The Road Taken: How to Dream, Plan, and Live Your Family Adventure Abroad

by Michelle Damiani

Overview

Imagine for a moment taking your family on the global adventure of a lifetime. What might that look like? Enrolling your children in an international school in Singapore? Homeschooling while you drive through Europe or sail across an ocean? Backpacking through Asia?

The Road Taken: How to Dream, Plan, and Live Your Family Adventure Abroad will guide you to your family dream and then walk you through not only how to get it but how to manage the side effects of stretching out of your collective comfort zone.

From overthrowing your assumptions about what is possible to novel ideas for how to finance a global adventure to dealing with children's homesickness, The Road Taken is your how-to manual for creating the experience of a lifetime. It's also the perfect book for those who love thrilling adventure tales and are just looking for ideas for how to shake up their next family vacation.

Author and clinical psychologist Michelle Damiani weaves together her story of moving to an Italian village with the experiences of thirty-six contributors to create what is sure to be the definitive manual for families who crave an international adventure.

Because you owe it to yourself and your family to consider discovering the world together.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780692198964
Publisher:	Michelle Damiani
Publication date:	09/27/2018
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Michelle Damiani is a freelance writer and clinical psychologist currently living in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her heart, however, is in Spello, Italy, where she and her family spent a year growing accustomed to being fish out of water, grappling with the hardships of parenting on foreign soil, and ultimately cleaving into the soul of Italian village life. While in Italy, Michelle used the time that her children were in Italian public schools to write a blog about their experiences. Once back in Charlottesville, she transformed the blog into a book, Il Bel Centro: a Year in the Beautiful Center. Her daily life in Umbria later inspired her novel, Santa Lucia. Written in sweeping telenovela style, and packed with drama, Santa Lucia is nonetheless grounded in the green heart of Italy. When not writing, doing therapy, or relaxing with her family, she can be found experimenting in the kitchen or tucked away with a travel memoir, dreaming of once again hitting the open road. You can find out more at www.michelledamiani.com.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 1

DREAMING

1. DECIDING TO GO 7

2. YOUR CHILD’S RESPONSE 21

3. DEALING WITH OPINIONS 29

4. CHOOSING YOUR ADVENTURE 37

PLANNING

1. FINANCING YOUR ADVENTURE 57
2. WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR HOME 81
3. VISAS: THE STICKY WICKET 89

4. MAKING MONEY WHILE ABROAD 103

5. HOW TO FIND A SPOT TO UNPACK 115

6. WHEN TO GO 129

7. SHOULD YOU TAKE YOUR PET? 137

8. PACKING YOUR BAGS 159

LIVING

1. CULTURE SHOCK 171

2. LEARNING THE LANGUAGE 193

3. HOW TO INTEGRATE 205

4. SCHOOL DAYS 223

5. MEDICAL CARE 237

6. COPING WITH HOMESICKNESS 247

7. SAVING MONEY WHILE ABROAD 261

8. STAYING CONNECTED TO YOUR OLD LIFE 271

9. PARENTING ABROAD 279

10. THE DAILY ROUTINE 287

11. A SPOT OF ADVICE 297

COMING HOME

1. ROSE, THORN, AND BUD 309

2. HOW WE CHANGE 329

3. REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK (IT'S REAL) 343

4. FINAL THOUGHTS 355

Editorial Reviews

"The Road Taken is a lovely blend of practicality and magic. It also struck me as applicable not only for building-an-adventure-abroad life but also finding-adventure-where-you-are life."

"Part memoir, part travel guide, The Road Taken highlights inspiring stories of families slow-traveling the world with children. Michelle Damiani makes globe-trotting with kids, an unimaginable prospect for most, seem entirely feasible, opening the door for families to dream up their journey of a lifetime, and then actually take it."

"I hope the book inspires others to venture out, and especially to give their children opportunities to truly engage with other cultures and to learn other languages, enrichments that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Who knows: I may just slip a copy of The Road Taken under my son and daughter-in-law's tree this Christmas. Their children will thank me many years hence."

"Thinking of taking your family to live in a foreign country? But what about money, work, careers, school, friends, pets? The Road Taken will jumpstart your dream, leading you through the whys and hows, with questions and checklists and, best of all, stories by the author and many other families who have taken their own unique journeys of a lifetime."

From the Publisher