For Thanksgiving 2014 we were invited to visit some of Bill’s family in northern Florida. They had just moved to a new house and the view below greeted us from every window in the back. That elevated walkway is half a mile long and it terminates at a dock big enough for a dozen boats of various sizes. It was the perfect spot for Bill to fish while I sat with the dogs under the covered area reading, listening to music and enjoying a cool beverage. Back at the house neither one of us could stop looking at this view.

At the end of the week on the drive home the main topic of conversation was how much we enjoyed being by the water and how could we do the same. The first thing we did was to look at other homes in the same complex but they were way more than we wanted to spend. Being avid watchers of most things HGTV, we were well aware of House Hunters, House Hunters International, Beachfront Bargain Hunt, Lakefront Bargain Hunt, etc., so we got out a map of the US and started looking at where we might move based on what we’d seen on TV. When you eliminate places where it snows a lot (the North), places where it rains a lot (the Northwest), places where it never rains, as in drought (the West), you’re left to look in your own backyard (the Southeast).

So, where can you combine history with water views? Savannah, Charleston, and several towns between the two immediately came to mind. Using our favorite booking site at the time, VRBO, we booked a townhouse on Tybee Island for a week in March 2015 to see what the area would be like during the winter. While we had a good time in Charleston and loved Savannah we came away feeling that we still had not found the right place. On the drive home we discussed the pros and cons of each city, always comparing them with our experiences in France. It finally occurred to us that the one overriding aspect we were missing was that sense of “community” we found in all the various villages and towns we had stayed in over the years in France. With that revelation, Bill then uttered those ominous words “Let’s live in France” and this blog was born.