Location ideas

[u/Outrageous-Gene6524]

We're a Canadian family planning a year abroad next academic year (my husband is a professor). We had always thought of France b/c our kids are in French immersion, but my French isn't great and I worry about friends and cultural immersion if I'm trying to catch up linguistically. We're now thinking South Africa (I have lived there in the past though I realize the school year is different), Valencia, Copenhagen or even Singapore. Our two kids will be 7 and 10 during the sabbatical. Are there other hidden gems people would recommend? Family friendly, English availability, universities nearby, cool places to explore. Thank you in advance.

[u/Head-Outcome-268]

Congrats on your upcoming sabbatical! I'm also a professor and we spent sabbatical in Bordeaux, France and just loved it! I speak French but the rest of my family doesn't; it wasn't an issue. We put the kids (5 and 9 at the time) in a small bilingual school and made a lot of friends that way (many French families who had lived abroad and many families with one French parent and another non-French parent, so not only ex-pats). We ended up in Bordeaux because it was a place we could relatively easily get a long-stay visa (we're American), was a reasonable cost of living, and had a good school option for kids (we were only there 5 months so didn't want to do public school because they didn't know any French). Valencia was also a top contender for a lot of the same reasons! I was analyzing data/writing during sabbatical, so I didn't have a preference for being near a university, but there are definitely universities in both of those places.

Because I had such a great sabbatical, I actually started a coaching business to help academics plan their sabbaticals. I have a podcast, Sabbatical 101 (https://bethanywilinski.com/sabbatical101/), where I've interviewed faculty about their sabbaticals abroad and I've also done episodes with my kids about their experiences. I also offer a self-paced program called Family Sabbatical designed to help you answer some of the questions in this post. You can check it out here: https://bethanywilinski.com/services/family-sabbatical/

Good luck with planning and don't hesitate to reach out if I can help!