Why France, why now?

The backstory behind A Good Vintage, and how we're turning our French dream into reality.

For most of our lives, Jason (my husband) and I have wanted to live abroad. Neither of us had a chance to study abroad or go backpacking after college in the 1990s, and then life intervened and we found ourselves both in our 50s aching to go somewhere else. There was always a reason why we couldn’t go…professional responsibilities, our elderly pets, our families. But then after living through the trauma of the pandemic, we emerged, as many did, with a very way of thinking about our lives. We wanted to live more in the moment, seek adventure, and follow our dreams.

The only question was: How?

By the spring of 2023, we had lost both of our beloved pets, Polly, our 14-year-old pittie and Lucy, our darling Russian Blue kitty. For the first time in our 13 years together, Jason and I didn’t have any pets. And while the house was awfully quiet and we missed our furbabies terribly, having an empty nest opened up a world of opportunity that we didn’t think was possible.

We started talking about the next few years and how much we both wanted to live in France (and frankly, get out of the U.S.). Before, when we talked about spending extended time abroad, the biggest stumbling block was our pets. They were older and the idea of moving them halfway across the world was not something we could fathom. Now that they are gone and since we don’t have children, there’s very little holding us back. The biggest challenge is my 87-year-old father; I can’t imagine moving to another country full-time while he is still alive.

We needed an interim plan, a stepping stone of sorts that would get us to France permanently. Have you ever heard the saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”? I adore elephants and would never consider eating even a tiny sliver of such a majestic beast, but the phrase captures our approach. Essentially it means that the best way to tackle a large project or goal is to break it down into manageable bite-sized chunks. We decided that this approach was what we needed to succeed. The idea of spending weeks, then months, and then years abroad was more realistic than fully packing up everything, selling our house and moving to France. In the spring of 2023, we embarked on our bite-sized plan.

Since we both find the winter holiday season challenging, we decided to escape potential family drama and spend three weeks in France during December. Our first step was to lock in flights and then decide where to stay. Jason was particularly keen on Southwest France and so after many hours of research, we narrowed down our choices to Bordeaux, Toulouse and Montpellier, with a few days in Paris on either end of the trip.

Bordeaux, Toulouse and Montpellier are decent sized cities with plenty of culture, history, sights, food and shopping to keep us busy for more than a couple of days. Bordeaux, the sixth biggest city in France, has a population of roughly 1.4 million people in the metropolitan area, Toulouse is the 4th largest city in France with a population of about 1.5, and Montpellier is considerably smaller with a little over 800,000 people.

I poured over Airbnbs in each city and combed through the reviews with the intensity of a surgeon, assessing noise levels, carefully examining photos and comparing amenities. Anything with a mention of a loud bar or restaurant nearby or an uncomfortable bed was immediately nixed. The process took longer than it probably should have because I am on the picky side when it comes to accommodations.

On November 28th, we boarded our flight to Paris and the adventure began.