Where Bloggers Live: Away from Home

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!

This month we’re sharing our travel adventures: past, present, future…real and imagined.

I have not traveled much out of the US during my lifetime. Car trips to Tijuana and Juarez Mexico with family and friends…a long weekend in Puerto Rico with my ex-husband…a week with sister, et al, at their timeshare in Aruba. Yep.

And I’ve been to many parts of the United States because family and friends are spread all over; CA, FL, TX, NM, OH.

I would someday like to visit the Pacific Northwest. I think it and I would get on well together. I’d like to see the giant redwoods.

But overall, travel was never even all that much on my radar. Paris had an appeal for me: see the iconic Eiffel Tower, shop Paris flea markets, and sit at sidewalk cafes with good food and an endless stream of “non-American” people passing by.

When I was heavily into gardening I wanted to visit the famous old gardens in England.

Japan always had an appeal for me…but I never actually considered GOING there, that just seemed too big and overwhelming (and expensive!) an excursion.

BUT THEN…ha. If you’ve been following my blog for the past year or so…you know that the Hallyu Wave (ha ha) has washed over me and I DESPERATELY want to travel to East Asia…with a side of South Asia. I have some big ridiculous dreams…but the four places I fully intend to get to (for varying lengths of time) in the future are Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Japan would be a “trip.” Your typical 7-10 day excursion. Katie and I have been thinking about this for some time but it kept getting pushed off due to covid, and now that I’m planning a future extended stay in S Korea, we’ve talked about just doing it while I’m there.

The other three, however, I’m considering for extended stays. It remains to be seen how long you can stay in S Korea without “due cause” (ie, they deem you an asset to the country), but Thailand and Vietnam seem a little more amenable to ex-pats and it is SO INEXPENSIVE to live there! You can’t just go and stay FOREVER (without meeting certain financial conditions that I do not meet), but I can see a situation where I just travel around and stay for as long as I can in these very inexpensive (but appealing to me) places. 3-6 months here, 3-6 months there, etc.

The hurdle to all of this is health insurance. As long as I’m a US citizen, I need a US-based health insurance and it is RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE. However…it’s going to be ridiculously expensive no matter WHERE I live…and all the other living expenses are So Much Less in these other countries that…it just makes sense. To me.

But a) sometimes I am delusional and b) I’ve got time to work all that out. S Korea is first and even that’s a ways off.

And when (IF?) I come back from all these overseas adventures, I might just travel around the country (this country, the US) staying with friends and family (and The Child) for as long as they’ll have me.

I’m just trying to put off The Cardboard Box Life for as long as possible. And have some great experiences along the way.

Isn’t that what travel is??

Make sure to check out my friends blogs today, too:

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own