My wife Carrie and I had dreamed of moving abroad again as a family. Back when our daughters were

three and five years old, we spent 17 months in Ecuador in South America. It was one of the

best experiences of our lives. But fast forward to 2022, our kids are 11 and 9 years old and growing up

fast. We knew that if we didn't make another trip happen soon, the

opportunity could slip away from us. You probably guessed where the story goes. We've now begun

a 12-month trip abroad. We're living in Granada, a beautiful historic city in the south of Spain.

For now, we're settling in and practicing our Spanish skills at a local language school.

Soon, our kids will begin their regular school year at a local elementary school.

We're all a bit nervous and excited, but that's why we're here.

To grow, to learn, to experience a new culture, to meet new people.

But in order for this trip to happen, there's one practical challenge that

had to be solved. And that's housing.

Our basic housing strategy was to rent the house that we own in the United States and then find a house

or an apartment to rent in Spain. Our hope was that we could cover 100% of our housing costs in

Spain using the rent from back in the United States. That was our plan to live for free. I don't

know if anyone's named this technique yet, but let's just call it international house hacking.

We finally committed 100%

to doing this trip back in December of 2021, which was about seven months before we moved out and went to

Spain. We had three main projects to do before that could happen. Number one, we had to get our house

ready to rent. Number two, we had to find good tenants to live in our house until we got back a year later.

And number three, we had to pack up and actually move out of the house. Getting the house ready to

rent meant doing a little bit of painting and a lot of cleanup. We hired a painter friend to do

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