We left the Bay Area to care for my mother-in-law in the South of France. The visa was easy - everything else wasn't.

"There are so many things to love about the Bay Area. The weather is beautiful, the food is very international, and the diversity is wonderful. But it's notoriously expensive, especially down the Peninsula and farther south. We lived in Santa Clara, which felt more affordable for us, and we built a community we loved. Still, life there could be hard - the cost of living was high, and we were working constantly."

"We had always known we'd end up there, but what pushed us to do it then was my mother-in-law. My husband's parents live in France, and my mother-in-law has Alzheimer's. We were observing her decline, and we made the call. Our kids being young was another factor. At the time, they were five and seven, and we thought that if we delayed this any longer, it would get more difficult."

Lin Koh was born in Singapore, moved to the US as a child, and later settled in the Bay Area where she and her husband raised two children and worked in tech roles at Facebook and Adobe. The family lived in Santa Clara, valued the weather, food, and diversity, but faced high costs and long work hours. In 2023 they relocated to France to help care for the husband's mother, who has Alzheimer's, and to give their young children a more balanced childhood. As spouses of a French national, they qualified for a vie privée et familiale visa, and the hardest part was leaving friends and family.

Read at Business Insider