Guilty Pleasures + Life Abroad

I bet you have a guilty pleasure? Right?  I think it’s pretty normal.  For some of us it’s gossip magazines or bad reality TV.  For some of us, it’s cruising social media and for others its playing that one song on repeat in the car over and over again.

For me, it’s scouring international real estate listings. I search in all of the areas that are a romantic notion to me – Florence, Rome, Paris, Provence, and every now and then, Amsterdam. I dig into the sites, compare square meters, prices, if this one has a terrace or how close that one is to the city center. I speak about them and think about them like I’m really in the market.

Then something happened a few weeks ago.  I came across a couple of sites which are very local. They’re not really for holiday homes or tourists and some of the options are dirt cheap.  My idea of the ‘romantic notion’ took a turn for the worst and fell into erratic future planning mode.

You see, I have always wanted to live abroad.  At least for a year, but my goal is somewhere in the 3-5 year range.  Maybe longer if I love it. I’ve always thought of this as a very far in the future ‘someday’ thing.  For the longest time I worked at an office and couldn’t have moved if I wanted to, then we spent the last few years caring for Matt’s grandma, but now, working at home, not caring for another human, the idea gets more and more plausible.

Especially when it comes to some of the gorgeous options that are out there, online, just waiting to be plucked up.  Today, I thought I’d share my guilty pleasure pastime with you and introduce you to a few of my recent favorites.  There is a little something for everyone here.

Maybe you’d like to live in a quaint stone house outside Florence with blue shutters? It could be yours for right around $200K.

Or maybe a modern stunner in my favorite Rome neighborhood of Trastevere?  It will set you back a little more at around $1.5M.

I love this cute apartment with window boxes and typical Tuscan charm inside an old farmhouse in Tuscany, for sale for just over $220K.

Or this rehabbed wonder in San Giminiano which is worth a pretty penny at just under a million dollars ($980K).

And these are just the ones with photos large enough for the blog… Here are still a gazillion that I have saved to my list:

Tiny provence studio 20 min from the Mediterranean sea for just $55K

A luxury country home in the south of France with a swimming pool for $140K

Little pied-à-terre with large terrace on the border between France and Spain and just under $60K

The tiniest studio in Paris that looks like a dorm room and will set you back $200K, but is in a perfect neighborhood.

There are just so many beautiful places out there and I love exploring all of it. To be honest, it isn’t totally sequestered to the international listings.  Sometimes I peek at the market in Denver, or in LA, or in Hanalei Bay.  Or sometimes I just review the listings in my own town! Because why not?

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my guilty pleasure pastime and maybe found a new one of your own?  Or maybe this gave you a little something to pass the time on this Tuesday!  Regardless, I would LOVE to hear from you.

What is YOUR favorite guilty pleasure?  If you had a spare 30 minutes to spend in anyway you chose, what would it entail?