How I settled on Alsace before I ever visited France

*Colmar, France. This photo and all photos in this post are by Carissa Kuehn.*

Exactly one year ago today, I first set foot in the region that would eventually become my new home.

It was my first time in Alsace, let alone France. But I wasn’t here as a tourist; I was using my spring break vacation to scout out Strasbourg and determine if I could actually live here.

But how did I settle on Strasbourg and the Alsace region of France to begin with, when I had never even been to France before?

Two words: Destination Research.

Destination Research

Destination research is a crucial part of every move abroad plan. Where will I live? is the first thing people focus their time and energy upon (although it shouldn’t be. More on that in a future blog!).

So we spend hours scrolling through photos, watching videos, Googling towns and regions, lurking in Facebook groups and occasionally asking questions that have likely been asked dozens of times already (because that ‘search’ function in Facebook groups isn’t as productive as it could be) — all to figure out which countries, regions, and towns might be the best fit.

It’s exciting, but it’s also frustrating and easy to get lost in the weeds without some direction. The sheer volume of questions becomes overwhelming: Should I live in France or Italy? Spain seems popular — maybe I should go there? Or possibly Portugal? Should I live in Town X or Town Y? Or maybe Town Z?

The decision fatigue is real.

Before jumping into an endless spiral of Google searches and ChatGPT prompts, it helps to have a little guidance first. This guidance comes from knowing what type of lifestyle you want, and knowing yourself.

What Type of Lifestyle Do I Want?

This was my starting point, because when moving abroad, deciding HOW you want to live is more important than deciding WHERE you want live. The most critical factors in my decision:

Settling In or Moving Around: Did I want to make the initial move and stay in one place, or travel around to different locations without settling in? In other words, was I going to live as an immigrant in a new country, or as a wanderer?
Job Type: Did I want to work for myself, work remotely for a U.S.-based or Europe-based company, or find a job on the ground in France?
Length of Stay: Did I see myself staying for six months? A year? Three years? Forever? Was this just a shorter ‘trial move’ and temporary relocation, or was I in it for the long haul toward a multi-year stay?

After much brainstorming, journaling, and soul-searching, I decided to build my own business, work for myself, to settle in one location (of my choosing) rather than bounce around to different cities or different countries, and to stay for multiple years.

I wanted to become a location-independent “expat” — a.k.a. immigrant with a freelancing job not tied to particular location — for several reasons:

The dog — With the dog, it would be difficult to bounce around between different locations without really settling. Repeatedly packing up my stuff and his stuff, moving that luggage while also trying to manage a dog on public transport (or by renting a car), uprooting him just as he became comfortable in one place to move to another, and having to find new lodging that accepted dogs every time — yeah, that’s a hard pass. Also, that wasn’t me. Yes, I wanted the opportunity to travel, but from a designated home base. I was looking for a place that I could call “home”.
The freedom over job and schedule — I didn’t want to continue teaching, nor go through the process of searching for a job on the ground in France, nor work for some U.S. company where I was constrained and locked into another rigid structure and schedule. I wanted freedom, flexibility, room to breathe and grow and create. I wanted to work for myself, build my own business, schedule, and life.
The duration — Whenever I envisioned my future in France, it always had the feel of staying multiple years. To truly build a business and build a new life, I sensed (ENFP here, so feeling and perception are big parts of my personality) that I would need at least three years to truly get where I wanted to be in my business and life.

Thus, I needed to find a town where I could be in one place long-term, work independently and run my own business as a freelancer (entrepreneure individuelle in France), and be in wine country, since I would be freelancing as a wine writer and consultant.

This also gave me direction on which visa I would need to apply for later (because that’s another big part of any plan to move abroad).

Grand Cru vineyard on the hills above Ribeauville.

Know Yourself

I cannot emphasize this enough. You need to know yourself and your preferences before selecting a destination, because a destination that works for some people won’t necessarily work for you, no matter how great other “expats” (immigrants) say it is.

