Benvenuti to my monthly column from beautiful Tuscany. If you follow this column you will know that each month I send you a potted history of the previous one, in this case March. Every month brings new and exciting discoveries in our little bit of Chianti and March brought with it one of the highlights … Read more
I’ve been watching the Dominican Republic for more than a decade, waiting for the time to place it on our short list of the world’s top havens. At last, I believe this Caribbean nation’s time has come.With a stable government and a steady economy that grew by 7% in 2015, the Dominican Republic is ripe … Read more
We all know that Eskimos have many ways of describing snow – I am assuming because snow is such a huge looming part of their lives. But as an expat I have started to wish there were more words in the English language for “home”.Okay, there are of course different words you could use – … Read more
For the past 10 years I have been the director of Expat Counseling and Coaching Services, where I have worked with hundreds of expat clients and their families all over the world. Of course the topic of transitions is key to any expat, as they are frequently in transition from one place to the next.What … Read more
Sweden gets ignored by most expats and people looking to move aboard. But I want to give my experience about why I moved to Sweden and why you should think about it too.Back in 2013 I was pretty bored. I was working in a pretty stressful company, had graduated from university a year before and … Read more
It does not matter where you are from and what culture you represent. There is an emerging universal theme I’ve noticed when speaking to single expat women all over the world and of all ages (including my internal dialogue for the past few months as a single expat woman) and it’s time someone put together … Read more
In March I spoke of the rustle of Spring. Now it is roaring through the Morvan. In the UK cowslips are a protected species. Here les coucous are common as daisies. When we first came here I transplanted hundreds of cowslips to safe havens under the trees to save them from the mower. The locals … Read more
Panama is, indeed, the Hub of the Americas, and, living in Panama City, you’d think that traveling around Latin America would be easy and cheap. Easy, yes… cheap, not so much. Copa flies to most major cities in Central and South America and continues to expand its destinations in the United States, the Caribbean, and … Read more
Benvenuti to my monthly column from Beautiful Tuscany. As always I like to reflect back to the previous month, in this case February, and tell you about all the happenings in my little bit of Chianti, and sometimes snippets from other parts of Italy. Early in the month, my man and I were enjoying morning … Read more
I am running a series on my blog at the moment about expat depression – posting roughly once a week on the subject and working my way through what it looks like, when and why people might experience it, the association between depression and culture shock, and how people have helped themselves get over it. … Read more