by Cori | May 19, 2026 | Moving to Canada
Most people believe Canada is pro-immigration while the U.S. is anti-immigration, but an objective look at the data shows that structural reality dominates political intent. Discover why navigating the world’s most complex bureaucratic systems requires absolute legal literacy—not romanticized media narratives, viral TikTok advice, or emotional intuition.
by Cori | Apr 15, 2026 | Expat Life
Ten years ago, when I was working for a tiny nonprofit on a shoestring budget, I’d hear people grumbling about US tax reporting obligations and roll my eyes. I figured anyone complaining was earning more than the FEIE amount ($132,900 per person in 2026) or doing...
by News Report | Feb 25, 2026 | Living Abroad
I moved to Toronto and Lisbon thinking the world was a board game I could win by simply learning the rules. I wanted flexibility, adventure, and a ‘fresh start’—but I didn’t account for the soul-crushing friction of being a perpetual applicant. From Kafkaesque tax audits in Canada to the chaotic residency systems in Portugal, this is why the ‘optimized’ expat life is often a trap of high-level anxiety, and why the easiest move you can make is the one where you stay put.
by News Report | Sep 20, 2025 | Canada, Canadian History, Moving to Canada, New York State
School kids in the US all learn about the underground railroad. The other day, I came across a reference to people fleeing to Canada on the underground railroad and wondered what I really knew about it. Plenty of the things I learned about history (and science!) were...
by Cori | May 5, 2025 | Expat Life, Nomad Life, Quebec
There’s a popular idea that it’s easy to learn a language as a child and after a certain age it’s just not possible. When you look beyond the headlines, there’s not a lot of support for this theory. It’s no surprise that there’s...
by Cori | Feb 26, 2025 | Nomad Life, Portugal
It baffles me that people don’t visit Flores in the winter. In fact, all of the places in the Açores that are mobbed with tourists in the summer are empty in the winter. This, despite the fact that the temperatures are in the low 50s to mid 60s (10 to 19...
by Cori | Nov 12, 2024 | Expat Life, Immigration, Living Abroad, Moving to Canada, Moving to Portugal
Moving to another country is a legal process. The law is not known for being easy for outsiders to understand. So, in order to make sense of information about moving abroad, it helps to get a general familiarity with the terms and how things work. Generally, the first...
by Cori | Aug 16, 2024 | Nomad Life
Traveling full-time is one of those things that seems very complicated and mysterious because we don’t have realistic examples of how it works. In reality, it’s not necessarily more or less complicated than living in one place. When I’m feeling...
by Cori | Feb 1, 2024 | Moving to Portugal
TL;DR: Yes, you can use your foreign phone number to set up a Portuguese chave digital. It just can’t be a VOIP number, like Google Voice. I put off getting a chave digital for nearly two years, since I didn’t quite understand what I needed it for. Yes,...
by Cori | Nov 9, 2022 | Expat Life, Portugal
It seems like everyone is talking about moving to Portugal. Is it inflation? Rising mortgage rates? The continued chaos of US politics? The media coverage planting seeds in our minds? For me, it was two years of various stages of lockdown in Canada. The winter weather...
by Cori | Jul 12, 2022 | Media Coverage, Moving to Canada, New York City
I was delighted to get a comment recently on my story about Jessi Highet and Mike Varley, who walked 26 miles a day for a year through the streets of NYC, sampling scallion cream cheese bagels. It was from a reader who had her own themed walking adventure to relate:...
by Cori | Jun 30, 2022 | Canada, Moving to Canada
Far more people talk about moving to Canada than actually make the move. This is true, despite the high likelihood that there’s a way for many Americans to legally move to Canada. If you have a US passport, you could probably be living in Canada a few weeks from...
by Cori | Jun 29, 2022 | Adulting, Expat Life, Immigration, Living Abroad, Nomad Life, USA
How far can your US passport take you? Here are your options for a temporary or permanent escape.
by Cori | Nov 24, 2021 | Nomad Life, Sharing Economy
In The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett quotes an elite travel agency saying that the normal traveler spends $10k a year. I was pretty sure that their idea of a normal traveler is a skewed. I was also certain I spent...
by Cori | Apr 9, 2021 | Nomad Life, Sharing Economy
Most people leave their homes empty while they travel, while also renting a place to stay at their destination. Paying for housing twice is part of what makes traveling so expensive (and why home swaps are so popular). Traveling gets even more expensive if you have...
by Cori | Sep 30, 2020 | Media Coverage, Nomad Life
The coronavirus pandemic has shaped many different aspects of our lives throughout the year so far, including how and where we live. When states began issuing shelter-in-place orders in March and restrictions were placed on various types of travel, a lot of us...
by Cori | Sep 14, 2020 | Nomad Life
Somehow, no matter how much I travel and how light I pack, I always end up with something I never ended up using. Often, the item that’s indispensable on one trip ends up being totally unnecessary on another. Other times it’s a product of hope — the...
by Cori | Sep 6, 2020 | Nomad Life
It’s no secret that it’s a challenge to adjust to life in another country or life on the road. However, many people assume they’ll be able to pick up right where they left off when they return home. Nope. It can be just as challenging to get back...
by Cori | Sep 1, 2020 | Asia, Europe, Expat Life, Nomad Life, North America
Despite all the rhetoric that we need to #stayhome, there’s no requirement that you literally stay home. Those whirlwind tours of 14 cities in 14 days are verboten, but it’s easy to travel while following all restrictions and guidelines for staying safe...
by Cori | Apr 7, 2020 | Nomad Life
People are eagerly sharing tips on how to “travel without leaving home.” What about accepting where we are? Is travel about finding the “exotic” or is it a way of seeing the world? As Jonathan Franzen reminds us, “The first lesson reading...
by Cori | Mar 31, 2020 | Nomad Life
The news is listing off a daily COVID-19 death toll. The world has shut down to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Everyone is frantically learning to adapt to working from home, homeschooling kids, living without cleaners, personal care assistants, and someone else to...
by Cori | Nov 7, 2019 | Nomad Life
I have stayed in a lot of different homes. I spent three years subletting apartments in Prospect and Crown Heights, Brooklyn in an era before AirBnB. I have stayed in well over 100 homes through CouchSurfing and the personal networks that have sprouted up through the...
by Cori | Oct 18, 2019 | Nomad Life, USA
Sure, any tourist knows what to see for a weekend in DC. But what about those of us who aren’t just any tourist? As a nomad we have time to explore, but we’re there for a lot longer than the typical tourist. While I’m free to spend an afternoon in a...
by News Report | Jul 31, 2019 | Media Coverage, Moving to Canada
By Rachel Hartman IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN heading north for retirement, it’s important to think through the implications the decision can bring. “Many Americans assume that moving to Canada is easy and that there’s a special pathway for Americans, since our two...
by Cori | Jul 6, 2019 | Adulting, Nomad Life
Your life may be location independent, but your cell phone plan isn’t. If you’re getting directions on Google Maps, posting to Instagram, or using your phone as a mobile hotspot, you don’t want to wind up with an astronomical bill. Sure, you can turn off your data and...