Just because a bunch of people immigrated to Paris, or Nice, or Toulouse, or Carcassonne, or Pau, or even Strasbourg, and love it, doesn’t mean that these will be great matches for you. You must be clear on what you want, and what you need.

I spent a significant amount of time envisioning my new life and journaling what I saw. The whole visualization thing felt sort of “woo woo” at first, but the more I spent thinking about what daily life would look like and paying attention to what I saw, the clearer picture I had of what I wanted.

I saw myself living in an area with four seasons, with a summer that’s not too hot and a winter that’s not too cold, and an autumn with beautiful fall colors (I love the fall!). I wanted a town with historic old buildings and grand architecture, but still with easy access to nature and lots of green spaces. I wanted to step out my front door, go five minutes one way and be surrounded by beautiful architecture and historic buildings, or go five minutes the other way and be in nature among trees and near water. I needed paths and spaces to walk my dog, places to be outside, but also places to engage with people and learn about history, culture, and wine. I also saw myself walking everywhere.

Now, how to find such a place?

Creating The Criteria

After gaining a clear vision of the town I desired, I took the next step: contemplating what I liked and didn’t like in a city, and the practicalities and amenities that I needed versus those that I wanted. I listed out all these criteria and arranged them into “Must Haves” (on which I wouldn’t compromise) and “Nice To Have” (on which I could compromise).

My List:

1. Town that isn’t too large or too small: large enough to have a diverse populace, maybe a university with international students and community offerings, hospital and health care, markets and stores, community events, cultural offerings, but not so small that it’s too tightly knit or insular to where I won’t be able to make new friends or I feel really out of place.

Must Haves: large enough to have at least two veterinarians to choose from, and to have an easily accessible and regularly-served train station in town (not 20 minutes outside of town).

2. Beautiful historic buildings and architecture juxtaposed with green spaces and nature. Both of these were Must Haves.

3. Water: needs to be near water like a river, lake, or ocean, because I love water and want to be around it every day. This was also a Must Have. It didn’t have to be a large amount of water; a canal or small river running through town would suffice.

4. Socially progressive and diverse, with politics and policies that improve the city’s climate readiness, prioritize people and the environment, and protect rather than target vulnerable populations. Also a Must Have, but not attached to any particular political party, because France’s politics and parties are complicated. And If I couldn’t live in a city or town that was as diverse as I wanted, I at least wanted to be near one. TIP: University towns are good places to look at, because they will are more likely to be diverse, progressive, and dynamic places.

5. Walkable city with excellent public transportation and easy access to markets, bakeries, restaurants, medical facilities, veterinarian. Non-negotiable Must Have, because I wasn’t planning on having a car for a while.

6. Excellent internet connection and speeds: since I write and create online content and rely on the internet for my job, this absolutely was a Must Have.

7. Safe for single women, with low crime rate, little issue with organized crime or drugs. I don't care about dating and I don't have kids, but I want to feel safe exploring the town by myself, even at night. Absolutely a Must Have, as was being in a country that values and respects women more than the U.S.

8. Dog-friendly, with easy access to regular and emergency veterinary care, and to public transportation that accepts big dogs. We don’t do dog parks (which aren’t really a thing here in France like they are in the U.S.), but I needed spaces to walk out in nature with him.

Must Haves: easy access to veterinary care, easy access to outdoor green spaces to walk him, and dog-friendly public transportation (at least trams and trains… buses in most cities don’t accept big dogs on board).

9. History and culture, with museums and cultural offerings, symphony and/or ballet, community events celebrating culture and patrimony. This was more of a ‘Nice To Have’, because I knew just by virtue of being in France, a country that prides itself on its art, culture, history, language, food, etc., that I would find this.

Must Have: living close enough to a larger city where I can visit museums for the day, go to a ballet or symphony concert, etc. without traveling too far or having to spend the night

10. Great food and wine. I love wine. But also, I need to be around wine and wineries for my work. Again, I figured this would just be a given in France, but the Must Have part was being in a wine-producing area of France.

