It’s a cliche, but it’s also true: I’ve saved the best for last.

If you remember from my Samara post, we’d originally planned on staying in La Fortuna, near the Arenal volcano, for only 4 nights. However, after an AirBnB blip in Samara, we decided to head there 2 days early, giving us almost a full week.

In the end, we probably should have always spent the most time in La Fortuna, because, of the three places we visited during this particular trip, it was, by far, the most jam-packed with stuff to do. As it turned out, it also ended up being our favorite stop.

Originally, we’d booked a large two-queen room at the Arenal Observatory Lodge. It’s an “eco lodge,” which means that it doesn’t have a lot of the modern luxuries you might be used to. There are no TVs, the rooms are fairly basic (though clean), and there’s no AC. After having spent several nights in 100-degree Samara, sleeping in an AirBnB with hardly any AC, we realized that we needed to end in a place where we would be more comfortable. (Although, having now experienced the much more temperate climate in La Fortuna, we probably could have hacked it without AC.)

So, when we decided to cut our time in Samara a bit early, we also made a very last-minute lodging switch, opting instead to stay at Hotel El Silencio del Campo, which wasn’t really on our radar before. To be honest, it was one of the only affordable places that had rooms available, and the website boasted that they had an organic farm onsite. So, we gave it a shot.

Although the Arenal Observatory Lodge looked great, and it is the only lodging actually INSIDE of Arenal National Park, meaning I think it is still worth a look, ending our trip at Hotel El Silencio del Campo really ended up being a twist of fate, as it is one of our favorite places we have ever stayed.

The property is composed of 20-something cabin-like villas, each with a large bathroom, a mini bar, one or two beds… and AC! It’s right near the center of the action in La Fortuna, and right next door to a pretty gaudy resort, but they have done such an amazing job of making the boutique hotel feel like a quiet, isolated oasis.

The grounds are the real champion, as there are several different hot springs, a full-sized pool, a restaurant that offered a perfectly good breakfast each morning, a playground, and a little farm, which made for the boys’ favorite experiences of our trip.

On the farm, there are ponies, cows, goats, sheep, peacocks that roam free, a couple hundred chickens, and other kinds of fowl. Kids can milk the cows, ride horses, and gather eggs every single day, which we took advantage of as much as possible. We also saw a momma and baby sloth, which live on the property, along with several lizards and iguanas.

Honestly, I really can’t say enough good things about the property. We aren’t the kind of folks who like to spend a lot of time at a hotel, which is why we usually opt for smaller lodgings or AirBnB type places, but Hotel Silencio del Campo was the exception. We spent a lot of time on onsite, and we enjoyed every second of it. It probably helped that, due to COVID, the property was only occupied at 30%, and we were often the only people around.

Anyway, our days in La Fortuna went something like this: wake up, grab breakfast onsite, milk the cow and ride a horse, venture out for an activity, grab lunch in town, come back for nap time, wake up and spend an hour or so in the hot springs (which are especially lovely when it is raining), grab dinner in town, go to bed early. Even though we did an activity or two every single day, we still couldn’t get it all in.

One of the things La Fortuna is known for, other than the Arenal volcano, is that there are natural hot springs. A lot of the big resorts have created their own hot springs, but they just aren’t the same. Although many, many people buy day passes to one of several beautifully tempting resort properties, where you can use their hot springs for a fee (Tabacon is the one we would have chosen, if we did the day pass thing, but it’s better for adults only), we really wanted to go to the free, local hot springs, which are hidden away off the side of the main road.

I’d read several reports of families going, and I figured it was safe enough. So, on our first full day in La Fortuna, we headed out to find Chollin’ hot springs. To get there, you park on the side of the road, right next to the Tabacon entrance. You’ll know when you find the spot, as you’ll likely see other cars parked, and you’ll also find unofficial parking attendants, who will watch your car for $3 or so. Pay them. You can afford it, and they are helpful.

There’s a little trail that leads into the jungle from the road. Follow the trail down for a few minutes, and you’ll come to what looks like a shallow, babbling river with lots of little pools. On one side, a cool creek flows down from the rainforest. So, you can choose whether you want to sit in a little pool of lukewarm water, or whether you want to venture further in to find water that is quite hot. We did both, and, honestly, it was my favorite day of the entire trip. I have never seen a place so magical.

