Plan update

Welcome back to my blog. Today I am writing the second post of my “Baby boomers move to France” blog.

Whoohoo!!

In the first post I told you about our plan to move to France. It was pretty simple: sell everything and move to France by May 2026. Sounds simple, but there is a lot to do to make that happen.

This isn’t a picture on some tropical island. This is a picture of a cool tiki bar located on the banks of the Loire River walking distance from the Chateau d’Amboise. This became one of our favorite hang outs when we stayed in Amboise. This is in May 2024.

Let me fill in some of the gaps

We have already done a ton of research regarding the areas where we think we would like to live in France. This is a must. There are You Tube videos galore. A lot of them are pretty good.

Our criteria included checking to see if there is train transportation handy, hospital within reasonable access, relatively good weather, and can we walk to the village. There is an awesome weather app that we learned about from the Baguette Bound You Tube channel. Weatherspark.com lets you compare weather in multiple cities at once. Check it out and I would be glad to hear your thoughts. I need to remember to make sure that we will have internet and wifi wherever we end up.

Also, from Baguette Bound we learned about a handy map, it is called “Europe & Major Rail Routes”. We bought it through Amazon. The thing about this map is that it shows the high-speed rail and other main rail routes. I know your saying, “duh, that’s what a rail map does.” This is helpful for us since having a train station handy is one of our selection criteria. Since France is pretty central to Europe, we have the idea that we will travel the continent via rail.

Our plan is to rent a comfortable home for a year or more as we explore the country and make a decision on a house purchase. Having renovated previous houses, I’m not too interested in buying something that we will need to do a lot of work on. I might be okay with contracting some renovation work if required and a little DIY. Next step, a scouting trip.

The scouting trip

We have booked flights and places to stay while we visit four cities in southwest France during our scouting trip at the end of March and first part of April this year. The weather, at this time of year in the Dordogne is often rainy and cool. The temperature ranges from 12 – 16 degrees Celsius (54 – 61 degrees Fahrenheit). Not the worst weather and actually pretty good. We will take hats, rain jackets and dress in layers.

We will fly into Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport, pick up a rental car and stay the first night at the airport hotel. We did that so that we can recover from jet lag, have a good breakfast (petit déjeuner) and get an early start on the drive to the Dordogne region. It is about a 6-hour drive to our first stop in Sarlat la Caneda. We will stay here for 3 days. We will visit the tourist information center and do some site seeing, learn about the expat community and also scope out the housing/rental market. This is the basic plan for all 4 of the cities that we plan to visit on this trip, After Sarlat is Bergerac, then Auch which is in the Ger region and finally Périgueux which is back in the Dordogne. All of these cities are surrounded by history, culture and are within about an hour drive each other. While in Auch, we hope to visit with a representative of French Connections HCB to learn about rental options that they might have. Three days in a city is not much time to get to know it. Luckily 3 of the cities are in the Dordogne so we will get a feel for the Dordogne for sure. We are not real concerned where we end up the first year as we will rent a place as I mentioned before. We feel this will give us the flexibility to find a comfortable landing place. At this point we don’t plan on taking another scouting trip before we actually make the permanent move. We will see how we feel after this trip.

We need to remember to alert our bank and the post office that we will be out of the country for a couple of weeks. Aside from the scouting trip arrangements, we are starting to collect our documents for our long stay VISA. This is the visitor 1-year visa. There are other types of visas. This visa limits us as we can’t make any money while in France. Not worried.

Starting the VISA process

We have opted to get help with the VISA from French Connections HCB. There are a lot of organizations that offer this service, and I have heard good things about them. I just feel good about the HCB team since they work in the area of the country that we are interested in and they are professional. You can see some of their You Tube videos to get the feel. So, for this process we have started uploading our documents to the HCB site where they will make sure they are all in order, translate them if required, coach us for our meeting with the consulate and do all the follow up needed to get our VISAs in order. Since we are over a year away from our move to France we are getting an early start. Also, HCB will help us get the necessary health coverage that we will need in the interim before we get our Carte Vital French medical card. There is a lot for us to do so I’m happy to get the early start. Speaking of things to do, we need to get our house, and our stuff sold.

House and stuff sale

No need to go into much detail on this. Just that we will meet with an agent in February to get this part of the project moving. Given that the housing market has taken a bit of a dip in Venice, we will not get the crazy prices that sellers were getting just 2 years ago.

We might have to find a rental here, in Venice, if the house sells quickly. (I have my fingers crossed) It is the price to pay to get all of our ducks in a row sooner rather than later. Besides, it could move our timetable up a little. That is not a bad thing.

In the meantime, we are letting neighbors and family know that we are selling our stuff. Already have takers for some things. Even some items in the garage have got takers. My little camping trailer will have to go.

We will have to contract with a painter to paint the interior of the house. I’m getting too old to do that job anymore. Ok, maybe not too old. I just don’t want to do it. I just painted it about a year ago and I told Elizabeth that was the last time. Our color is nice but, probably not ideal for selling.

We have done some upgrades on the house, I’m hopeful that buyers will appreciate them. We will have to plant some new flowers and have the patio re-screened. That should be it for the house. Not too bad. Just need to get it all done without stressing the dog and cat too much.

