Episode 6 of A French Lens tackles the messy reality of packing up ten years of life into four checked bags and two carry-ons, twenty days before departure. Abbie and Jeff walk through their process — the yard sale, the eBay selling, storing things in the basement, what comes and what doesn't — and dig into the categories that have been hardest to let go of (sentimental items, collections, photo albums, clothes). They talk about what's actually helped (the "haven't used it in a year" rule) and what hasn't, the surprising relief of finally getting rid of things, and where they honestly stand right now.

Abbie has two days left as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and Jeff finished up teaching earlier this month. In this episode, the two of them sit down together — while it's still fresh and while France is weeks away — and talk honestly about what it actually feels like to close the chapter on careers they've known for decades. There is the weight that can build quietly in American healthcare, creating burnout. The changing classroom has different responsibilities and demands. And there is the grief of leaving something you were genuinely good at along with the identity question nobody prepares you for: who are you when the job title goes away? This is a real conversation, in real time, from two people who are still figuring it out. We would love to have you along.

In this episode Jeff mentioned the microphones we use and you can find them here:

DJI Mic Mini

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There are 29 (and maybe more!) different ways to move to France as an American — and we spent months feeling that we were on the right path, until something happened that almost blew the whole plan apart. This episode walks through the visa landscape: things we read, who we hired, and the almost absurd moment we discovered that a Master's thesis Abbie wrote years ago on French formal gardens was the credential that made our application possible. We also get into the three weeks we nearly scrapped everything for a quieter, lower-stakes option — and what it took to come back from that doubt and submit anyway. From a government approval email read in a parking lot to a visa that came back in six days, this is the part of the story where the dream started becoming real.

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Books, businesses, and people discussed in episode four:

Foolproof French Visas by Allison Grant Lounes

Valérie Aston of Start Business in France

Jason and Raina of Baguette Bound

Johnny Benoit of French Lifestyle

Mallory and Ben of France of a Lifetime Tours

On this podcast, we piggy-back on our last episode, making the decision to move to France. But France isn't one place and we needed to decide where exactly we were going to settle. This episode is about the research that followed: the Loire Valley cities we considered and ruled out, the practical case for Blois, and Jeff and Abbie's thoughts behind moving to this town of 50,000. Woven through it, a story Abbie has been carrying for twenty-five years — a few days in the Loire Valley at age twenty, studying abroad in Paris, that planted something she didn't fully understand until now. Sometimes the place chooses you as much as you choose it.

You’ve thought it through, made the spreadsheets, half-packed the metaphorical bags. You’re all in on the dream of a life abroad. And then your person says, “I don’t want to move to France.”

This episode picks up at a normal weeknight dinner, the kind where Jeff and I were supposed to be talking logistics — visas, timelines, next steps — and instead I heard him say, with a confidence that surprised even me, “I don’t want to go to France.”

This is the episode about what happens when you and your person aren’t actually on the same page — and what it takes to get there anyway.

If you want to follow along in real time, we're on Instagram at @AbbieinFrance and @SuhoinFrance, and on Substack at The French Lens. You can also find my photography work at AbbieSmithPhotography.com. And if this episode resonated, we'd genuinely appreciate a follow, a subscribe, or a review wherever you listen — it's how other people find their way to us.

Jeff is a teacher. I’m a psychiatric nurse practitioner. We are, on paper, two fairly unremarkable Americans who decided, in the fall of 2025, to move to France.

This podcast is that decision, and how it unfolded in real time. We will be talking about the Loire Valley, the paperwork, the language mistakes, the people we meet along the way — fellow Americans who’ve made their own leap, and the French entrepreneurs whose small businesses are the reason travelers fall in love with France. It’s not the polished version of moving abroad. It’s the one that is real… and full of heart. We hope you will join us.

You can follow along with us on social media:

Instagram:

@suhoinfrance

@abbieinfrance