By around 11AM, it starts to get busier. So, if you can, go early. Also, make sure to bring a waterproof bag so that you can keep it close. Again, we felt totally safe, but you want to be smart.

On another day, we drove 40 minutes outside of La Fortuna to do the half-day volunteer tour at Proyecto Asis–another highlight of the trip. Because of COVID, we ended up having a private tour, which was really a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience.

Proyecto Asis helps rehabilitate wild animals who have been injured or who have been illegally kept as pets. Their goal is always to release animals back into the wild, and they run a really admirable operation. As part of our volunteer experience, a guide introduced us to and taught us about every animal at the property, and then we got to prepare the food for all of the animals and make the daily feeding rounds. It was unbelievable, and I’d do it again in a second.

Another day, we did the Don Olivio Chocolate Tour. Sona and I have done a Costa Rican chocolate tour before, but we wanted the boys to experience it. To prep Finn, we watched the StoryBots episode about where chocolate comes from the night before. He was so excited! Admittedly, Elias was a little bored, but the Don Olivio family tried SO hard to engage the boys, giving them constant snacks, allowing them to be hands on, and cracking lots of jokes.

It’s a very small, family-run operation, but that’s also what made it special. We got to not only see cacao, but we also got to try freshly picked pineapple, different varieties of bananas, mango, fresh-pressed sugar cane juice, orange juice straight from the orange, and other delicious things. (We may or may not have done a couple shots of the rum they distill onsite.) We saw and learned about over 25 different kinds of spices, fruits, and vegetables grown in Costa Rica. And, of course, we got to harvest cacao, grind the roasted beans, and make fresh hot chocolate!

Another must do in La Fortuna is the Mistico Hanging Bridge tour. It’s a 2-3 hour hike through the rainforest, complete with 6 hanging bridges above the canopy. We really suggest going with a guide, as you’ll see MUCH more wildlife that way (this is true of most places in Costa Rica–the guides are experts at spotting things you’d never see), and we booked with Tavo through AirBnB experiences. He was amazing–and great with the boys! We told him the last animal we really wanted to see before leaving was an eyelash viper. And I kid you not: he found one within 3 minutes!

Pro tip: you can rent really nice strollers there for $8, which SAVED us, as Elias would never have made it the whole way otherwise.

On our last day in La Fortuna, we awoke to the clearest view of the Arenal volcano we’d seen. It was such a gift!

Then, we decided to cram in ALL THE THINGS. We started by doing the SkyTram at Sky Adventures. Admittedly, it’s a little pricey for a relatively short ride, but the view was worth it. If your kiddos are old enough to zip line, they have an amazing course, and the tram is included in the tour.

We also checked out the butterfly conservatory, which has a lot of indigenous frogs, too. We could have easily spent a full morning there, but sped through in just an hour, as it was crammed in right before lunch.

We went into town for one last lunch at Soda Viquez, a place we loved, and one last copo in the park.

We had one last swim in the hot springs.

Even as I write this very long post, I feel the frenzy of panic, wondering what must-dos I have missed. La Fortuna has so much beauty to experience, and the temperate climate makes it a lot more comfortable than other parts of Costa Rica. Although I thought I’d like it least, as it isn’t near the beach, Sona and I both ended loving it the most, saying that it was the kind of place we could see ourselves settling for an extended period of time.

Leaving Costa Rica was hard, but La Fortuna sure did a good job of offering us one last hoorah.

Our nearly 3 weeks in Costa Rica went by too quickly, as it always does, but when I look back on my posts about Manuel Antonio, Samara, and La Fortuna, I’m damn-near knocked over by all we got to see and experience–and more importantly, all our boys got to see in experience–in that time.

Every time we go to Costa Rica, we find it harder to leave.

