We have now lived in Chile for more than 13 years, and we can honestly say that we have loved every minute of it. But before we tell you about Chile, it is important to tell you a little about us—and about the unlikely path that brought us here.

Our story is not one of people who had everything figured out and simply decided one day to move abroad. In fact, our journey to Chile was born out of dreams, hard work, heartbreak, financial loss, and ultimately, a search for a new beginning.

Jim grew up in Upstate South Carolina, the son of a farmer and a cardiologist. His love of aviation began when he was just eight years old. His father bought an airplane so he could travel throughout the Southeast to see his patients, and Jim was more than happy to tag along.

From those early flights, Jim developed a lifelong passion for aviation. He dreamed of becoming an airline pilot and spent years preparing for that career. After earning his bachelor's degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the early 1990s, he fully expected that his education, training, and experience would open the door to a career with the airlines. Instead, the doors seemed to close.

Resume after resume came back with one discouraging message after another. The airlines simply weren't hiring candidates like him due to EEOC guidelines. It was a frustrating and disheartening experience, especially after investing so much time, money, and effort in pursuing a lifelong dream. But Jim has never been one to sit around licking his wounds.

After a brief and unsuccessful attempt at corporate flying, we decided it was time to change direction. We entered the world of real estate, and before long, Jim earned his real estate broker's license as well as his commercial real estate appraiser's license. By 2000, our business was thriving.

We were building a life, raising our family, and investing in our future. In 2004, while very pregnant with our fifth child, Lori decided to pursue her own professional license. She studied for and earned her residential appraiser's license—all while homeschooling our four young children.

We also invested heavily in real estate development. For a time, everything seemed to be falling into place. We were working hard, building businesses, investing in property, and creating what we believed would be a secure future for our family.Then everything changed.

In 2007, tragedy struck our family in a way that no parent should ever have to experience.Our toddler drowned in a boating accident.The loss was devastating. It changed us forever.And as if that weren't enough, the same year brought another kind of disaster. The real estate bubble burst, followed by the financial crisis that swept through the United States. Our business was devastated.

Like many people caught in the middle of that crisis, it took us years to fully understand what had happened and how deeply it had affected us. By the time we realized the full extent of the damage, there was little left to recover.

Financially, we lost almost everything. Emotionally, we were already carrying the unimaginable weight of losing our child.We found ourselves at a crossroads, grieving not only the loss of our child but also the loss of the life we had worked so hard to build. It was during those difficult years that we began to look beyond the life we had always known.

Some friends of ours had decided to relocate overseas. At first, the idea seemed completely crazy. We had never imagined ourselves leaving the United States, much less moving to another country.But as we learned more about the financial crisis and began questioning the direction in which our country was heading, we started to wonder if perhaps there was another way to live.Maybe we didn't have to keep playing the same game.Maybe we could start over somewhere else.So we began searching for a new home.

Our first destination was Uruguay. We went 2 times on vacation and we enjoyed our time there, but something was missing. It was pleasant, but it didn't inspire us. We continued looking.

Meanwhile, our "crazy" friends had already settled in Chile. They offered us something we could hardly believe: their vacation home, where we could stay for as long as we wanted—rent-free.That generous invitation gave us the opportunity to experience Chile for ourselves.

Then, in 2013, another chapter of our old life came to an end. Jim's father, his last remaining parent, passed away. Around the same time, we were let go from a small subcontracting job we had taken doing insurance appraisals for the state of South Carolina.Looking back, it felt as though the final pieces were falling into place. Or perhaps they were falling away.

The doors behind us were closing, one after another, while a new door was opening in front of us. We decided to walk through it.In 2013, we left the United States and moved to Chile.

We had no idea exactly what the future would hold. We didn't have a perfect plan. We didn't know how everything would work out. We simply knew that we needed a new beginning—and we were willing to take a chance on a different life.More than 13 years later, we can say with complete honesty that we have never looked back. Chile became our home.

Over the years, we have discovered beautiful places, met wonderful people, built new businesses, learned a new culture, and experienced a way of life that has brought us more freedom and fulfillment than we could have imagined when we first arrived.Our journey has not always been easy. But then again, the best journeys rarely are. We came to Chile looking for a fresh start.What we found was so much more. We found a home. We found opportunity.We found a new way of life. And, perhaps most importantly, we found hope again.

Our book is the story of what we have learned along the way—the good, the bad, the surprising, and sometimes the downright difficult. We hope that by sharing our experiences, we can help you make better decisions, avoid some of the mistakes we made, and perhaps see possibilities you never knew existed. Much of our knowledge has not only come through our own experience but in helping others immigrate to Chile through our Chile Expat Family Telegram group. 

If you are dreaming about moving to Chile, starting over, retiring abroad, investing in property, or simply wondering if there is another way to live, we hope our story will encourage you to explore the possibilities.

We took a leap of faith more than 13 years ago. We are so glad we did.