. We had the best moments of our entire year there.
That said, as soon as we stepped outside the neighborhood—wow!! Traffic jams, people driving extremely badly, streets that are hard to navigate, and nothing but Disney tourist shops everywhere! We can’t even imagine what traffic must look like outside of COVID times…!
So which state did we finally choose?
Pennsylvania! In a suburb north of Philadelphia.
Just this step alone could deserve a full blog post… The current real estate market (2021) is pretty intense. There can be up to 15 offers on a single house, and it’s a ruthless bidding war. Houses sell for ridiculously inflated prices, and successful buyers make cash offers with no inspection. We made two offers that were rejected. Real estate agent tactics are questionable.
In short, we managed to find our new home in less than a week. It’s thanks to our different approach (which is exhausting, by the way!!) and a bit of luck that our plan worked.
But why Pennsylvania?
- We decided to stay in the United States, which for many reasons better fits our family needs and future projects.
- We’re closer to our families who live in Québec.
- It’s much less expensive than California.
- The schools have an outstanding reputation.
- We’re close to everything (hugely important for us, since we love exploring whenever routine gives us a break!). We’ll be less than 3 hours from Washington, D.C., less than 2 hours from New York City, and a few beaches less than 1.5 hours away. We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to family road trips!
We’ll welcome you with open arms as soon as the pandemic has truly settled down!
Extremely flexible departure date
Second piece of news: we are doing our damn round-the-world trip! (After all the sacrifices we’ve made, believe us—we’re going to do it!!! We deserve it even more!)
We just don’t know yet when we’ll start…
There’s no point in starting too soon—too many international borders are still closed. We want the trip to be enjoyable and to make the most of it. Right now, it’s quite complicated with PCR tests, quarantines, and restaurants and attractions still closed or very limited. So we’re going to wait a bit. The kids will be two years older, but they may remember this great adventure even more.
So… stay tuned!
In the meantime, while waiting for the right moment to leave, we’re going to have fun setting up and decorating our new home—leaving plenty of space for the travel memories we’ll bring back with us!