Our La Fortuna faves and recommendations:

• stay at Hotel Silencio del Campo
• eat at Soda Viquez (LOVED the arroz con camarones and the chuleta Casado and the iced tea)
• eat lunch at Rancho Mi Tata (on the way back from Proyecto Asis)
• get pretty decent pizza and let your kids run wild in the playroom at Cafe Mediterraneo
• do a guided tour of the Mistico Hanging Bridges with Tavo
• taste the wonders on the Don Olivio Chocolate tour
• do a half-day volunteer experience with Proyecto Asis
• visit the butterfly conservatory
• get chocolates at Chocolate Fusion Cafe
• eat arroz con pollo at Soda La Parada (right on the square)
• walk around the park in the square and get a copo and fresh OJ from the cart on the corner
• visit Chollin hot springs (in the AM, if possible)
• hike down to the La Fortuna waterfall (we didn’t do this, as we weren’t sure Elias would last on the 500 steps up and down, but we’ve heard it’s amazing)

Last week, I shared a trip report for our first stop on our recent Costa Rican adventure: Manuel Antonio. Next up: Samara!

Samara was actually the first spot on our radar for this particular trip. Since, as I’ve mentioned already, we’d previously visited the Caribbean coast, we knew we wanted to explore the Pacific side this time. The Guanacaste region, which Samara is in, is the one of the most popular tourist destinations in Costa Rica. Although, most people end up in the northern part of the region, near Tamarindo.

Instead, we opted for Samara, which I’d heard about through a few Costa Rica expat Facebook groups of which I’m a member. Samara, which is near the southern tip of Guanacaste, is a much, much quieter beach town, known as an expat hub–and as a place with lots of young families. Playa Samara also boasts some of the most shallow surf in Guanacaste, making it good for the littles.

The drive from Manuel Antonio to Samara took about 5 hours, was easy, and provided some really beautiful scenery. We arrived in Samara in the early afternoon, heading straight for the house we’d rented through AirBnB.

When we planned our itinerary for Costa Rica, we imagined that the boys would struggle with moving around so much, and that we’d also need a break from the constant packing and unpacking. After all, the house in Samara was our 3rd stay in just 6 days. It was also, we thought, the most swanky of all our lodgings. So, we planned to stay for a full week, giving ourselves a bit of a reprieve. In the end, that ended up being a mistake, but I’ll say more about that later.

When we arrived, there were some issues with our AirBnB, which was the least favorite of all our lodgings in Costa Rica, as it turned out. So, we were all a little cranky, a little tired, and hungry. While the property manager was rectifying issues with our rental, we decided to head straight for the beach. We pulled along the cute, but small, main stretch of Playa Samara, parked on the side of the road, and wandered into a beachside cafe for pizza, salads, fresh juices, and a beach view.

Almost immediately, all the boys wanted to do was go play by the water. And who could blame them? They’d been in a car all day, it was hot as hell (over 100 the entire time we were there), and the surf was gorgeous.

Turns out, we spent almost every single day and night in Samara down on that same beach, often with only a handful of other people. Playa Samara is something special—one of my favorite beaches we’ve been to, and we’ve been to lots. While the waves can still get a bit rough, enough that the beach sustains a little surf school where you can watch kids and adults alike try again and again to stand up on their boards, low tide brings with it the most shallow, pool-like surf, which looks glass-like in the fading sun, and which is perfect for smaller children.

That shallow surf, plus a crescent of palm trees lining the beach, plus the copo (shaved ice) carts that wander up and down throughout the day, plus all of the small cafes that let you use their chairs and umbrellas if you purchase a drink, plus the occasional monkey, plus the wild horses grazing on grass that edges the sand, plus the complete and total absence of rows and rows of plastic resort beach chairs and loud, drunk tourists and hoards of people really makes Playa Samara special.

The little town of Samara is full of expats and locals alike. There’s plenty of restaurants to choose from, a couple of well-stocked grocery stores, organic juice bars, and ice cream shops, and side-of-the-road fruit stands. In a lot of ways, Samara feels like Tulum felt 10 years ago, and I hope it doesn’t end up like Tulum is now.

