Where We Have Lived Since 2014
70+ countries and counting
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11+ Years of Global Accommodations!
Hello friends,
Aus World Roamers asked us a while ago to share where we have lived in the last eleven years of travel and how long we have lived in each place. I hope this is an entertaining newsletter that sheds some light on our history if you are unfamiliar with it. I will briefly overview our living situation in every place and then link it to a vlog from that time. It might be fun to see the progression of the vlogs and the children's growth. Will is entirely self-taught with editing, and wow, has he gotten so good? I used to think our Camino series was our best, but now I love what he has done with our Appalachian Trail vlogs. Have you seen them?
If you want to see where we lived before WorldTowning, you can check out this blog I wrote many years ago, documenting the journey.
Hold on tight; it might be bumpy.
Summer 2013 (Test ride)
Paris, France
The trip that started all this craziness.
Way back when, we had given up on full-time travel as a lifestyle option and decided to spend the summer in Paris since AvaLar spoke fluent French. Well, that was the beginning of this life we call WorldTowning. We came home after that summer, sold our stuff, and took off for full-time travel 13 months later, never looking back. During that summer we lived in a pretty crappy, one bedroom flat with a broken toilet, no a/c and an uncomfortable futon bed. It was an intense summer, landing Avalon in the hospital for a week with mono, but we came back to Boston knowing we had to make this happen. We all thrived and enjoyed the travel adventure tremendously that summer.
We were not vlogging then, but this little clip I took is still one of my favorites.
Summer 2014 (Will’s work)
Chennai, India
Will had the opportunity to work in India for 3 months. We were just a handful of months away from launching our full-time travel lifestyle to Costa Rica, and life was chaotic, to say the least, but the kids and I decided to join him for seven weeks in India. This summer started our love affair with India, leading to subsequent visits and our first group trip in January 2024. We stayed in a hotel for our visit, which was corporate funded, so it was a bit fancier than what we were used to.
2014 (Oct) - 2015 (Sept)
Curridabat, Costa Rica
Our first “official” country of full-time travel, we lived in a two-bedroom basement apartment under a massive house that the owners lived in. I found it on Airbnb and negotiated terms unseen. Luckily, it was an excellent first spot for us in our WorldTowning lifestyle. We chose this location because we wanted to keep Largo in a French school, so we combined that with a French/Spanish school to get the best of both worlds. We did not vlog during this time, so no video.
2015 (Oct) - 2016 (August)
Quito, Ecuador
This was the first vlog we ever posted on YouTube!
I did a rinse-and-repeat here for housing because our method worked in Costa Rica. We found a place on Airbnb, moved sight unseen, and negotiated a long-term stay for less than the regular rate. It was a high rise, a 20-minute walk from Largo’s French/Spanish school. We did not have a yard this time, but we had a huge park just around the corner and were centrally located.
2016 (August) - 2017 (July)
Hyéres, France
This vlog shares a bit about the town we lived in.
Here we go again. It was the same process, but this time, it did not matter where we lived in the country because Avalon and Largo would attend a local public school. We chose a small town in the south on the recommendation of an online friend who lived there. Our apartment was on the ground floor of a restored chateau. We shared a pool and a yard with four other units. The kids had under a 10-minute walk to school.
2017 (July) - 2020 (Jan)
Every country in Europe
A vlog from our three months in Morocco.
We bought a 21-foot RV and traveled to every European country, plus three months in Morocco and several months in Turkey for a total of 3 years. Will and I slept in a bed that pulled down from the ceiling, and the kids had bunks. It was a magical space and time; everyone was the right age. We bought it from a resale shop and made minor upgrades, primarily focused on tech for work and school. This was the first time both kids were world-schooled at the same time.
Summer 2018
Hike the Camino Frances
If you are looking for a series to binge-watch and love hiking, this is for you. It was our first attempt at doing a multi-day hike and vlogging daily. It is some of our best work, if not “the best.” I treasure this series as we were all together. We slept in albergues (fancy name for a hostel) partnered with an occasional hotel in the north of Spain for 44 days. Albergues were as little as four people to a room and as many as 150.
2020 (February)
Hyéres, France
We popped back to Hyères (in France) to visit with friends and recharge after living in our RV for 3 years. We sold the RV this month and started planning our next adventures. We rented an airbnb for the month.
2020 (February) - 2020 (July)
Japan
What started as an intended year in Asia with a new country every month turned into five months in Japan. Why, you ask…. COVID. None of us were complaining as we all love Japan. This was our first time living in a co-working/co-living environment, and we loved it. The workspace was a 3-minute walk from our 3-bedroom co-living space. We occupied two rooms, and someone would often rotate in and out of the 3rd bedroom. The living space, bathroom, and kitchen were shared. I can’t remember how we found this place. It might have been recommended by someone or Google; I don’t know. From the RV onward, both kids were world-schooled and did not go to traditional school again until college.
