We worked remotely in Paris for a month (with kids!) — and you can too.
This summer, my wife Gemma and I spent the entire month of July working remotely in Paris with our two sons (ages 5 and 2.5 years old), with the primary goal of enabling our kids to learn French while we explored a new place together as a family. As native English speakers in a predominantly English-speaking country, we’ve gone down many different paths to teach our kids French as a second language — with varying degrees of success.
Five years into parenting, we made the decision to do something dramatic — we planned for our family to enter into a month-long French immersion experience in Paris. Like most parents contemplating doing this (and as many have now asked us), our biggest hurdle was figuring out the answer to,“How do you live abroad for a month with your kids… when you need to keep working?”
Here are the main things we did to make this happen, and how you hopefully can too, if planning a similar journey with your family is on your bucket list:
1. Plan carefully and well in advance for your month of remote work so you can also enjoy family time exploring a new place.
Working remotely is something many of us were forced to learn how to do effectively during the multi-year pandemic. Whether you work remotely for part of the week, every day, or only outside of regular work hours to keep up, being able to stay focused is critical. When it feels like countless things and people around the home call out for your attention, it’s vitally important to maintain strong boundaries around your time and energy for work, versus non-work responsibilities, and all of these elements are essential whether your home office is in your actual home, or thousands of miles away in an Airbnb.
When you add the additional complexities of being physically outside of the country and working in a different time zone, you need to plan carefully and usually well in advance to avoid unintentionally creating a chaotic work environment. For us, preparing to be physically outside the country took a lot of intentionality in order to make sure we were ready to leave for a month. We made a point to schedule critical in-person meetings in the weeks before our departure, like visiting our warehouse, meeting with our bank, and so on to handle things that are just easier when you’re on your home turf.
With that, we made sure to complete as many tasks as we could that would be significantly easier when done locally, such as sending important things via mail and handling business and personal-related matters prior to leaving the country. The two times we had to coordinate something as simple as sending or receiving a package internationally from Paris became complicated and expensive, so I’d suggest avoiding this if you can!
To prepare for working in a completely different time zone, we proactively adjusted all of our regular standing meetings to ensure they happened during regular working hours for all of our partners back in North America. The most important element for making this detail work for us was being flexible and willing to commit to working every weekday evening after our boys were fast asleep.
2. Find a local summer camp or daily program where your kid(s) will learn and thrive.
Given that our primary goal for this trip was for our kids to gain a strong foundation in their French-speaking journey, we knew that we would want to enroll them in summer day camp where they’d be able to be immersed in the French language alongside children their own age. We knew that if they spent all their time with us while abroad, it would be too easy to revert to English most of the time, so this felt like a great way to give them something fun to do each day, while providing a platform for learning.
When we began searching for a summer camp, we were initially completely oblivious to the options available, but were delighted—and relieved— to find there are many camps that accept kids from all over the world. If you’re native English-speakers like us, you may want to target bilingual schools that offer summer camps, as it’s mutually beneficial for other children in the program who are also learning English as another language. It’s a win-win for everyone, and an experience your kids will never forget!
In terms of reaching out to these schools — and we’d take this approach for any school, not just the ones in Paris that we spoke to — we recommend first sending them an email. We strongly suggest writing them an email (and using Google Translate can go a long way if you use some words in their native language!), explaining who you are and why their program is a good fit for you and your family. We also followed up with a phone call (which meant waking up early in the morning to be on their time zone!) — we think putting a “voice” to an email helps them know you’re serious and not just a casual parent inquiring.
It’s also important to consider your children’s age for educational programs such as language camps. Our kids were 2.5 and 5 years old at the time they entered the camp. While we found that our 2.5-year-old likely learned the most French, we think he may have been a tad too young as he wasn’t quite ready to attend a full day camp. A key takeaway is that we would recommend starting this journey when your child is 3+ years old, but we still feel like the experience was invaluable for both of our boys. And if you’re interested in learning even more, be sure to check out our do’s and don’ts outlined in our Clubhouse community of parents.
3. Find accommodations that are as affordable as possible and conducive to maintaining a safe, comfortable and fun environment for your family.