All of the advice that we have seen does not recommend shipping all of your household stuff. It is just too expensive, and you can buy replacements in your new country. We will take some of our pictures of our travels and family but, don’t plan on taking much else. Of course, our lap top and iPads will come with us. One thing that I hadn’t thought of that was recommended is the Firestick. I’m planning on shipping our golf clubs too. As we continue to purge stuff, we will probably find more that we need to move with us. There are a bunch of companies that can do the shipping, some will even come to the house and do the bulk of the packing. I will check with French Connections HCB as I think they have partners in the business.

We need to check with the airline about baggage limitations. We don’t have a ton of clothes but still need to know the limitations. We usually travel light so dealing with multiple suitcases will be a new challenge. My understanding is that you are allowed 2 large bags not exceeding 77 pounds each. Also, the pets have to have special approved crates.

Pets

A big deal for us is the pet situation. Both the dog and the cat have a back story that I could probably write a whole blog about. Bottom line is that we plan on moving them with us to France. We have learned that we need to have the local USDA veterinarian check them out to confirm they are properly chipped and have necessary immunizations. The vet must send the report to the state for final approval. Then we only have 10 days for the paperwork to go through channels and get back to us in time to catch our flights to France. According to some people who have been through the process, waiting for the paperwork is the most nerve-wracking part of the whole move to France. We are not looking forward to that stress.

French Connections HCB will help with the pet visas too. We think HCB is really great. So far so good. They can even help with a car purchase, if needed, and drivers’ license.

Note about the cars

We won’t ship our cars. Our hope is to find a home in France close to a city such that we won’t need a car much. We will walk or take a tram to the city center. This turns out to be a pretty common thing in France. We are actually looking forward to the possibility of being car free. If needed, we can rent a car. Gasoline is crazy expensive, then there is insurance, and parking is hard to find in some of the towns and bastide villages. We will sell the cars before we leave. If we find we need a car full time, we will address it then.

We will get a feel for driving in France when we visit during our scouting trip. By the way, I have been watching videos about driving in France and getting to know some of the rules and traffic signs. Luckily, they drive on the same side of the road that we do.
(Elizabeth and I drive an older VW and a small pick up so little cars won’t be an issue for us when we make the move.) There is some different signage on French roads and of course, the speed limit signs are in kilometers per hour instead of miles per hour. Anyway, I recommend that you check out the videos online if you plan to visit France and do some driving. Oh, one other thing, depending on what state your driver’s license was issued in, you might have to take a driving class before you get your French driver’s license. From what I have heard, Florida drivers just trade their license in for a French one. Yes, you have to trade in your license if you are staying long term. Some people suggest getting a replacement/duplicate before you leave the states. I don’t think it is necessary. Just my thoughts. I mean, when we visit the states, I can drive with my French license.

Elizabeth will quit her job

Timing on Elizabeth leaving her job is a little up in the air. When she does quit, we will have to get used to not having Elizabeth’s income. She is not eligible for social security until 2026, assuming congress doesn’t screw it up and raise the minimum retirement age.

I’m convinced that if we are careful, but still have a good quality of life, we will be comfortable in France on my social security and our savings and pension. That said, we definitely cannot live on my SS in Venice, Fl. We do not plan on dipping into our 401k yet either.

Fingers crossed, in 2026 we will add in Elizabeth’s social security check, and we should be all set.

Speaking of money, I think, we will need to get a French bank account to set up our rental home and utilities. I have set up an account with Money Corp so when we are ready to exchange dollars for euros, we will be ready. The exchange rate is better if we use MoneyCorp rather than our local bank. HCB will help with this. There are a couple of other popular companies: Wise and Revolute, but I haven’t signed up with them yet.

Of course, we won’t have the support systems that we have now in our friends and family, and we will miss everyone. I’m so thankful for the friends and our neighborhood in Venice. Leaving all of this will be the hard part.

We hope to find a home close to an expat community to help us integrate into the country but not isolate us from the French people and culture. While there are a lot of English speakers in France, we understand that learning the language will make our transition more enjoyable.

Learning the French language

Included in our overall plan is to learn some basics of the French language and learn some of the culture. Elizabeth took French in high school, so she has some experience. She has done pretty well during our previous trips to France.

I took Spanish in high school having been born and raised in southern California. There are some similarities, and many words look like English words. Both of us have downloaded the Duo Lingo language app onto our phones and are practicing French every day. I feel that I’m making progress. However, I anticipate taking classes when we get to France. I really want to make France home. Yes, you can learn French even if you are an old fart of 77 years. it’s just a number.

I have been watching some videos online about French history and culture. The history dates back to prehistoric times and the information is readily available and fascinating. Again, a lot to learn but it is very interesting. French Connections HCB has a French language class that I want to check out.

Quick summary of our plan

I hope that I didn’t miss too much of our plans and progress so far. We will take a scouting trip, follow up on the VISA application, get our house and household stuff sold, work to secure a rental in France before our move, get the pets squared away and plan on trading our driver’s licenses once we move to France and start learning the French language and culture.

I have a long list of topics for next week’s blog so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading this blog. If you have any questions or suggestions, please comment. I’m learning this blogging experience as I go. Don’t forget to subscribe.