Check out our Japan series, COVID style.
2020 (July) - August 2020
Rouen, France
After returning to Europe, we realized COVID was here to stay for a bit, and we spent a month living on a houseboat in the north of France while we looked for a small house to remodel. We found the houseboat on Airbnb in Rouen. It leaked, smelled, was hot and way overpriced, but we still had a fabulous time. We never remodeled that small house because we bought a boat instead.
Check out our houseboat vlog.
2020 August - 2021 March
Port Camargue, France
We bought a boat after visiting it one time. We spent the next six months learning how to live in it, maintain it, function in a different style space, and, most importantly, learn how to sail. On the boat, we have three cabins, which means everyone has their own sleeping space for the first time in 10 years, and the kids have their own bathroom. It felt and still feels so luxurious to us, but by catamaran standards, it is small, only 38 feet, and most people are shocked that we all lived on it.
2021 March - 2021 November
France, Spain, Portugal
We spent half a year bouncing around on the boat between Spain, France, and Portugal to learn the boat and how to be better sailors. Making our boat a home.
2021 November - 2022 January
Canary Islands, Spain
While preparing for our first ocean crossing, we were lucky enough to have enjoyed Christmas in Tenerife, Spain. We loved it here as we were docked right next door to the city, which is rare on the boat. This ended up being the first place we ever said we could settle in 10 years.
2022 January - 2022 February
Atlantic Ocean
We spent 21 days on our boat, not touching the land (and most of the time, not even seeing the land as we crossed our first big ocean). It was magical, and we never felt cramped or regretted it.
2022 February - 2022 September
Martinique, Bonaire, Curacao
We were close to launching Avalon to university with her final APs on the horizon, so we spent several months off the boat preparing. The boat was mainly in Curacao, one of the three countries we would visit in these months. It was a remote, affordable marina but a place that had us feeling isolated and removed from society—her last sail.
2022 September - 2022 December
Colombia
Hot, hot, hot. We were docked in a marina for almost our entire visit in Colombia doing work-work, boat-work, and school. Avalon came for a visit during her university holiday break.
2022 December - 2023 June
Panama, Panama Canal, Central America, Mexico
Still living on the boat. We spent time in Panama and eventually crossed the Panama Canal on our boat, a total bucket list moment. We then proceeded on to Mexico going as far north as possible and putting the boat on the hard (on land) to realize some land travel adventures again before launching Largo.
2023 June
India
We spent the month in northern India planning our future group trip in 2024 (pictured above). We lived in various hotels spread across four cities.
2023 July, August, September
Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand
The next three months were spent in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. We lived in hostels, hotels, airbnbs, and village homes. I could even add trains, planes, and buses to the list, as many nights were spent asleep on them.
2023 October
Spain
We spent most of October in Spain, running two back-to-back group trips. One was hiking the last 100k of the Camino Frances, and the other was a cultural trip to Barcelona. We slept in albergues and hotels during this time. We are still behind on these vlogs due to the AT daily vlogs. Coming soon.
2023 October -2024 January
Paris
We loved every minute of our four months in the city of love, PARIS. We rented a two-bedroom flat from a friend in the 17th. We had a balcony and a boulangerie in sight. Again, still behind on these vlogs, so they're coming soon.
2024 February
Peru
We lived three weeks in Peru, hosting another group trip, hiking to Machu Picchu through the Andes mountains. We slept in hostels, hotels, and tents—our vlog from this fantastic experience with a fabulous group.
2024 March-October
Appalachian Trail USA
There are no words to describe 6 months of hiking from Georgia to Maine, sleeping in a tent most of the time, but occasionally in a hostel and for an extra splurge, a motel or hotel. Will spent his time at Airbnbs and my parents’ house in Maine.
To binge-watch our daily journey, check it out here.
2024 October-December
Maine
These two months post AT thru-hike were full of ups and downs; we did not vlog. We stayed at my parents’ place and worked, schooled and back to life as we knew it.
2025 January-May
New Jersey
Somewhere in a hotel somewhere in New Jersey. No vlog, although there will be one eventually. Work, write, take flight lessons, catch up on vlog edits, go to the gym, and prepare for life back on the boat in June!
I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. The end game is not the boat, so I will update this occasionally and repost. Funny how we have pretty much done every style of living out there, except maybe a cult. Ha! Have a fabulous weekend. Getting this out early as I plan on writing intensively all next week. Enjoy.
xoxo,
Jess (Sunshine)
To learn more about us, our mission, and our business, you can visit us at WorldTowning. To view our most recent group trip offerings, head over to WorldTowningvoyages.com. If you want to book a coaching session to realize your travel dream, schedule it here. If you're going to follow the travels of our WorldTowning family, you can find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, The Why Matters Podcast.
Huge congrats! Well done Guys! Such Trail Blazers!