What It Feels Like to Live in a City for 30 Days

What would it feel like to live somewhere?

It’s the single most important question you can ask in relation to just about any point in life. In the end, it’s really the core question this newsletter asks and—hopefully—helps you with.

Today. Tomorrow. Retirement. If you want to move abroad.

Often, today, tomorrow, and retirement are easier to figure out. You have experience with where you want to live and—if you’re headed toward retirement as an American—you’ve often spent enough time in Arizona, Florida, or one of the Carolinas to have a pretty good sense of how you’ll feel day to day.

For moving abroad it’s an entirely different ball game.

As I was writing this piece, I read another article by janice macdonald, who moved to France when she was 68!

Recently she visited Spain with family:

I’d been in Madrid for less than three hours — the time it took to get from the railway station where I’d just arrived from Montpellier, France, to the Mercado de San Miguel, where the tapas were, ‘oh my god, I want to live here.’

“I know, I do too,” said my daughter. She and her husband had flown in from Seattle just the day before. “Can you believe it?” she said as we passed stall after stall of amazing displays. I said, no, I couldn’t. I’d never seen anything quite like it — and bear in mind that I’d been living in France, not exactly a slouch when it comes to amazing food.

If you’ve ever spent time in a move abroad Facebook Group, you’ve likely heard this idea of the scouting trip. I don’t think Janice’s family was on one, but it’s often that type of experience that leads to one.

And—for the record—yes, food in France is fine, but it doesn’t compare to what we live every single day here in Spain. More on that later this month.

Anyway—within 30 seconds you see some variation of this in the online forums:

We’re taking a scouting trip to Valencia in May, where should we go!?

What actually happens on these trips?

Based on my experience and observation, the answer can only be between very little and nothing unless you stay for considerably more than a month.

Scouting trip is just a more sophisticated way to say you’re going to be a tourist for a few days to maybe a few weeks who looks at for rent signs in windows more than the typical tourist.

People who operate in the relocation industry love to tout scouting trips as important because they’re good for business. They raise more questions than answers and—of course—these people opportunistically thrive on answering those questions, twinged with uncertainty and scary wrinkles, only they and their commissioned experts can help you iron out.

Valencia seemed great, but what’s it like during—or what’s it like when… insert the same unknown here that you would have had without your scouting trip.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t visit a place before moving there.

If you read this newsletter regularly you know that, more than most people, I think place—the very specific particulars of a place—matters. But even the greatest places to visit or spend some extended time might not be suitable for who you are and the daily life you crave.

30 days in Paris was about what we expected. Just when the barista knows your name and you’ve followed the same route back to the apartment enough to look for a different one, it’s time to go home.

From a purely physical, urban planning perspective, I should want to move to Paris tomorrow. It’s freaking incredible—the bike and pedestrian infrastructure, the middle finger stuck out loudly, proudly, and constantly to car drivers across large swaths of the city. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Paris is special.

Valencia is an urban gem in its own right. Coming back here, I’ve been noticing cars and their attendant forms of pollution that I didn’t notice before. But does that mean that I have to move to Paris!?

I never once considered it.

When we got back to Valencia and walked the streets of our neighborhood, I had a smile from ear to ear. The kind of goofy smile you can’t wipe off.

I know who I am. I know what I like. I know how I want to live in the day-to-day. I got tired of hacking it in the United States. I’d have to hack in Paris. There’s no hacking it in Valencia. It’s like I’ve stepped into a turnkey version of the infrastructure and amenities I need to live the life I want to live now and for the duration—the one best suited for who I am.

For all intents and purposes, we did a scouting trip to Paris. It checked a ton of boxes. But it checked them alongside key pieces of knowledge and experience, including:

• a strong sense of who I am and what I want, and

• nearly a year and a half of life on the ground in Valencia.

There’s no I want to live here moment (which, I know, is mostly just something people say).

That’s something you feel when you eat food that blows away what you can get at home.

Which really amounts to shallow bullshit.

I mean—for example—the apples suck in France. I eat an apple a day, which means I eat a large serving of local candy per day in Spain. That piece of knowledge—accumulated over thirty days—meant more than any three-hour lunch.

For the record, we didn’t have any three-hour lunches and, if you’re going to eat an apple in Paris, get a pink lady—at least in April, they’re not terrible.

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Thirty days doesn’t tell you everything.

But it tells you enough to stop fooling yourself.

Enough to separate what feels good in a moment from what actually works in the day-to-day.

And that’s the difference between visiting a place—and knowing whether you belong there.