Who Are We 

It’s hard to describe our family as one that is unusual, exciting, or unique.  Nope. We’re a typical family in the Bay Area with three kiddos: Ella (10), Maya (8),  and Kuba (6), mom (Ania) and dad (Rob). Kids go to the same school – Sun Valley Elementary, in San Rafael, CA.  We’ve lived here for nearly eight years after moving from London.  It’s our very first suburban experience – terrifying initially, but pleasant and comfortable over time. Marin is a hard place not to love. Just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, it offers stunning views, the bay, the ocean, Mt. Tam, and so much more. It’s sort of idyllic if you’re into this type of stuff.   We’re somewhat outdoorsy types so spending time hiking, biking, going to the beach, kayaking, paddleboarding, and so on is blissful here with mild temperatures and sunshine nearly all year. Other than the cost of living, it would be perfect.  

And so….we’ve decided to change change all that!  Why?  We’re heading to South America for a year (at least!) – starting off in Thailand (well…it’s kinda on the way). Buenos Aires in Argentina will be our home base (kids will go to spanish-speaking school there) but we’ll spend considerable amount exploring the southern cone during the next twelve months (itinerary).

Although for a split second there was some talk about whether to do Round The World trip (RTW) vs staying in one place, we chose to be stationary, coupled with extensive travel throughout the year. We want to experience a city as a local, get to know the neighborhood, language, culture, and make new friends. We haven’t spent too much time in South America so there’s lots to explore.  Our itinerary is a mix of some sorts.  You can find out how we chose Argentina below.

Why blog?  Primarily so that we can look back on this adventure for years to come.  This is our story. We also want a spot for our friends and families to follow along.  We’re not great writers, so please don’t expect magnificent masterpieces. We imagine sharing photos and stories, not likely in chronological order, but more around timing of our writing inspirations (which, let’s be honest, may be rare).  We have a small section on itinerary & logistics to share some tips. Kids have a spot to write their thoughts as well (this is likely to satisfy parents’ wishful thinking, and I’m guessing we will not see much action there). Finally, we’ve left some space to capture general thoughts about travel, family, schools, moving, etc.  It may remain blank for the duration of our year though, so I wouldn’t count on anything groundbreaking there either (we do have some initial thoughts though!)

Why?

The concept of living abroad has always been around. We have both traveled extensively in the past – Ania through Southeast Asia, India, Europe, Rob through Central America. We have lived in London and Kenya together, and separately in Japan and Poland. Our oldest kid, Ella, had been to 15 countries by the time she was 3-years-old.

This was a new idea, however.  While we’ve always had wanderlust within us, it’s one thing to take a backpack and explore a new country or a place without kids, schools, mortgages, and so on and another thing to pack up our whole family and go.  We don’t travel light, schools are a big issue, there is a big mortgage to pay, and well, and we have our careers that support us to worry about. All that said, there are too many excuses of why we shouldn’t do this. So instead we’re focusing on why we’re taking a ‘gap year / sabbatical’-  we’ve boiled it down to three reasons:

• Midlife crisis, of course! (Who are we and what do we want to do with our lives?)
• Potential gift to our kids
• Language (Spanish)

We’ve been working now for nearly 20 years and it often seems that we’ve been focused on doing what’s right. The right schools, the right degrees, the right jobs, the right experiences, the right companies, and so on. I’m grateful, but I’m not sure that through it all we have had much time to think about what we really want, especially since having kids.  I understand that this is a first world problem.  Not that this year will provide all the answers but perhaps it will help to assure us that we’re on the right path or steer us towards a new one. We are driven to spend a greater amount of time with our children, escape the pressures of work and discover new cultures, lifestyles, passions, and dreams that we’re still young enough to have.  

In fact, we’re not that original in doing this.  There is a huge and growing trend of ‘family gap years’ where families take time off to explore, travel, and learn.  And, I’ve been here before. One of the biggest motivators to do this has been my experience of moving to United States from Poland when I was 12, and having to assimilate in a new country, learn a new language, make all new friends, etc.  It was challenging, but now, 30 years later, I see how these challenges have not only helped me to build resilience, but also more importantly, opened up my world in unimaginable ways. It may be naive to believe that I can replicate my experience as a gift to my kids, but I will never know unless I try.  

