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Yesterday we spent our “lunch break” talking on the phone to the social healthcare system in Colombia.

We’ve apparently been a few months late on our payments (as we stopped receiving the bills), and we realized that our son had never even been registered.

Then they told us we may not even need to have the public health scheme altogether (especially since we have private insurance).

All of this while our son’s Colombian citizenship claim is sitting in the hands of the courts.

And while we navigate contracts with our helpers.

During an election year.

And for a moment, your mind thinks…

Is it time to go back ‘abroad’ now?

Even though we are already abroad. (Because when you have to pay a water bill the size of an Olympic pool and you have to fight with your landlord — at least, in Spanish this time — it starts to feel a little less romantic.)

And if you’ve ever lived abroad with your children for more than a few months, you probably know the feeling…

…the moment when living somewhere stops feeling temporary and fun, and starts feeling like you're back in your home country.

(Although, when we were living in the States a short time, we had no idea how to get our electricity hooked up in our rental).👇

One of the best things — at least for us — about living abroad or being a digital nomad family is that you can have one foot in and one foot out.

You get to experience just enough of where you’re at, but you’re not tied down.

You can rent a short-term apartment.

You can get a nanny.

You can leave whenever you want when it’s time to move on.

Except with kids, it’s not actually that easy anymore.

When we moved to Portugal, we had to do so much before we even moved there. (And mind you, we didn’t even know how to be parents yet.)

Visas.
A tax number.
A bank account.
A lease.

And, as soon as we moved, we had to get registered in the local healthcare system.

Then find a daycare.

And soon the list went on, and on, and on. (And, it never stopped. My CPA in Portugal still emails me even though I closed my activity nearly two years ago.)

When you first land in a new place, it’s kind of like you’re on a study abroad semester.

You get all the perks of living in a place, but none of the responsibilities.

If you’re staying in Airbnbs, using an international insurance provider, and homeschooling or taking advantage of short-term or flexible daycare programs, you’re set.

And you can probably do that for a while.

Three months.
Six months.
Nine months.

(Whenever the government says it’s time to leave.)

But if you want to stay in a place a little bit longer, you’ll need to start putting that other foot down. (Unless you have 5 passports, though, we imagine visa runs are not fun with little kids, either.)

Sometimes it’s inevitable.

Like, we didn’t exactly plan for Sam to be born here. But we were here, so we had to make some changes.

And sometimes moving somewhere where you can more easily get a visa (like Colombia versus Portugal) actually makes it make more sense to stay longer.

But then when you want to leave?

It can be so, so hard.

(Note: We have no interest in leaving Colombia anytime soon. But man, these things can be frustrating.)

For instance, when we moved to Portugal, we were on a special visa where we could have applied for citizenship after five years of living there.

We did everything we were supposed to do.

But things were still so hard.

We couldn’t move easily — it was too hard to find an apartment, and daycares had waitlists.

We once went eight months without our residency cards, which meant we couldn’t leave the country.

And even though we did eventually get registered in the public healthcare system, it took forever to get our daughter her vaccines.

But after a year or two?

We kind of figured it out.

We understood the tax system and got an accountant.

We found an apartment we liked.

We understood cities, school systems, and how things worked.

We figured out the Portuguese apps.

We knew how much things were supposed to cost.

And the question started to creep in:

Did we really want to leave once we finally figured all this out?

It can also start to become frustrating when you have all the responsibilities of a resident, but none of the benefits.

For instance, we tried to buy a car.

Couldn’t finance it.

We tried to get our daughter into therapies.

Too difficult.

We wanted to have a baby there.

We weren’t totally comfortable with the healthcare system.

(Even in Colombia, we still don’t have a bank account.)

And, when times got tough financially, we couldn’t get a job because of our visa.

But we had already put in the two years.

What’s another three, right?

For that EU passport.

If we were going to leave, it had to be now or never.

So we took the L. We left.

Whenever you go to a new place, you get a taste of what it’s like to be a ‘true’ digital nomad family..

When we left Portugal, we had a one-way ticket and no plans at all.

You’re suddenly in the ‘exploration’ phase again.

Just an Airbnb and some good restaurants and neighborhoods picked out.

A list of schools.

And the contact of an immigration lawyer in case we decided to stay.

(Because there was no way we were going to go through that again on our own.)

And it was like…

This is nice.

Having just one foot in.

Being just settled enough that you’re comfortable, but still having the ability to leave if it doesn’t end up being what you thought it would be.

But then your kid gets into daycare.

They require A, B, and C.

Forms.
Doctor’s appointments.
Proof of residency.

You manage to get it all done.

You find your rhythm again.

You make friends.

They make friends.

(And we know the topic of friends and community is one of the biggest reasons families decide to stay longer in a place — hence Roammies.)

You start to get the hang of things.

Daily life becomes…normal.

But then you realize something.

Getting the hang of a place is only the first layer.

Staying longer means going deeper.

More paperwork.
More systems to understand.
More things to formally set up.

And suddenly you’re asking yourself:

Are we visiting here…

Or are we actually living here?

Because those are two very different levels of commitment.

And that’s where the strange expat moment happens.

The one where your life feels stable enough to stay…

But flexible enough to leave.

And your mind briefly goes:

“So… what’s next?”

Maybe we stay.

Maybe we go.

Maybe not right now.

We’ve started to notice this pattern in almost every place we’ve lived.

We’ve had to train ourselves to remember that we’re thinking about this lifestyle as a whole.

It’s not about having one foot in and one foot out all the time.

Sometimes you’ll be more grounded.

Sometimes you’ll be totally jumping around.

That’s why it’s called a lifestyle.

But this paperwork?

Still very annoying.

The funny thing about living abroad — especially with little ones — is that you think you can keep one foot out forever.

But eventually something pulls the other one down.

A school registration.
A healthcare system.
A tax form.

Maybe flexibility overall means letting one foot settle somewhere… even if the other one isn’t ready to commit yet.

Quick question for you:

One thing we’ve noticed from Roammies families is that almost everyone has one moment abroad where it suddenly hits them:

“Okay… we might actually live here now”?

Just email us at [email protected]

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