It felt like the kind of place where we could easily see ourselves settling, should we ever spend a year or two living in Costa Rica. Yet, for this particular vacation, with two boys who couldn’t yet surf or ride ATVs or safely swim in the waves, it didn’t quite warrant a full week. I think that, if we’d had a house that was more comfortable and air-conditioned (we can’t hang with the heat, what can I say?), we would have felt differently. I also think the boys were just a couple years too young to more fully enjoy the Samara area.

The beach is Samara’s main draw, and a wonderful beach it is. However, after having come from the adventure-packed rainforest of Manuel Antonio, Samara almost felt a little too sleepy for us, at least with Finn and Elias at their current ages. Every day was pretty much the same: wake up, grab pastries at Roots Bakery, head to the beach and set up show at Lo Que Hay, spend as many hours as we could stand the sun and heat, splashing in the waves and playing in the sand, come back to the house (which had no AC and was unbearably hot) for lunch by the pool, take naps, wake up, go back to the beach for dinner and sunset.

There was absolutely nothing to complain about, but the heat in Samara was relentless, and we knew we wouldn’t last a full 7 days in the sun. Plus, there was SO much we wanted to do in La Fortuna/Arenal, which was our last stop, that we realized we weren’t going to be able to fit it all in the in the 4 nights we’d planned there. It was an error made in the planning stage, we realized.

Nonetheless, we did our best to find little age-appropriate adventures, including visiting the gorgeous palm-tree covered park on the north end of town, doing drive-by visits of a couple other area beaches, spending a morning dolphin-watching (from a very small boat where pretty much all of us got seasick, but still), riding horses on the beach, eating some of our favorite meals in Costa Rica, and watching every sunset from the sand.

Everything came to a head though when, after several days of issues with our rental, one night we came home, after dark, the kids hungry and tired, and found that the gate to our property was broken. The property manager was an hour out at sea, and we were stuck in the middle of a pitch-black jungle with absolutely no way into our rental. Sona made the very bad decision to try and drive up a muddy hill, leading to the back of our property, and, long story short, she almost sent our rental car careening over the side of an embankment. It was literally held up by two slim palm trees. We panicked, got the kids out of the car as quickly as possible, and spent 2 hours, with the help of the nicest locals, unsuccessfully trying to get the car out safely.

The next morning, after a backhoe came at 6:15 AM to pull our car off of the ledge, we decided we’d go to the Macaw Recovery Network tour we’d long had booked, come back, pack our bags, and leave Samara two nights early, giving us more time in Arenal, which had much more to do, a more temperate climate, and AIR CONDITIONING, which everyone, even the boys, were missing. (Their bedroom was 80-85 most nights, and they had a hard time sleeping the entire time.)

So, while our time in Samara was slightly colored by a bad AirBnB experience, we still really loved the town, would still absolutely recommend it, and would come back–will hopefully come back–one day.

As we sat at Roots for one last breakfast before hitting the road for Arenal, the stray dog that Finn had befriended at the beginning of the week, and who’d somehow found us everywhere we went in town all week long, wandered up. At the same time, an expat family with a young son walked by, saying, “You should take her home. We love her, but we already have a dog.”

Of course, we couldn’t, but I sure got a little misty eyed imagining we lived the kind of life where we could just take that sweet, stray dog, jump in our beat-up beach car, and drive to our little Costa Rican beach home, where the floors are always sandy, swimsuits were perpetually drying on the patio, mango trees grow in the yard, and we live a much quieter, more family-centered life.

And as I write this post from our very comfortable, air-conditioned home in Chicago, the kids at school and Sona at work, there’s a big part of me that wishes we were all sweating together on that beach in Samara.

Our Samara faves and recommendations:

• watch tide charts and make sure to hit up the beach at low tide
• get drinks and guac and beach chairs at Lo Que Hay
• eat as many copos as possible
• but pipa fria and fresh OJ from the fruit cart in town (you’ll see the one)
• splurge on a grilled feast at El Largarto
• get pizza at the swanky Gusto beach cafe
• eat as many meals as possible at Soda La Perla
• sit in the porch swing chairs and eat sushi at Samara Sushi
• take a horseback ride on the beach
• visit the Macaw Recovery Network to learn about their conservation efforts
• check out Playa Carillo
• if your kids are old enough, take surf lessons at the surf shop on Playa Samara
• get pastries and breakfast at Roots Bakery
• if your group is old enough, take ATV or horseback rides to Playa Barrigona

Like the rest of the world, we spent most of the past year social distancing. For Sona, her life didn’t look much different, as she’s in the medical field and, therefore, work was pretty much business as usual. For me, though, it meant that I went from an uber-social work setting, wherein I am accustomed to interacting with dozens of students and colleagues every week, to the isolation of a laptop, a not-so-comfy-chair, and an empty house.