I’ve been a fan of Anthony Bourdain for years.  I think I’ve seen all of his shows. As he recently sadly passed away, I’m more inspired than ever by one of his quotes, “If I am an advocate for anything, it’s to move.  As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river.  Walk in someone else’s shoes, or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”

So here we are.  We are hoping to discover and learn more about ourselves.  In spare time we want to learn to play instruments, volunteer, become better writers, photographers, dancers, parents and think broader about adding creativity into our lives as a family. We want to grow to progress in our careers or change them if it feels like it’s the right time to do so. I want space to think, dream, and explore. And I know that I’m fortunate to give this gift to myself.  All of the sudden giving up our two Silicon Valley jobs does not seem so crazy, but instead, we think about it as another step into the unknown, similar to other big milestones that occur in our lives. 

Why now?

As grateful as we are for our lives in the Bay Area, we’ve always had this dream inside us that would not stop nagging. When I was pregnant with Kuba, our youngest son, I emailed Rob one day with a spreadsheet planning out our savings with the idea of taking the year off when Kuba turned five.  Rob was excited but somewhat doubtful that we could pull it off. I recall talking about it at length that evening. There were many concerns: financial constraints, leaving our jobs, kids’ schools and friends and an infinite number of other challenges.  I started having doubts myself. But, we promised each other that we would come back to the idea at least annually.  We also made the critical decision to start saving in case this dream wasn’t that crazy after all.

The next few years were busy raising three young kids under four and honestly, we were mostly in survival mode.  Once in a while we would dream of the kids being older by looking at friends with older kids with sheer envy not grasping the concept of sleeping-in.  The idea of quitting work and doing something out of ordinary with these humans seemed more tortuous than fun.

As it got closer to Kuba’s 5th birthday though, life became easier and we started talking about what’s next.  Financially, we had been prudent in saving to take time off and still not empty our bank accounts completely.  Work-wise though our exact timeline proved a more challenging. Two years before Kuba’s 5th birthday I started a new and promising job at Airbnb and I was not ready to walk away when he turned five.  So when Kuba’s 5th birthday rolled around, we postponed.

Kuba turned six.  We started discussing the opportunity again.  Did I really need to stay for four years at Airbnb?  Was there ever going to be a perfect time? Will we always find an excuse not to go?  It was simple to find reasons to avoid change. There are so many, I can’t list them all and it takes only a few minutes to talk yourself out of the idea.  It’s easier to stay with the inertia of life, but then we were never about that. I had just launched a major initiative at work and it seemed that professionally my chapter at Airbnb was closing and waiting for another year there wasn’t going to make me happy. Rob was happy at his job at Glassdoor but we knew that Glassdoor itself was on a verge of a major transition.  Kids were still young enough before major drama, but old enough to remember. Financially we had saved enough to feel comfortable with our decision. It was time to pull the trigger.

Why Argentina and BA?

This was one of the hardest decisions.  We knew we wanted to learn Spanish and did not want to live in Europe (we’ve done that previously). I’m a researcher at heart and this was one long research project with many conversations with friends, friends of friends, web searches and so on. Beach or city? Small cute town or a big metropolis? Central or South America? Over time we honed in on a few criteria that became more significant as we began to envision our year. We started eliminating locations that didn’t make much sense for what we wanted to accomplish. Although a year on a beach seemed idyllic initially (in my dreams I envisioned becoming an amazing surfer with daily yoga while listening to ocean waves), we worried about the heat, the humidity, the thousands of tourists, and potentially questionable or non-existent schools that could get old after the first few weeks.  We also realized that we wanted to travel extensively even while based in one place – which eliminated smaller cities with smaller airports. Big cities were also tough to fall in love with – traffic, poor air quality, expensive expat international schools, and everything else that is associated with millions of people cramming into small spaces. Why not move and work in one? What would it be like to live but not work in a large city? Shouldn’t we be somewhere in the mountains where life is slower?  But then, how touristy were those very cute, quaint, mountain towns? Would we forever be stuck in the sea of globetrotters every time we ventured down the street? Questions mounted as we quickly realized that surprisingly a perfect spot for our adventure did not exist – all options had many attributes we loved about but also several shortcomings.   Deep down though we had missed living in a city; we love the craziness and the mess that large urban areas provide and are willing to overlook many of the negatives. Although our kids were born in London, after years in the suburbs they are not city kids which terrifies us. Once we decided to live in a large metropolitan area, Buenos Aires was a natural choice (especially when South Americans who are not from Argentina urged us to move there).

Why ‘Building a Flying House’?

All credit to Kuba here.  He mentioned one day that he wants to become an inventor and the first thing he’ll invent is a flying car.  We quickly then proceeded to crush his dreams explaining that Uber is busy with that plan already.  He wasn’t crushed though, and responded that he’ll build a flying house instead.  So – as a family, we are building a flying house, our new home for at least a year.  Thanks for joining us for the adventure!