by Jay W. Vogt

Published in The Independent Consultant/Society of Actuaries, 2005

Not everybody can take a six-month sabbatical to live in a foreign country, or at least that's what many people told us.  They also told us they were amazed and inspired by what we were about to do.  In fact, so motivated by our plans was one of my busiest clients that she went out and negotiated a three-month sabbatical for herself!

Do you ever find yourself musing about taking 3 or 6 months off (or longer) but aren’t sure how to pull it off? Here's how we did it, step-by-step.

1. Set the intention
It has always been a life goal of mine to live in a foreign country, and to learn a foreign language.  My wife, Stephanie, was born and raised in Mexico , and she wanted to go back.  And we had been telling our only daughter Camilla from day one that she'd someday be learning Spanish, one way or another.

2. Set the date
Life dreams have a way of slipping away.  You just never get around to them.  Plus Camilla was growing up.  So we needed to just pick a date to go.  Both of us had hated our seventh grade years, and talks with older kids and parents of teens confirmed for us that this grade tends to be a tough year. 

If you're going to suffer anyway, we reasoned, why not do so in a foreign country? Plus it was, at the time, two safe years away.  Lastly, we decided to go for just six months - from January to June, 2004 - after giving our daughter a taste of seventh grade life.

3. Save the money
We, like many middle class homes, are a two-income family.  My wife works part-time clearing energy in houses ( www.spaceclear.com) and spends the rest of her time as an at-home mom.  We decided to live just on my income and to bank hers for two years.  We then set up a “sabbatical fund” for the purpose of saving her earnings for the trip.

4. Pick a place
We wanted to live in a place where Camilla could go to school and make friends.  We wanted it to be in a Spanish speaking country.  Since we couldn't afford Spain , and my wife wanted to return to Mexico , we decided on that country.  We’d visited San Miguel de Allende, a 16th century Spanish colonial city (30,000 residents back in 1775 when Boston had only 15,000!) and we loved it there.  It is beautiful, mild in climate (high desert like Santa Fe ), very Mexican, yet with all the pleasures of a thriving community of expatriates and artists.  It worked for us.

5. Find a school
Originally we thought Camilla would go to an international school.  But Mexico 's best international schools are located in its industrial centers where we didn't want to live.  Then we decided to home school her so we could live in San Miguel.  Ultimately we found a tiny bilingual school with 35 students (in six grades!) which reminded Stephanie of the small private schools she had attended as a child in Mexico City .  Everyone called it “ Victoria 's school,” for the big, brassy lady who ran it, after living and teaching in San Miguel for 25 years.  Perfect!  Camilla's middle school teachers, administrators, and counselors were very supportive.

6. Find a home
We visited San Miguel for a week on a "recon" trip one year before we planned to come for good.  I researched housing options extensively on the web before we came but we wanted to see the houses for ourselves.  In fact, we viewed fifteen houses in seven days.  The house we rented was the last one we saw, with spectacular views from the rooftop terrace, plenty of space, and a short walk to the central square.  That week we also visited language schools (for me) and discovered Victoria 's school.
 
7. Rent the house
Our biggest monthly expense is our mortgage.  We had to rent out our house to cover the payment.  Though a furnished house available for only six months seemed a quirky offering, we were hopeful.  I built a web site featuring pictures of our home and networked extensively with housing offices at area schools.  Finally a friend suggested www.sabbaticalhomes.com.  That did the trick.  Within one day of posting our house, an academic couple from Oregon coming to work at MIT rented our house for the exact six months we would be gone, at our asking price.  They even had an only daughter just a year older than Camilla who would be attending the Concord schools.  If she had been just one year younger, she could have taken Camilla's seat!

8. Take the plunge
Since both I and my wife are self-employed, we didn't have to get anyone's permission to go. But we did have to say goodbye to our clients, and to trust that our work would be still there for us again when we returned.  We had done this once before, many years ago, and it had felt very, very scary.  But it had turned out to be kind of like pruning a plant: Old growth fell away, while new growth sprouted and bloomed.  It had all worked out! So we took a big breath this time too… and jumped.

9. Hedge your bets
San Miguel is 90 minutes from a small international airport. I arranged to return four times during the six months for one or two day consulting gigs, at my expense. These trips kept some critical clients happy, gave us some cash flow, and made it seem that I hadn’t completely fallen off the edge of the world. Other work that came my way I referred to capable colleagues, minus a 10% finders’s fee. To everything else I said no or tried to get them to schedule it for my return.

10. Be open to miracles
If you're meant to do this, you'll encounter unexpected support along the way.  While talking to a parent at Camilla's summer camp about our plans, I inspired a woman standing next to me to pipe in: “ Mexico ?  San Miguel?” It turned out that she and her husband, who lived near us, had spent time in San Miguel only a year earlier, and for the exact six months of the year we planned. They too had an only daughter the same age Camilla would be, and they too had enrolled her in Victoria 's school!  What are the chances of that?  Incidentally, they loved their stay, returning later to purchase a house there.  Their story gave us great confidence that we were on the right track. And in fact, the experience was transformational for all of us in different wonderful ways.

So if you’re dreaming, that’s step one. It’s time to take the next step!

Jay W. Vogt founded Peoplesworth (www.peoplesworth.com), a consulting and coaching practice, in 1982 to help organizations develop shared leadership, continuous learning, and successful collaboration. He can be reached at or at 978-371-3134.

If you'd like to learn more about the San Miguel home, click here.

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