Je m’apelle Violet. And that about sums up my foreign language skills. 🙂
Despite linguistic limitations (Americans! God help us!), my family and I have lived in some pretty cool places. My husband’s work as a PGA teaching pro has been, for us, a portal to world-wide travel. Luckily, my job as a free-lance writer and illustrator has never held us back. I can work from virtually anywhere, so when opportunity beckons, we go!
Our first international move in 2015 from the US to New Zealand was exciting, terrifying, and freeing. The experience rinsed away all our fears about expatriating, so of course this year we are moving to China. Next stop… Canada? Could be. We’ll see.
For the benefit of other world travelers and wannabe expats, I have been longing to write about every little thing that has happened to us on our journey: the ups and downs of securing a work visa, the emotions of enrolling our teenage son in a kiwi school, the domestic day-to-day struggles of settling into a “foreign” lifestyle, etc. After nearly five years of back-to-back book deadlines, I finally have a little space in my daily schedule.
Time to breathe. And to blog.
My plan is to follow inspiration rather than chronology. I will write about various aspects of moving to and living in New Zealand and China, as well as other trips we’ve taken in the US and abroad. I’ll include travel tips whenever I can, and will of course write about food and coffee and art and books because without food and coffee and art and books, why leave the house? Occasionally I’ll post some of my own illustrations, and perhaps little bits of news from my publishing life, but mostly, vagabondviolet will chronicle my family’s travels abroad.
Interacting with readers and writers is the blood of any blog so please do leave comments and questions. I will always do my best to answer.
And so, away we go.
On y va!
Vagabond Violet 