Moving to Ecuador?
Here's How We Did It!
Here's How We Did It!
Many of you have emailed me about the process of our move here to Ecuador, especially with our children in tow. Here is how we did it! On April 1, 2011, we started researching countries that we could live in. Costa Rica was a country my husband's heart was settled on. He talked about Costa Rica from the time he got up in the morning until the time we went to bed at night. One evening, I announced our goal of moving to Costa Rica on FaceBook. My cousin who lives in Ecuador convinced me that Costa Rica wasn't the place we wanted to go...now to convince my husband! Well, long storry short, we changed course and started researching Ecuador. Of course, we still had to go check out Costa Rica. Although a very beautiful city, we could see that it would not be easy raising the kids there. So Costa Rica was out and Ecuador here we come.
The decision was made that we were going to move to Ecuador on August 2011. We took out a calendar and set "goal dates". The first goal date was January 2012; that month we began selling things in our house, we alerted the children's teachers that we were planning to move out of the country, possibly in the next 3 months. The kids were in denial and didn't believe we would do it; but when they started to see big items being sold in our home, it started to become real to them. We had a huge task ahead of us which was to sell 16 years worth of "stuff" in a short amount of time. We are so glad we started in January because the next "goal date" was March 1; which was our 16 day scouting trip to visit Ecuador. We gave ourselves 16 days so we could find the city that we liked, rent an apartment to move into, check out schools,etc.
So we purchased our airfare for our scouting trip. I arranged for family and friends to take care of our children and off we went to find our new home in a new country. We started out on the coast (see my blog on Bahia de Caraquez) but ended up in the Andes Mountains in Cuenca (see my blog on Cuenca). Fortunately we found a beautiful apartment two days before our trip ended. We signed the lease, paid the rent for the month of April and headed home to pack up the kids and sell the rest of our things. We got back to the States from our scouting trip on March 16, 2012. We set our final "goal date" for April 25, 2012. This date is the actual date that we would be on the plane heading back to Ecuador.
So the first thing we did once we were back was order all of our children's passports. We paid an extra fee to expedite them since we didn't have that much time. The next thing we did was purchase airfare for that date. Once the airfare was purchased, it really sealed the deal for us. One by one the passports came in the mail. We then got all of our children's medical and dental records up to date. Since we were moving to the mountains we didn't need to get yellow fever shots, but I do recommend that you get them in case you want to travel to the coast. Because this move was a one time deal we wanted to make sure we had all the necessary paperwork. So we got our FBI background check, my husband's income letter from Social Security (residency requirement is for head of house to show $800 income and $100 for each dependent, so we had to show a total of $1200 per month of income for a family of 5), marriage license and the children's birth certificates apostilled at the State department. (This is important and a requirement when applying for residency in Ecuador. Many people do not come to Ecuador with the proper paper work and apostilles and have to either travel back to the U.S. or their perspective country to retrieve them or spend hundreds of dollars to send for them through the mail.) All of our documents had to be translated word for word and apostilled as well.
The decision was made that we were going to move to Ecuador on August 2011. We took out a calendar and set "goal dates". The first goal date was January 2012; that month we began selling things in our house, we alerted the children's teachers that we were planning to move out of the country, possibly in the next 3 months. The kids were in denial and didn't believe we would do it; but when they started to see big items being sold in our home, it started to become real to them. We had a huge task ahead of us which was to sell 16 years worth of "stuff" in a short amount of time. We are so glad we started in January because the next "goal date" was March 1; which was our 16 day scouting trip to visit Ecuador. We gave ourselves 16 days so we could find the city that we liked, rent an apartment to move into, check out schools,etc.
So we purchased our airfare for our scouting trip. I arranged for family and friends to take care of our children and off we went to find our new home in a new country. We started out on the coast (see my blog on Bahia de Caraquez) but ended up in the Andes Mountains in Cuenca (see my blog on Cuenca). Fortunately we found a beautiful apartment two days before our trip ended. We signed the lease, paid the rent for the month of April and headed home to pack up the kids and sell the rest of our things. We got back to the States from our scouting trip on March 16, 2012. We set our final "goal date" for April 25, 2012. This date is the actual date that we would be on the plane heading back to Ecuador.
So the first thing we did once we were back was order all of our children's passports. We paid an extra fee to expedite them since we didn't have that much time. The next thing we did was purchase airfare for that date. Once the airfare was purchased, it really sealed the deal for us. One by one the passports came in the mail. We then got all of our children's medical and dental records up to date. Since we were moving to the mountains we didn't need to get yellow fever shots, but I do recommend that you get them in case you want to travel to the coast. Because this move was a one time deal we wanted to make sure we had all the necessary paperwork. So we got our FBI background check, my husband's income letter from Social Security (residency requirement is for head of house to show $800 income and $100 for each dependent, so we had to show a total of $1200 per month of income for a family of 5), marriage license and the children's birth certificates apostilled at the State department. (This is important and a requirement when applying for residency in Ecuador. Many people do not come to Ecuador with the proper paper work and apostilles and have to either travel back to the U.S. or their perspective country to retrieve them or spend hundreds of dollars to send for them through the mail.) All of our documents had to be translated word for word and apostilled as well.
So all of the paperwork was done, the passports arrived, plane tickets were purchased, all household items and furniture sold, our cars were sold, kids last week of school was bittersweet along with saying goodbye to family and friends. On April 25th at 8:00am, we loaded up our rental car with 20 suitcases, 5 carry-on's and a few bags; and headed to Miami International to board a plane at 6:30pm. We were off to our new life...Cuenca, Ecuador or Bust! It's hard to believe that was three years ago. Looking back, it was the scariest, most exhilarating thing we have ever done...but it also was the most rewarding experience we have ever had. Ecuador was very good to us and we will never forget our experience of a family of five who took the leap and stepped outside of their comfort zone to live abroad.
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