The moment I decided to live abroad for one year, just me and my child

We were watching red macaws every morning in our first weeks in CR

A bunch of families are posting today about the moment when we decided to travel or change our lives. Check at the end of this story the links to the other articles.

There were a lot of moments in my life when I thought about extended travel, which for me meant more than 6 months.

Before having my girl, I was thinking of a year off in Indonesia, surfing and making money somehow.

Then I got pregnant and decided to wait and figure out more about this baby thing that was so new to me (I´ve never held a baby or was left with a child of any age for one minute until I was pregnant). But in the back of my mind, there was always that long surf trip to make, now with a child. I simply never thought about not doing it, I just postponed the plan.

In my head, I had to do it before she was 7 years old, because she then would have to be in school learning to read and write. Now, I´m not so sure she has to be in school when she is 7…

After I decided to make this blog, I thought it would be perfect to make this trip to Costa Rica (here´s why I chose Costa Rica) and write about it. I´m into experience-telling, even though I still philosophy with my topic (life with a kid, or simply life), I try to do it less and less and dive into the experiences.

I started the blog and gave myself a deadline to leave by the end of the Summer (which in Brazil is around February).

I was scared of not finding support, especially from my family, even though they live far away from us in Brazil. I was scared of taking a wrong step, by not settling down ¨for real¨ with a job and all where we lived. I was doing something I didn´t know anyone did before, not in my physical world at least, taking off alone with a young child, she was only 3!

So I decided to hang out with people that did this sort of trip before and only tell my family once I had the tickets bought, as in a no-return phase of the planning.

By November, I bought our tickets, the compromise was done, now  I had 3 months to get rid of stuff (I sold a car, a longboard and an electric guitar, let go of other things and figured out who would take care or rent my house) and go.

A big part of my decision to leave with my daughter being only 3-years old, was the immersion in another language that I wanted her to have. And I also chose Costa Rica, because besides the great surf and Spanish to immerse into, there´s also English that´s widely spoken here.

So, I´m happy to see her speaking both English and Spanish after we spent 9 months here. We ended up staying in a place where the surf isn´t that great, but I fixed that with a 3-week-surf trip in Nicaragua and will soon leave again for the Pacific, here in Costa Rica.

We are getting to the end of that initially planned one year of living abroad, but I just asked for a refund on our tickets back home and we will stay longer. That´s how life changing that one moment of serious dreaming about a trip can be, at least location changing.

At this moment, my intention is to stay

This time, I´m not setting any deadlines for going back, because right now this feels like home.

Here´s what the others have to say:

Living Outside of the Box – The Moments that Added Up

Bohemian Travelers: First Moment We Decided to Change 

Worldschool Adventures – The Moment of Inspiration In Hoi An Vietnam

Livin On The Road – Whose Idea Was It?

The Great Family Escape – Capturing The Moment

Family on Bikes – One moment in time: A lifetime of adventures

Family Trek – The moment we knew we were made for more

Raising Miro on the Road of Life – ‘The Moment’ is all there is

Carried on the Wind – Moment

New Life on the Road – It Only Takes A Moment