About a year ago, I blogged about how I need to get out of Provo before I went stir-crazy. Well, it’s been a year, and I haven’t gone anywhere yet. My love/hate relationship with Provo has mellowed out a bit–I’m not as anxious to get out as I used to be–but still, it would be good to change things up and go on another adventure.
This time, I’m thinking quite seriously about going to the Czech Republic. My sister is working to become a certified genealogist, and she keeps a fairly intensive blog on Czech family history research. If I were to go over there, I’m sure she would have all sorts of fun places for me to check out–places where our ancestors used to live. She’s already contacted a fifth cousin of ours, descended from the side of the family that didn’t emigrate, and she has a lot of other contacts over there as well. It would be an amazing life experience to live and travel over there.
Until now, every time I’ve gone overseas I’ve been a part of some sort of program. Even in Georgia, where I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, and barely knew anything about the country at all, the TLG program still had a fair amount of support infrastructure for us to fall back on whenever we ran up against a wall. I suppose I could find a similar sort of program in the Czech Republic, but that’s not what I want to do. This time, if I do go over, I want to go over on my own.
I’m still kind of on the fence about this, because it is kind of a big leap from where I am right now. But I’m earning enough with my book royalties that I could probably support myself on that income alone. From what I’ve heard, living costs in Prague can run as low as 450-600 USD per month, though most expats spend more in the 800-1200 USD range. That’s certainly doable. If I don’t need to take a TEFL job to support myself, why should I? Better to spend that time writing and/or seeing the country.
Of course, without making any concrete plans, this is still just a crazy dream. So here’s what I would need to do to make it happen:
- Save up for plane tickets and a reasonable cash reserve, at least 150% the cost of a ticket back to the states. It looks like tickets to and from JFK and Prague run about $1,500, so I’d probably have to save up at least $4,000 (not including what it would take to get to New York from Utah).
- Look up the rules for getting a visa, housing contract, insurance, etc (my Slovakian friend tells me that health insurance in the Czech Republic is mandatory).
- Connect with the expat community online and figure out what the support network would look like. This would include stuff like couchsurfers, Kate’s contacts, the local church community, etc.
- Learn some basic Czech, starting with the alphabet.
- If possible, figure out some sort of housing arrangement in advance. Better yet, find a travel buddy.
I think those are all the big ones. And honestly, they’re all fairly doable. The hardest one would be to save up the money, but if I can find a short-term job on top of my writing that pays fairly well, I could do it in a few months. Since I plan to attend LTUE and Westercon this year, I probably won’t go overseas until mid-July at the earliest.
So yeah, that’s what I’m thinking at this point. It’s definitely something to work toward, and I think it could be another awesome life changing adventure. What do you guys think? Is there anything glaringly obvious that I’m missing? Got any tips or advice? Please share–I’m definitely open to feedback and suggestions!
