One of the biggest challenges we face in trying to maintain this semi-nomadic lifestyle of ours is the constant job changes. It’s oddly something I don’t write about super often, but it is one of the questions I get asked most of all: “What do you do that allows you to live and move abroad over and over again?” Well, the truth is, we have done many things to make this happen, and this month, I’m going to share a little timeline of all the various jobs we’ve had over the years. Strap in because it’s a bit of a wild ride!  

Pre-Expat Years (~2005-2015)

I suppose I have to start with the fact that we had no early plans to live and work abroad. During high school, I babysat, worked at Bruster’s Ice Cream, and moonlighted at a local dog kennel, and Tucker worked as a bag boy at Publix supermarket and delivered Chinese food on the side. Once we got into college, we started leaning towards pharmacy. At 18, we both got jobs as pharmacy technicians. Me, at Northside Pharmacy and later Rite-Aid Pharmacy, and Tucker, at CVS Pharmacy. Then I got into pharmacy school and subsequently had a bit of an existential crisis, so I did what any 20-year-old freaking out would do: I quit my job and dropped out of school.

That’s probably when I started realizing that A) I didn’t want to be tied down to any one place in particular, and B) I really enjoyed doing lots of different things. While I was shifting schools/majors, I worked as an online search guide (back when we didn’t have the internet on our phones), a telemarketer, a door-to-door salesperson, and a bank teller. But then, I started studying linguistics and absolutely fell in love, and coincidently, fell into the world of ESL (English as a Second Language). After finishing my degree, I started teaching at English for Internationals, and then I was fully hooked. I completed my master’s degree (also in applied linguistics) and worked for Georgia State University as a tutor, a research assistant, and a teaching assistant all while still teaching both in class and online for a few different institutions.

During all this, Tucker mostly worked at CVS Pharmacy, but when he graduated with his degree in biology, he got a job working for Castle Laboratories. At Castle, Tucker worked in the lab focusing on toxicology and drug testing, and he loved it, probably at least in part due to Castle’s super fun startup atmosphere. But I was starting to feel a bit stuck again. I was actually a little jealous of my students. I wanted to be completely immersed in a new language and culture like they were! The honeymoon trip we took to Finland and the one teach-abroad program I did in grad school had clearly not been enough for me. Cue Fulbright.   

Poland (2015-2016)

Fulbright is an exchange program for students, teachers, scholars, and professionals, and it ended up being the perfect first step into living and working abroad. We had no idea what we were doing, but Fulbright helped us with everything from applying for our first visas to connecting us with mentors and other expats who gave us amazing advice right from the start. For a year, we lived in Łódź, Poland, and I taught several courses at the University of Łódź. Tucker did his best to work remotely for Castle, but after about 6 months, they ran into security issues, and he officially went on sabbatical.

Regardless of any challenges we faced in trying to stay semi-employed in the US while simultaneously spending a year abroad, it was pretty clear early on how much we both thrived living in a foreign country. We hadn’t ever been to Poland or had even heard of the city we now called home, but figuring everything out was a huge part of what we loved. It wasn’t long before I was making plans to stay in Poland even after my Fulbright contract was up. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really do that. At the time, we had no idea how to go about getting a visa or a work permit without Fulbright, and we also had about $40k in student loans to pay back in USD, which felt more like a ball and chain than I ever could have imagined. 

Debt-Paying Year (2016-2017)

So, when my Fulbright contract ended, I was resigned to the fact that we’d have to go back to the States, but I now only had one goal in mind: pay off our debt and get back out there! And that’s exactly what we did. Tucker went back to work at Castle full-time, and I got a job teaching at Kennesaw State University. We also lived with family during this interim, ensuring that every cent we made went directly towards our student loan payments. In less than a year, we had zero debt, and we were just about ready to leave again, this time with no plans to come back. But how were we going to get our next visa? How about another exchange program?!

China (2017-2019)

And that’s how I became an English Language Fellow, or a TESOL specialist sent abroad to work on various academic projects that build community and mutual understanding between countries. With Fulbright, I had to choose a country to apply to, but this time, we were assigned to 1 of 70 participating countries. Our assignment: China, and I couldn’t wait! I actually still refer to Poland as our “first pancake” because while we did our best, we were really fumbling through every part of living and working abroad at that point. On our second trip out, I wanted to do better. This time we prepared like never before. We sold everything that didn’t come with us. Tucker had a program of his own to work on this time, and although we didn’t know how long we’d stay in China or what we’d do after ELF, I knew we’d being staying abroad.

