Preparing for an international move can be more than a little tricky. While I love to be as frugal as the next person, this was not the time for being cheap or unwilling to ask for help when needed.
Moving to Spain involves enough variables that we decided this wasn’t the place to cut corners.
I’d been following several Instagram accounts focused on moving to Spain for quite a while, but when I discovered a former client (and friend!) had moved to Barcelona, I asked him for some pointers. One of those was to hire a relocation coach. That’s where the incredible Jackie Baxa comes in.
Jackie runs Family Move Abroad, lives in Sevilla, and has a wealth of knowledge about all things Spain. We hired Jackie in October 2023, but we didn’t really get the ball rolling with her until early 2024, when we began compiling paperwork and getting into the finer details of this move.
When we discovered our driver’s licenses might not arrive in time for our Washington, D.C., visa appointments, Jackie helped us determine what we could use instead to prove our residency. And even if the licenses arrived in time, she advised us to take those items with us anyway, “just in case.” Jackie was also there to hold our hands at the last minute as we drank a bottle of wine and compiled every piece of official paperwork into a binder to travel with us to D.C.
I absolutely could have handled these things on my own. I (weirdly) love paperwork and making sure it’s done correctly. But the stress of this situation could have caused mistakes, which we did not need.
Our driver’s licenses arrived in plenty of time for our appointment, and we were all set.
Or so we thought.
Don’t miss the next post, where I’ll outline the snafu that almost caused us to miss our long-awaited visa appointment.
I write here about building a life abroad—slowly, imperfectly, and with a lot of trial and error.
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New to poco a poco? These posts will help you get oriented:
Start Here
Welcome to poco a poco! If you’re new here, let’s make finding your way around this corner of the internet as smooth as possible.
Doing the Work Before the Leap
If you know me, you know I’m like a dog with a bone once I land on something I want to do. When I commit to a project, I devote myself to it wholeheartedly and see it through.
How I Keep My U.S. Phone Number in Spain (And Why It Matters)
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