This is to say, while Sona and I both needed to get away, I really felt like my mental health was hanging on by a thread. So, when my parents offered to watch our kids for a week in March, as they do every year (thank goodness for grandparents, am I right?!), we decided we’d pounce on the opportunity to leave (the house, the city, and the country), and we headed to Baja Sur, Mexico, which was a sleepy enough spot that we felt like, although there were still some risks involved with travel, we’d have a decent shot of a safe and mostly distanced vacay.

Todos Santos, specifically, has been on our radar for a few years. It’s one of those places that very few people knew about a decade ago. However, thanks to social media, it has become one of the “most undiscovered spots in Mexico”–albeit, not for long.

Generally speaking, Sona and I always try to avoid a lot of the Greatest Hits destinations. We often joke that, if you want a good travel experience, you should fly into a really touristy spot, and then drive an hour or two away. That has been our experience all over the world, and we often find a lot of sweet spots by doing just that. This time, that meant flying into Cabo, hopping in a Jeep (Sona’s dream car), and taking Highway 19 about an hour and a half north, past more cacti then you ever thought possible, until you hit Todos Santos.

While Todos Santos checks all of our off-the-beaten-path boxes, it also, ironically, is home to a very hip and chic hotel by The Bunkhouse Group, which really sealed the deal for us. We wanted quiet and an escape from the rowdy crowds that Cabo has in abundance, but we also needed a little pampering. That is, having a boho lux hotel, plopped right into the middle of the otherwise undeveloped desert, was exactly the kind of salve our travel-starved, COVID-weary souls craved. Enter: Hotel San Cristobal.

Located at the end of a questionably dusty road–one enough to make even seasoned travelers a bit squeamish–sits the sort of 70s-inspired, bohemian paradise your Baja dreams are made of. The white stucco hotel, which is the only building on a Pacific bay where we never saw more than a handful of people on the beach at any time, provides a good respite from days spent driving up and down the desert, eating fish tacos, and adventuring around the peninsula.

Because of the pandemic, the hotel was at 20% capacity, which means that, most days, we felt like we had the entire place to ourselves. (The property only has 32 rooms. So, I imagine it still feels small, even at full capacity.)

Each night, while the property was still and the Pacific waves roared, we sat by the fire, drank mezcal cocktails, ordered plate after plate of churros, and watched the stars.

Then, come morning, as we’re always want to do, we would adventure. There’s really so much to see and experience and EAT in the area, if you’re willing to drive a bit.

We spent a good bit of time just wandering around downtown Todos Santos, which, although there are some corners geared toured tourists, still feels mostly authentic and unspoiled, especially if you work to find the local spots.

We visited the many, many art galleries–it’s an artists’ town–and tried every fish tacos the place had to offer. (Go to the blue and orange street stand, across the street from Hotel California, for the best!)

We spent a day at Cerritos Beach, watching the many surfers on the water, and stopped at the Justina Blanket Factory on the way.

We didn’t get to have sunset cocktails at Hacienda Cerritos, but we hear it’s a great spot! We also loved Barracuda Cantina, where we got great shrimp tacos and passionfruit cocktails with our toes in the sand.

We spent a day at sea, swimming with Whale Sharks and sea lions, as the former is what originally piqued our interest in the Baja Peninsula to begin with.

During the excursion, we stopped at Balandra Beach, outside of La Paz, which is surrounded by pink mountains, and widely considered to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It did not disappoint.

We ate the best carnitas of our lives at Carnitas Machin, a roadside stop in El Pescadora–and area really worthy of exploring and eating your way through.

We found that, after a difficult year wherein we often had to be together, we actually still liked being together. (Something that all long-married couples, but especially those with kids, need help remembering every now and then.)

