Searching for work overseas can be a bit overwhelming, especially over the holiday period when most people are out of the office or just coming back after time off. Sending your resume around, searching online job boards and having countless phone calls with agents isn't much fun either. But after weeks of searching, John pushed through it all and found himself a new job: in Norway. So we're excited to let everyone know that we're about to move to Scandinavia indefinitely!
It's always a thrill to plan a trip to a new place but moving is a bit more of a pain in the arse. There are visas to secure and accounts to settle, items to ship and short-term accommodation to find. We haven't even begun to think about where we might like to live in our new city - or booked our flights for that matter. We still have a bit more research to do and are awaiting more information from the company. Did I mention that neither one of us has been to Norway before?
One of the things we learned during our sabbatical year was that we prefer to reside in a destination for awhile instead of moving around a lot. Being an expat probably isn't what most people have in mind when they think of slow travel but we want to start a family later this year and so staying on the road full-time, even at a meandering pace, doesn't appeal to us at this stage in our lives. Perhaps we'll save enough to take a long-term family trip again one day, but in the meantime the expat life will suit us just fine for stability, while providing us the opportunity to discover a new country and culture.
We were considering a few different places this time around, including the US and the Middle East. In the past we've lived and worked in France, the UK and, of course, our native homelands of Australia and the United States. We were pretty much open to anything at the start of our search, with Europe always a top choice because, well, it's our favourite continent. But after careful consideration and other factors, an important one being the opportunities available, the contenders became Denmark, France, UK and Norway, with a company in the latter having the choice position for John.
John loved Finland, Denmark and Sweden when he visited in 2003 but I've never set foot in any of the Scandinavian countries, which makes it extra exciting for me. We'll be close to so many places that I'm dying to visit: Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and, of course, the rest of Norway. So while this blog will be taking on more of an expat focus for the next several months as we settle in, we'll have the opportunity to cover many more European destinations in depth in the coming years. I can't wait!
Our new home will be Stavanger and I'm grateful to the talented photographers on Flickr for making the art for this post possible. I'll talk a little more about Stavanger in a coming post. So much research to do...
Do you live in Norway or have you visited before? What do we have to look forward to?
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Thanks
for the post. I am agreeing with you this is perfect place to start your
life with your young family. Thanks for this post and to share these things
with us!!
A great way to see the world. I hope your time in Norway is great–will be following it.
Thanks so much, Christopher!
Wow!!! I’ve been MIA for a few weeks, and here I am stumbling on you two moving to Norway. Though I have not personally been there either, the photos and stories from other bloggers always motivates me to go. Looks like a beautiful country and best of all, truly lovely people – a perfect place to start your young family. Wishing you two an easy transition and looking forward to your stories ahead.
Thank you so much, Sherry – we can’t wait to check it out =)
Congrats! Exciting….it looks like we will finally get to see each other then! One of my best friends lives in Norway and we will be based in Holland starting in June sometime so we will be close! 🙂 We might need to plan a Disneyland Paris adventure!
Yaaay! That’s fantastic…you’re moving to Holland?? How wonderful – we’re practically neighbours. I’ve never been to Disneyland Paris – sounds like a good plan. Can’t wait to finally meet =)
Congrats!! This is so exciting. You know I love being an expat and moving around — every year or so. You’ll love Norway — this is so cool! So excited for you guys. 🙂
Thanks so much, Abby!! We’re so excited too – haven’t had a moment to think about it but I know once we get on the plane it’s going to be unreal =)