We quit our jobs, sold *most* of our belongings and moved to France.

The first snowfall of the season in Annecy captured on Ricoh GR III - and what ended up being the last and only snowfall in town for the 25/26 winter season.

For the last four and a half years or so, my husband and I had said that in 2025, the year we both turned 30, we were going to do something big. Make a big life change. We dubbed it our ‘Golden Year’. But for the last three and a half years we thought that looked like making the 10 hour drive North across the Canadian border and settling into a small rural mountain town in interior British Columbia. I had the job offer for a long term career opportunity, but as the years passed by and we inched closer to 30 - the big picture wasn’t assembling. So we burnt it down and started over, a few times actually. Until one day, it revealed itself crystal clear, but the picture that we saw was far beyond anything we had initially dreamed of, and far beyond the North American continent actually. 

13 months ago we decided to pursue moving to the French Alps with 110% of everything we got - and today we’ve been living in our beautiful picturesque mountain town of Annecy for just over two weeks. Almost 5,000 miles away from our old home of Bozeman, Montana. To get here it required every ounce of willpower and every moment of headstrong stubbornness, every single day with zero days off. My husband and I consumed ourselves with making this happen while dedicating as much time as possible to seeing friends and family and still upholding our current management roles in our long term jobs up to the very last moment possible. This marathon of a year resulted in many sleepless nights, a paralyzing amount of stress, and a total loss in any kind of normal day to day routine for the final four months, which only caused two total immune system crashes, not bad. But, we now live in the French Alps - where life moves at a beautifully natural place and the possibilities of our future feel truly endless. Our chapter of life in Montana already feels like an old skin we have completely shedded. Time is a funny thing, as the past two weeks has felt like both 100 years and 5 minutes. But all I can say is that we are absolutely doing it.

Yesterday, we signed a one year lease in a beautiful historic unfurnished ground floor apartment with a gated garden, a large cellar, attic, and a French country kitchen fitted with the most classic ‘piano’ gas stove and oven that I believe even Julia Child would be envious of. Every expat knows this is one of the first great hurdles in establishing yourself in a new country. The to-do list feels like you’re running in an infinity sign as you need a permanent address to open a French bank account, and a French bank account to get a SIM card + wifi contract, but you can’t rent without a French bank account, and a +33 French phone number is required for everything and then some. Round and round you go until it makes you positively dizzy. But, we pitched our story honestly and fully with our hearts, and had actually three wonderful options from people who were intrigued enough that they were willing to give us a chance. We would have popped champagne last night but I am on antibiotics, and nursing a bottle of Dayquil (that I brought over from the States per the advice of other expats on Reddit, which I am SO glad that I did), as the last two weeks have been no short of eventful as we have put every aspect of learning to live somewhere new with an A1 level of French to the test, including the pharmacy. 

In the last year, I obsessively consumed every piece of media I could turn up on the internet about leaving the States to move to France, and life in France, and the expat journey as a whole - and while some has been relatable pieces and even helpful tidbits I have made note of, there is truly nothing, nothing, and let me reiterate NOTHINGthat can prepare you for this experience better than accepting that you must relinquish any concept of control, trust very deeply in the process, and take a big deep breath while continuing to just put one foot in front of the other. I do not claim to be any professional whatsoever, as we say that we are just insane enough to chase this - but I do feel very strongly as though every type 2 fun objective we have ever pursued in the mountains has 100% prepared us to endure this journey. 

There is no step by step manual available on how to move to France as an American Citizen but even if there was, I don’t believe it would be helpful as each person’s path is unique and quite situational. Our new home of Annecy’s resident population is comprised of mostly all French people, until the summer rolls around and the population almost doubles as it is a popular summer home destination for our UK friends. Meaning during the off-season months (September-May) you hear very little to actually really zero English - minus the Canadian tourists we passed by the other night. This has been very good for our tactic of trial by fire one month French immersion prior to our language classes beginning in December, but also poses some very obvious challenges. We have encountered a solid 50/50 ratio in those that can speak some level of English and those who do not at all. As you could imagine, most younger folks can speak some while the older population almost exclusively does not. This experience has been no short of humbling and eye-opening, as we fully expected it to be. As we fumble through Fran-glish and at times reach for the Google Translator app to accomplish simple tasks like printing and scanning our rental lease agreement at the library, ordering a $15 replacement bike part at the bike shop, attempting to survive through small talk struck up with us by someone at the dog park, or try to make sense of why the fireman is at our door at 7pm on a Sunday only to realize that there is no emergency and he is only selling calendars. Ahh désolé, I spent my last euros à la boulangerie ce matin. Overall though, we have found that everyone is so kind and understanding and also fairly curious about us. Turns out, they do not see very many Americans come through Annecy especially on a more permanent level, as our real estate agent informed us while whipping us through town in his nice new Mercedes to different rental listings, we were the very first Americans he has ever encountered in all the ten years of his career.

Despite the expected struggles, there is still much to pat ourselves on the back for as we have fallen into a pretty easygoing routine here that is suiting us well - the average day has us surpassing well over 12k steps which has done wonders for our poor posture after years of life spent predominately at a desk. We can order at the bakery fully in French, and are finally getting to know our way around our little local grocery markets. It still feels quite surreal that we sold our vehicles, liquidated much of what we owned, and resigned from our stable and reliable careers as marketing management professionals to live in the French Alps ~ unemployed ~ at thirty years old, trying to make sense of a new country, a new language, and an entirely new way of life. But to be honest, despite the immense stress and the many many moments of saying to ourselves what the actual fuck are we doing - I have not felt this happy and free in a very long time, and there is truly no place I would rather be right now than right here in our temporary Airbnb apartment on the top floor with no elevator with my husband, our dog, our cat, our 15 checked bags [which include 6 pairs of skis, 2 gravel bikes, and a couple of really heavy cast iron skillets] - fully starting life over again with Mont Blanc in our backyard.

This is the first of many ‘journal entries’ I plan to write as I process this wild new chapter of life, and I thank you immensely for reading along.