And we spent night after night, driving across town to a somewhat hidden beach, where we’d heard they sometimes release sea turtle hatchlings. Four nights we went, and four nights we found the makeshift hatchling tent empty.

Then, on our very last night in Todos Santos, just as we were walking back to our car, somewhat defeated, we saw an ATV come rambling up the beach, park at the tent, and a volunteer go inside.

So, we spent our final night watching the sun set and trying to coax turtle hatchlings into the water. Everyone left, even the volunteer, and Sona and I sat alone on the pitch-black beach, watching over the handful of timid hatchlings that were taking their time.

Did I mention that we also saw grey whales spouting from that same beach?

It might have been the fact that we hadn’t truly traveled in well over a year or the release that was having a week of unrestrained joy after pandemic living, but we completely fell for all that Baja Sur had to offer, and it was the perfect reminder, after a year of feeling so isolated, that there is a big, wide, beautiful world outside of our front door, even if we can’t always see it.

Our Baja Sur faves and recommendations:

• eat all of the fish tacos, but especially the ones at the blue and orange street stand in Todos Santos and at the very local-oriented Compa Chava
• stay at Hotel San Cristobal 
• spend a day in Cerritos, eating lunch at Barracuda Cantina and watching surfers on the beach
• shop for woven blankets at the Justina Blanket Factory
• eat lots and lots and lots of carnitas at Carnitas Machin
• eat the catch-of-the-day turned sushi at Derek’s
• visit the many art galleries in Todos Santos; we especially liked La Sonrisa de la Muerte
• spend a day on the water with Explora Baja
• if you go during the right months, watch baby turtles be released at Torugueros Las Playitas
• grab pastries and coffee at Talle 17 and wall down Calle Benito Juarez (the street with all of the hanging flags)
• spend a lazy afternoon eating lunch and exploring the organic gardens at Hierbabuena
• get the passion fruit sorbet at La Paloma
• have a “fancy” dinner at Jazamango, and order the whole fish
• check out the mezcal pop-up at El Refugio, Tues-Sat
• spend a lot of time sitting in the sand, doing absolutely nothing, other than watching for whales

Let’s do a quick walk-through of the past 18 years of my and Sona’s relationship. If you skim through that timeline, you’ll hit a milestone every few years: graduate from undergrad, move to a big city, get graduate degrees, land our dream jobs, get married (legally!!!), have Finn, buy our first house, have Elias.

I think back through those years, and I am so proud of where we are and how far we’ve come. We are living the life we could have only dreamt of when we first met in that Tennessee dorm room way back in 2000. 18 year old Danielle’s big dreams aren’t lost on 37 year old Danielle, trust me.

Still, for as long as Sona and I have been together, we have always been working towards something: a degree, a career, a home, a baby. Now that we’ve had Elias, and are certain that our baby-making years are behind us, I have found myself thinking, “What’s next?”

Before you start sending me “appreciate what you have” or “stop and smell the roses” memes, let me assure you: I do. We do. We love the life we’ve created together, and we recognize how fortunate we are to live it, but at the end of a long day, when we’re frazzled and tired and thread-bare. When we’ve paid the bills and called about the weird insurance notice we got in the mail and responded to the 27 to-do items on our HOA’s fix-it list, and dropped the boys off at daycare, and ran to the gym, and commuted to our respective jobs, and picked the boys up from daycare, and rushed home to cook dinner, and answered a million work-related emails, and given whatever pet is sick their medicine, and rushed to make bedtime happen at a relatively normal hour, and watched our 60-90 minutes of DVR’d TV, and crawled back into our perfectly comfortable bed, and set the alarms on our phones for the next morning, when we will wake up and do some version of all of that all over again, I think we both wonder, “Can we do this for the next 30 years?”

More to the point: do we want to do this for the next 30 years?

That is the question that’s been needling us for a while, now. Before the boys, we talked about our pipe-dream of moving internationally for a stint. Where to? Who knows. And do what? That’s a good question. But it was always something at the back of our minds.

