Ever wondered if you could pack up your life and live overseas for a year? One Melbourne lawyer (and Shayla!) prove you absolutely can.
We’ve all heard those stories. Someone just ups and moves to a French village or works remotely from a Mexican beach. Your first thought? “Amazing, but I could never do that.”
Well, you know what? You probably could.
In this episode of Outlaw Escapes, we dive deep into career break travel with Melissa Hii, a practicing lawyer and mum of two who spent a year in Bordeaux running her legal practice from a different time zone.
The catalyst for change
Melissa’s motivation was Melbourne’s endless COVID lockdowns, which made her London-based sister’s weekend trips to Greece and Turkey look pretty appealing by comparison. As she puts it, Melbourne had the “inevitable title of the most lockdown city in the world” while her sibling was “popping over to Greece every weekend.”
That contrast made her reassess everything. “We did a quick assessment and I said, actually, yeah, we can do that.”
Making the numbers work
You might be relieved to know that Melissa isn’t a billionaire. She made it work by keeping her law practice running remotely during her time away. The time difference became a superpower – clients loved getting results by morning after giving instructions at close of business.
She rented out their Melbourne house (with family moving in to care for their cat) and discovered that remote work, normalised by COVID, made the whole venture possible.
The learning curve
When Melissa arrived in Bordeaux with her husband and seven and nine-year-old daughters, none of them spoke French. The girls were enrolled in the closest school with a French-as-second-language program – just a 10-minute bike ride away.
Her biggest insight? “You are moving there to live. You’re not moving there for a holiday.” This means encountering normal life challenges – school issues, making friends, bureaucracy – just with different backdrops.
The honest reality
Bordeaux wasn’t cheap. The exchange rate fluctuated. French bureaucracy was “something to behold.” But the family grew closer, and her daughters “really surprised themselves about how much change could be fun.”
Your permission slip
Melissa’s advice for anyone considering their own year abroad? “You absolutely can do it.” You’ll probably need to compromise from your initial vision, but that doesn’t make it worse – just different.
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