With over 300 châteaux scattered across the Loire Valley, where do you even start? In this episode, we’re joined by a special guest (my sister Emalei, wrapping up her visit) for our very unscientific and probably-too-early hot takes on the châteaux we’ve explored over the past three weeks.

We go category by category — best rainy day visit, easiest to get to, best place to propose, biggest letdown, best golden hour, best moat, most head-scratching art installation, best value for money, and more — comparing Blois, Chambord, Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, Fougères-sur-Bièvre, Chaumont-sur-Loire, Chenonceau, and a stop at Château Meunier for good measure. Phew.

Expect strong opinions, a surprise château cat, one very unsettling taxidermy art installation, and a shared soft spot for Chenonceau’s love-triangle history. Whether you’re planning your own Loire Valley trip or just want to live vicariously through our sweaty, château-hopping July, this one’s for you.

Follow along at @AbbieInFrance and @SuhoInFrance, and find more at abbiesmithphotography.com (coming soon).

One of us has waited twenty-five years for this and the other (cough, cough, Jeff) needed convincing. Two weeks after landing in Blois, Abbie and Jeff sit down — with a special guest, Abbie's sister Emalei, who flew in ahead to smooth their arrival — to compare notes before the newness wears off. They walk through the first sounds and sights that hit them getting out of the car, the logistics that turned out easier (and harder) than braced for, the moment it stopped feeling like a trip and started feeling like home, and the local spots — a gelato shop (Pino) and a little boulangerie called Sim's — that are already "theirs." It's an unfiltered snapshot of what it costs to start over, and what comes into focus once you do: proof that first impressions are data you only get once.

Right before we left the U.S., we hit the most stressful logistics of this entire move — government paperworked required to leave. The vet visit went fine. Then the USDA mailed our forms back on a Monday and while I paid for next-day shipping, it did not arrive the next day. It arrived at 8am — on the day we flew out. Meanwhile we were repacking the same suitcase for what felt like the seventh time, trying to decide what actually was most important to bring. It was chaos. Come follow along for the story.

We’re under two weeks out now, still packing two-thirds of a house, still working through a quarter of the people we need to see. This episode is recorded in the actual scramble of trying to be present with someone while your brain is running a packing list. We talk about who made the cut for early goodbyes, why family goodbyes feel different than friend goodbyes, and moments where we caught ourselves rushing through a hang we knew we’d want back later.

Abbie shares the image she keeps returning to: we’re canvases, and everyone who’s passed through our life has left paint on it — some a thick stroke, some barely a mark, all of it staying.

Follow along @AbbieinFrance and @SuhoinFrance, read more on Substack, and find Abbie’s photography work at AbbieSmithPhotography.com. Subscribe wherever you listen.

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.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

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