When we started traveling to the Caribbean a lot, it became clear to me that a Caribbean lifestyle was I could be happy with. Like, forever. If you know me, you’ve likely heard me wax poetic about being barefoot in the sand, living in a simple cottage, spending most of my time outdoors, eating head-on fish with my hands, and never wearing make-up again.

Yet, there were milestones we knew we wanted to hit. And so, our one-day Caribbean pipe-dream never moved far beyond the waxing.

Then we had Elias, got through the first few months of having a newborn, which, as any parent can tell you, doesn’t allow you much time to think about anything else, and let the dust settle. And once it settled, the nagging question began to echo louder: “What’s next?”

I think it’s easy to conflate a lust for adventure with discontentment. A therapist might tell us that, by always looking to what’s next, we’re trying to out-run some sort of emotional baggage. But for me, it’s not so much that I’m craving an escape as I’m craving a beginning. Like I said, I love my life, but I don’t want this to be the only life I ever live. I don’t want to re-write the same chapter over and over, decade after decade, without ever trying something new.

And what’s also become abundantly clear to both myself and Sona is that the lives we live now don’t allow us to maximize time with our kids. Practically speaking, our kids are with their daycare providers more than they are with us. And even when we are together, Sona and I are often so spent that we don’t have as much energy to devote to family time as we’d like.

But we’re also craving something else: a completely new experience that shows our boys a different pace of life and affords us the invaluable gift of bonding together in the context of the unknown. A chance to live somewhere altogether different than Chicago. A new landscape. A new language. A new lifestyle.

And we recognize that, when it comes to the boys, there’s a window in which we can do this. We need a few years to prepare. We want the boys to both be old enough to remember our adventure and get the most out of it but not so old that they resist family time and resent us for leaving their friends. And, should all things go as planned, we’d like to come back in time for them each to experience a full high school career in the States, giving them the opportunity to experience all the things you experience as an American teen, including a fairly rooted peer group.

Ultimately, that means that our window is somewhere between the ages of when Elias is 4 or 5 and Finn is 12 or 13. If you’re doing the math, that means we have about 3 or 4 years to shit or get off the proverbial pot.

Recently, Sona and I have begun getting more and more serious about our pipe-dream. We’ve given ourselves one year to make an informed decision, which means we are embarking on an info-gathering mission.

There’s so much to consider. Chief among our anxieties are these questions: Would I be stupid to give up a tenured academic position that I love, knowing these sorts of gigs are near impossible to come by? (Sona could get a new job relatively easily.) Would we be fools to abandon the financial security that we’d likely have at about the same time we’d be giving it all up to move abroad? Would I be able to have affordable access to insulin? What would we do with our stuff? Sell it all and start from scratch? Pay to store it for an unknown length of time? Will our pets still be alive?

Of course, some of those questions are more pressing than others.

Then, there’s the questions we have about where we’d move to: Can we find a place that feels undeveloped without sacrificing basic infrastructural needs? Will we both be able to find jobs that support our cost of living? Will there be good schools for the boys? In case of emergency, will we have access to affordable healthcare?

A while ago, we abandoned hope that we’d end up on a small Caribbean island. As much as I’d love it, it just wouldn’t be practical. And we’ve gotten to the stage in our game-planning that we are mindful of practicality.

That has led us to Costa Rica, a place we visited in 2012 and fell in love with. Costa Rica gives us much of what we want: a new language, a new culture, a Caribbean vibe, lots of geographic variety ripe for exploring, cultural richness, the ocean. It also has enough infrastructure that we’d feel comfortable moving there with young kids. CRNAs can practice, and there are several teaching possibilities.

The one catch is that you have to be a citizen in order to be employed in the country, and citizenship requires three years of residency. So, we’d have to have employers advocate for our getting work visas out of need, which might prove tricky.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We haven’t made a decision, remember? Come the summer of 2020, we have to decide: Do we want to slowly begin downsizing, preparing for a life-changing move out of the US? Or do we want to sell our condo, roll our money into a single family home, and commit to life in Chicago long-term.

By the summer of 2020, we’ll have to decide: what’s next?

(In the meantime, I’d love to be connected to any ex-pat families with small-ish children who would be willing to let me pick their brains.)