One of the biggest cost- and stress- drivers of an extended time abroad is figuring out extended housing, and the fact that you are out of your comfort zone being in a space other than your home. There are numerous cost effective ways to help make your accommodations fit within your budget and family’s personal needs. Here are a few of the ways we’ve found success in making this type of extended travel a possibility.
- Research to find the right neighborhood for your family. Do your research about the neighborhoods you’re considering before you even consider booking. Chances are, you’ll likely want to be in a neighborhood that is widely known for being popular with families who have young children. This will not only help ensure the neighborhood has the kid-friendly amenities you’d hope for closeby – such as a great park with a decent, age-appropriate playground – but also that the area is safe for little ones!
- Make sure everything you need daily is walkable. Having your accommodations be as walkable as possible to the things you know you’ll need almost daily, such as being in close proximity to a good supermarket, a pharmacy,, a convenient subway station or public transit will make it easier on your family to fulfill your day-to-day household responsibilities without needing to venture far, and better yet, without a car!
- Reach out directly to prospective AIrbnb hosts / hotels. Always send a direct message to Airbnb hosts / hotels to see if they can provide you with a discounted rate if you’re doing an extended stay. Oftentimes, the rate shown on the site is the short-term stay rate and we’ve found that many are willing to offer discounts in exchange for a longer stay. For the host, you’ll be an attractive guest because it means predictable revenue, less variability vetting different guests, and less expense and hassle with needing to arrange multiple cleanings.
- Consider renting out your home or doing a house swap. To further offset your costs, you may also want to consider putting your own home on Airbnb or up for a short-term rental while you are away. Alternatively, depending on where you’re traveling, you may be able to find Facebook Groups or services like Kindred where you’re able to essentially “trade homes” with another family looking to provide an immersion experience in your country!
Other considerations to keep in mind when planning your extended work and family adventure abroad.
- Embrace various forms of transportation to simplify your mobility: Depending on where you’re going, you’ll want to figure out what modes of transportation are available ahead of time. In Paris, we really enjoyed renting a cargo bike from Welgo and allowed us to see the area in a fun and cost-effective way. Other considerations might include subway or bus travel, or for longer more time-sensitive trips, a cab or rideshare may be your best bet. Renting a car may be tempting, but oftentimes is very expensive and harder to park, especially in urban environments.
- Explore co-working spaces for flexibility in your working environment: We were delighted to find beautiful co-working spaces for an occasional change of scenery from our Airbnb during the work week. Unsurprisingly, Paris coffee shops do not typically have the North American cafe culture of buying a latte and staying for 2-3 hours with your laptop open. Co-working spaces, which can be found throughout the city, fulfilled our desire to explore a tiny bit during the week while still staying on top of work needs..
- Check if you need student “insurance”: In certain places, you’ll be required to purchase insurance for your child to attend a local educational program or summer camp. There are many providers online, and you can easily purchase and send over the documentation via email. In Paris, we purchased ours from Carrefour Assurance.
While an adventure of this scale may not be possible for every family, and might even feel overwhelming to plan, in the end, the experience is one our family will remember forever, which makes it all worthwhile. Our big bet was that creating our own version of a “study abroad” program for our family would be the kickstart our kids needed to build a strong foundation in learning a second language.
Seemingly, one of the most priceless things that we walked away with from this family adventure was seeing a real spark in our boys’ interest in learning French The excitement they feel when they can properly name something in French, our now day-to-day use of simple French phrases, and how happily they talk about our time in Paris has confirmed that for us, at least, it was completely worth it.
In addition to all of the memories we created together as a family while living abroad, the best part is that the kids learned so much over the summer. While there’s still a lot more room to keep growing in the realm of learning a new language, they both have shown there is a strong appetite to learn new things, sometimes in a less conventional way, and that in itself is truly a special thing.
To learn more:
We shared our detailed experience in our Clubhouse community, be sure to join to read about our in-depth learnings about what we’d do again / what we’d avoid next time.
Disclaimer: We totally understand that this may not be possible for those who are unable to work remotely. However, we think this article is still applicable if you and your partner are able to take paid time off (PTO) for an extended time — two weeks can absolutely work as a phenomenal immersion experience!