6 Tips on How to Prepare Your Kids for Moving Abroad
From a fellow expat parent, here are my best tips for preparing your little ones to become expat kids! Planning for a family move can be super stressful and feel like an overwhelming list of to-do’s! So when we talk about moving overseas to a foreign country, well that’s just a whole different ballgame guys. Language barriers, cultural differences, and endless paperwork are all-consuming! It’s easy to loose sight of what’s truly important – and that is how to best prepare your kids for their move abroad and transition into becoming expats. No amount of online research can truly equip you or your…
How to Celebrate Halloween in Barcelona As an Expat
Our expat family’s tips for enjoying the spookiest night of the year even while living abroad. If you don’t already know, Halloween is my favorite!! That crisp chill in the air, the rustling of freshly fallen leaves at your feet and the smell of a crackling outdoor fire nearby. So when we moved to Barcelona to become expats and realized Halloween isn’t that big of a deal, I panicked! How would we recreate a holiday that is growing enormously in the states but is overshadowed in Spain by Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead on November 1)? Before becoming expats, Halloween in…
5 Family Friendly Hotels in Barcelona Your Traveling Kids will Love
Check out our favorite picks for the most family friendly hotels during your trip to Barcelona. Barcelona can be a fantastic city to visit as a family! And how you spend your days here is just as important as where you lay your heads down at night. Many of the historic and beautiful hotels we fantasize about may not be ideal for families. So you need to do your research and choose wisely! Here are some of the most family friendly hotels in Barcelona that our family personally loves. But first, a quick word to help level set your expectations. Don’t assume hotels…
Moving Abroad With Kids and How to Share the News with Them
As thrilled as Tony and I were for this next chapter of our family’s life, relocating to Barcelona, I was worried sick about telling the kids. Moving abroad with kids is an exciting adventure, but breaking the initial news to them can be tough! Revealing a surprise to your children like a trip to Disney or a new swimming pool is one of the most enjoyable parts of being a parent. And for anyone that has had to share less enjoyable news you soon realize this is one of the hardest parts. A Mother’s Worries How would we even deliver the news?! “Hey…
5 Ways to Enjoy an Art Museum With Kids
Truth be told, we didn’t mean to visit the Kunthisories Art History Museum with our kids during a recent trip to Vienna. It just sort of happened! In an effort to include something child-friendly into our trip (since the city isn’t as toddler focused as Barcelona!), we meant to purchase tickets for the Museum of Natural History. An honest mistake, I swear! Both identical buildings, grandiose and awe-inspiring from the exterior, sit right across from one another in an area of Vienna called Museum Quarter Wien. In our haste to achieve smiling faces we quickly jumped online and purchased tickets – to the…
Tackling Jet Lag in Toddlers
The best tips for keeping toddlers jet lag free and parents’ stress free while traveling abroad. When I was in college (sooo roughly 20 years ago, gulp!) my parents took me to Australia on a business trip. It was an early graduation present. So friekin cool, right? It was the farthest I had ever traveled away from home (and still is!) 17 hours total in the air. The other side of the globe, really. And as far as my invincible college-age nose-pierced free-spirited self was concerned, the 10+ hour time difference was exciting! I couldn’t wait to sleep until noon and go to…
Expat Advice for Choosing an International School
When you are preparing to move abroad, the list of decisions and things to consider seems endless! And when children are involved, understanding what the best option is for their education is top on the list. In this featured podcast with The Expat Cast, I loved sharing my advice for choosing an international school for our two older children and a local trilingual school for our youngest. Check out more of the podcast on Choosing an International School here and my high-level tips below for making this big decision as an expat family. *Listen on the website, on an iPhone with the…
4 Reasons Expat Kids May Be Unhappy (Are Yours?)
Did your expat kids start off on the right track in their new foreign life but after the first few months and once the initial excitement wore off, they had some setbacks? Or what if, from the get-go, your kids just weren’t excited about the move? And even six months later or more, they still haven’t embraced the idea of this new life. First off, it’s OKAY! Do they truly hate their new life and new country? Most likely, NO. The emotional ups and downs all expat kids experience are completely normal. But as most parents do, we feel a responsibility to solve…
6 Hopes for My Expat Children
When we decided to take the leap and move from the U.S. to Spain, my head started spinning. So many questions, even more worries – and tons of hopes! I prayed my expat children would meet others from all over the world, try new and interesting foods, pick up a foreign language and grow more independent as a result of their new “expat” status. Looking back after two years abroad, what we got was so much more! This journey is a part of the canvas of our family forever. As my children grow up and this incredible chapter becomes a distant memory, I want…