11. Climate with all four seasons, but relatively mild winters and summers that aren’t 100 degrees for weeks.

Must Haves: moderate temperatures without weeks of 100-degree heat every summer like I currently endured; a long fall season with fall colors

12. Lower climate risk: an area that is at lower risk for the impacts of climate change like flooding, drought, heat waves, fires. Along with number 11, this ruled out most of southern and central France.

Must Have: be in an area where I won’t be trying to flee a massive flash flood on foot with my dog.

13. Ease of international travel: can be readily accessed by train from Paris, and is easy to travel from if I want to go to other places in France, in Europe, or further abroad. Also, I wanted it to be easy for family and friends to come visit. This was a Must Have to live in a place that was well-connected to transportation.

My list looked different from the list of others who were moving abroad, and that was okay. Because I made it for ME, not for anyone else. Armed with this list of criteria, I could now begin the serious destination research — with a little technological assistance.

Towns That Made The Cut

As much as I despise ChatGPT and using AI, it does have its uses. Pulling information together from all over the internet to create a list of potential destinations is one of them. That being said, I used AI only as a starting point, because it’s frequently wrong on some detail or another, and no matter what information you give it, AI will never actually know you — even when it pretends it does (and FYI, I was using the em-dash long before AI commandeered it).

To narrow down regions and towns, I fed ChatGPT my criteria, and let it do its thing. I then refined the prompts to see if it gave me different cities each time (which it did, to an extent). However, there were two top contenders that kept appearing at the top of the list: Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France, and Angers, in the Loire Valley.

I dug into each of these towns further, investigating on my own, checking cost of living, price of rent and groceries, ease of traveling to it, etc. I cross-referenced each town against my criteria. I searched for them in the expat groups on Facebook, to see what feedback people had already posted about these towns and their regions.

And I looked at photos. Lots and lots of photos. And videos — snippets from social media, and longer ‘walking tour’ videos that showed me more of each city.

As I explored the regions virtually, I paid close attention to what I felt in my gut (so very ENFP of me). This is what led me to prioritize Strasbourg and the Alsace region, with its half-timbered houses, fairytale medieval villages, and prized winemaking heritage. I was drawn to it, and it seemed to better “fit” my vibe and match what I wanted. On paper, Strasbourg seemed like the perfect fit.

Moment of Truth

It’s one thing to settle on a destination virtually. It’s another to actually see it in person and hear it, smell it, and feel its vibe and rhythm of daily life.

For me, the final step was to take a scouting trip to determine if I actually loved Strasbourg in real life as much as I did on paper. So I booked the trip and flew out to visit.

It was one of the best things I did.

Because I wanted to love Strasbourg. I really, really wanted to love it in person as much as I had in my head. And I did like it, but…something was off.

I took this photo about 10 minutes after setting foot in what would become my new hometown, and by then I already knew this was where I wanted to be.

While visiting the city through the lens of ‘Could I live here?’ (which is very different from visiting as a tourist — future blog!), it felt like I had an off-kilter symphony playing inside me, where the notes were mostly arranged correctly but were played off-key in a discordant fashion. I couldn’t completely settle. I didn’t feel peaceful and at rest. I felt…tense.

But when I took the train on a whim — and on the recommendation of folks in the Expats in Alsace Facebook group, after I posted about not loving Strasbourg and looking for recommendations of other towns nearby — to a smaller town about 30 minutes outside of Strasbourg, that all changed.

As soon as I stepped off the train right into town, I felt immediately that this was more like what I wanted. Within five minutes of walking along tree-lined, cobblestone ramparts, I knew this was my ‘first not forever’ place. That discordant symphony inside me had settled. It hummed along in perfect harmony, all the notes played just as they should, light and joyful and on-key. I could feel that peacefulness returning. Here, I could breathe, relax, and just exist. Here, I vibed.

That vibe is everything.

Later, I reviewed my criteria and happily discovered that this town met all of my ‘Must Haves’. The more I looked into it, the more excited I got, because it met and exceeded my criteria.

I had found my destination that would become my new home.

Looking ahead: Stay tuned for an upcoming blog on scouting trips!

Destination Decisions