I have been living in Texas for almost three months and the pieces of my new life are slowly coming together. I am getting used to a new lifestyle, my green card and work permit are hopefully on their way and I am really looking forward to having my friends and family coming from France to show them around.
We met in Paris, then met up in Scotland, we took holidays in Jamaica, backpacked through Asia and we are now settling in America. Our relationship has been shaped by discoveries of new cultures and places. Like everything else in life, travel comes with less glorious moments. I gathered here some of these stories. I must say though that even if we gave ourselves good scares, we never found ourselves in life-threatening or other really bad situations.
We knew Japan would be expensive so we initially had a budget of $95 per day. We quickly decided that we didn’t want our trip to be entirely dictated by a budget so we kept it loose, without going crazy either. We were able to more or less stick to it, spending close to $110 per day (or $55 per person). We were surprised to notice that we spent almost the same as in Hawaii, where we flew from, but without restricting ourselves as much.
Since we’re travelling as a couple, the averages described below are for two people per day and are actually rounded up.
After living in France and travelling through Asia together, the new chapter of our lives includes marriage and settling in Texas but first, long visa procedures… We had been engaged for over 2 years and we were planning on getting married in Texas so we decided that I should get a K1 or fiance visa. Although it leads to a green card application, the K1 visa is considered a non-immigrant visa and allows you to get married within 90 days after entering the US.
Ever since the moment we met in Paris five years ago, Simon and I travelled quite a lot. When we were leaving apart in different countries, we would visit each other, we went on holidays together and more recently, we spent six months backpacking through Asia. Even though you don’t pack the same way for a week of holidays or a long-term backpacking trip, we have developed some habits and there are a few things that we can’t travel without anymore.
If you have read this blog before, you might remember that we didn’t exactly fall in love with Hong Kong. After a month in Japan, where the streets are clean and people are kind and helpful (even though they don’t speak English), we ended up in the crowded and dirty streets of Wan Chai where I felt uncomfortable and stared at. It wasn’t our favourite destination but we would still encourage other travellers to go and experience it by themselves. Although we met people who share our point of view about the city, a lot of people actually love it there and expats are countless.
If you are like me and are not a big fan of fancy suitcase tags or passport covers (to be fair, you have to remove them most of the time when you go through customs in a new country), you will be able to find other gifts ideas for the travellers in your life.
Our blog has been nominated for the Liebster Award. Thank you to Kae from Curious Kea travel blog for her encouraging words. Kae nominated 6 travel blogs she finds “outstanding” and “awesome”, it feels great to be on that list. It’s very gratifying and motivating to see that our Journey Away from what we know, our discoveries have caught somebody’s attention.
It has now been four months since we left our jobs and home in France to travel and, despite some moments of doubt, it’s been as amazing as I thought it would be. It’s difficult to imagine what life on the road is like until you really experience it though.