We lived and worked in Hefei, China for two years. I taught several courses at Anhui University while also regularly traveling all around the country giving teacher-training workshops as part of the exchange program. Tucker completed an ASCP program and received his technologist of clinical chemistry certificate, and he also traveled with me, quickly becoming everyone’s go-to IT guy! Of course, whenever he got a little tired of university life, he would also spend time at a friend’s brewery helping with quality control and keeping his lab skills sharp. After our contract was finished, we also started working for a recording company in Hefei, reading for various English exams, which we are still doing almost a decade later! But eventually, we decided it was time to move on, and initially, we settled on Canada as our next stop because it had a lot of pros: it was drivable from the US, meaning we could take our pup; it was on the same continent as the rest of our family, and it was bilingual, which would be hugely beneficial for both our careers.  

Pandemic Year (2020)

So, in the fall of 2019, we headed back to North America to spend some time with family before heading up to Canada. During this time, we checked out a few cities in Canada, interviewed for a few jobs, and submitted the last of our immigration paperwork, but after a few months, we still had some time left before we were meant to officially move in, so we also went down to Mexico to check out our Plan B. Turns out that was a really good move, because in couple of months the whole world had come to a halt, and we were beyond stuck.

By March 2020, I had a job training Canadian civil servants for their mandatory English exams, Tucker had a job working for a laboratory based in Florida, and we didn’t have a home in either of those countries. We had been bouncing around, waiting on our paperwork to process, but that was looking less and less likely due to the global shut down. After almost a year of sheltering in place (first with family and later in our pay-by-month bunker in downtown Orlando), we decided to enact Plan B and apply for temporary residencies in Mexico. Since both our jobs were online now anyway, por qué no? 6 weeks after applying, we found ourselves all packed up and driving down to Mexico.

Mexico (2021-2023)

Of course, the pandemic year was extremely tough on everyone, but I took it particularly badly since I had promised myself I wasn’t going to get stuck anywhere ever again. Hindsight, amiright? Well, thankfully, moving to Mexico was one of the best decisions we ever made. We were so happy to be immersed again, learning new things every day, and fully leaning into the digital nomads we had somehow become. In Mexico, I worked online for the Canadian training school and for Lingoda, another online school based in Berlin. Tucker, having been kicked out of the physical lab due to COVID, shifted to more of an IT role and was now processing data for the lab back in Orlando. And so went a very tranquilo 2.5 years, until our paperwork for Canada finally went through.

Canada (2023-Present)

We first applied for our Canadian residency way back in October 2019, and at the time, it was projected to take 6 months. Well, with that pesky pandemic, it ended up taking 3 years. But the timing actually wasn’t too bad because while I had recently started working for Duolingo and was feeling even more confident working remotely, Tucker’s job at the lab in Orlando was on its last legs. So, we packed up the car again and drove all the way up to Ottawa. After just a few months, Tucker was able to land a job working firmly in the realm of IT. He’s now an implementation specialist for a company that provides software for laboratories. Due to immigration guidelines, we were restricted to certain provinces for the first few months, but we ended up staying in Ottawa for just about 2 years. However, Québec was the compromise we were truly after, and so in early 2025, we made Québec City our new home.

These days, Tucker is still working remotely for that same company based out of Ottawa, but as AI eventually pushed me out of Duolingo, I spent about a year working online as a tutor, an exam assessor, and a conference moderator before honing my French skills enough to get a job teaching at a local college here. Of course, I’m still too new to have a full course load, which is how I also came to get my tour guide license, adding yet one more job to my already ridiculously complex tax filings, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way!  

Future

So, what’s next? Will we eventually settle down? Will we run out of opportunities that continue to take us abroad? I hope not! I’m not sure I’m quite ready to officially settle down. As much as I love Québec, and I absolutely do! In fact, we’ll be applying for citizenship in the next couple of months because I never want paperwork to separate me from this particular home. But, at the same time, I am starting to feel the itch again. I think we have at least one more tour abroad left in us before we settle in again, perhaps for even longer next time. I’m personally still leaning towards Türkiye as our next locale, so if you know anyone there looking for a teacher or an IT specialist in the next couple of years, let me know! Until then, we’ll just keep collecting jobs, countries, and experiences because, somehow, they’ve all led us exactly where we needed to be.