As a native Floridian, I offer up a different perspective on the pros and cons of living in this sunny southern state. I lived in Florida for much of my life, but I’ve also lived elsewhere—in other places in the U.S. like Los Angeles, and I’ve lived abroad in places with a much lower cost …
I spent two-plus weeks in Costa Rica in 2025, driving between expat towns and scouting forest schools for my son—real research for a possible move, not just curiosity. Spain won out on nearly everything I was weighing: cost, community, the practical day-to-day of raising a kid. The one place Costa Rica pulled ahead was the …
Spain is one of those countries that many first visit during a study abroad program or on a train trip through Europe. Once you’ve spent even a few days here, it’s easy to wonder if living is Spain is as alluring as it is to travel here. Should you pack up your life and move …
Working from the road is the holy grail for a lot of freelancers and remote workers. The idea of typing those work emails from a beachside hammock is alluring, even if not very practical. It’s actually hard to type in a hammock! And if you type on a computer in non-ergonomic positions, it’s terrible for your body’s …
View the 2025 Cost of Living update for Mexico on our sister site, Expats Adrift. I lived and worked around the world for more than 15 years. Before moving to Spain in 2018, I lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand for five months and loved it enough to move back the following year. Then I lived …
Way back in 2008, I decided to pack up my life and travel the world for a year. I wasn’t wealthy—far from it. I was struggling under the weight of debt, and had not saved enough to travel without working remotely. The term digital nomad wasn’t a thing yet, but I had hoped there would …
So, you’re researching how much your life will cost elsewhere in the world and you’re considering living in Thailand. There’s a lot of information to sort through now. When I moved to Chiang Mai a decade ago, the city was a very different place for expats (digital nomads were scarce but retirees aplenty), and information …
A routine forms when you hunker down in one place, when you pick a spot and decide “hey, I’m going to live here; not just travel through, but live here.” Is it safe to admit I thought the routine and normalcy would still elude me? Coming to Chiang Mai was the next leg in my …