Conversations on Day-to-Day Expat Living

By Bobbi Hartwell

This rather unique Expat Experiences entry is a series of interviews by two long-term travelers. Hope and her husband took a RTW gap year in 2008, and Hope is currently re-establishing her law practice in Albuquerque after returning from life as an expat in Florence, Italy, where her husband worked for a year. Bobbi and her husband are a year into their nomadic expat lifestyle, currently slow-traveling and living throughout southern Africa.

Also in this article:

I met Hope Eckert while living in Florence, Italy. Hope’s experience was the more typical of our respective expat lives, as she had settled in Florence after her husband secured a teaching assignment when they decided to move abroad. My husband and I live a more nomadic lifestyle, as our jobs allow us to telecommute and we relocate every 2 – 6 months. After we moved on from Italy to Turkey, then to southern Africa, Hope and I kept in touch, often comparing expat experiences. Eventually, we realized that our stories about the more mundane aspects of living abroad could be useful to other expats, and we compiled an online interview from our favorite topics. I am currently in Namibia, and Hope recently returned to the United States. In the following series of interviews, Hope and I compare how living abroad changed the way we eat, communicate, socialize, and use transportation in our daily lives.

About Bobbi Hartwell

Bobbi Hartwell is a freelance legal researcher and software consultant who lives anywhere she and her husband can find an internet connection. Currently she is based in Swakopmund, Namibia; she and her husband discuss their digital-nomad lifestyle on their blog.

Article Topics

Intercultural Communication

Relocation

Continue: How We Eat

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