Customer Reviews

A Family Year Abroad : How to Live Outside the Borders

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In _A Family Year Abroad_, Chris Westphal invites us into his experience with a dream many of us have had--living abroad in an exotic foreign country--but which most of us never get around to making real. He weaves together practical tips with a delightful narrative of his own adventures and misadventures as an expatriate family in Prague. Combining detailed, practical tips with insightful personal observations, Chris succeeds in bringing us along on an amazing trip into unknown--an unknown that, with Chris' help, is made known to us vicariously. Reading _A Family Year Abroad_ I really came to feel what it must have been like to "live outside the borders" for Chris and his family. And while not ALL of his adventures--a night at the "opera" that featured a midget pushing a wheelbarrow across a darkened stage, for instance--made me hunger for the expatriate experience, I certainly felt that they prepared me for taking my own family abroad should we be so bold as to try it. All in all, a great read: exciting, funny, helpful, practical, poignant, and witty. It's Rick Steve's _Europe Through the Back Door_ meets S.J. Perelman's _Eastward Ha!_ with a bit of Theroux's_Mosquito Coast_ thrown in for fun. Loved it!

A Family Year Abroad: How To Live Outside The Borders is the story of the Westphal family. Chris and Stephanie Westphal wanted to travel, but since they had responsibilities to their children, the only way they could do so was to travel with the whole family. They rented their house, put their bank accounts in safekeeping, and moved to Prague, Czech Republic for a year. A Family Year Abroad is their story, packed with wisdom, experience, tips, and much more on such things as culture shock, foreign schools, traveling with kids and health and safety concerns. A lively, involving book, A Family Year Abroad is much more than just a family memoir, it also offers practical tips on how to successfully live in a foreign country and deal with changes in the family, health and safety concerns, insurance questions, the management of finances, foreign schools, and the inescapable phenomena of culture shock.

I enjoyed reading "A Family Year Abroad" for both its informative content as well as its witty and humorous interjections. The book recognizes and addresses both practical as well as personal issues that arise during such an adventure. I lived abroad for 18 months and wish that I had had half of the current and relevant information that can be found in the pages of "A Family Year Abroad." I relied on several other travel guides, and while they were helpful I felt that the information was dated. This book is packed with insightful, current, and useful information for today's traveler.

If you are thinking of living abroad with your children, there are two compelling reasons to read this book. First, the author shares his and his family's real-life experiences, both good and bad. He reminds us that life anywhere is just that -- life, complete with victories and accomplishments, as well as mistakes and disappointments. His entertaining story of their year in Prague helped replace some of my romantic notions with visions of reality. I now feel more prepared to face the challenges of life abroad if and when we decide to "live outside the borders." The other reason to buy this book is its wealth of resources and practical tips. Although the organization was at times scattered, the appendices help to make up for this.