In January of 2020, Michele and I took a vacation to Hawaii, and had a revelation:

There’s more to life than working, commuting, shopping at Costco and dealing with noisy neighbors.

In February of 202 I registered this domain, wearemovingtofrance, because we were sure we were going to make France happen.

Why France?

Its pretty, the food is great, and my wife, Michele, is French.
My children have French citizenship. We have French relatives here.

Covid

Covid hit and really mucked things up, and really sealed our resolve.

Scouting 2021

We travelled to the south of France during the pandemic for out first scouting trip.

We drove about 2000 km over the course of two weeks and were convinced that it had to be the south west.

The south east was too much like California, climate wise. It felt like Santa Barbara to me.

It was a hard decision at times, there are some lovely places there, but it simply wasn’t French enough.

Scouting 2022

We built up a search plan for 2023. We would “star out” from a central point and find our dream location.

Sainte Foy was definitely not our “vibe.
Libourne was not it either.
Riberac and Langon too remote.
Perigueux too forested.

We decided that once we made the jump, it would be south of Bergerac.

2023

We sold our house and cars, and a good amount of our stuff in February. Popped on a plane on April 14th with my youngest daughter, 2 dogs, a cat, and some luggage.

We rented two cars to haul it south from Paris, and landed at our Gite the next day, April 16.