If you are planning to move to Georgia, chances are you are planning to live here for some time and if you like it you may want to purchase some real estate – a property to live in (and avoid throwing money away on rent and dealing with landlords). Or some investment property, especially on…
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Life in Georgia – Shopping (store listing)
These are stores to buy things by category based on my personal experience. I do not endorse any of these, shop at your own risk. I personally tried most in this list, but not all. Expensive and brand names shoes: large mallsReasonably prices shoes: local markets (I go to Dezerter, find one close to you)…
Life in Georgia – Shopping (general thoughts)
The biggest challenge for us after the move was a question of what to buy where. Local way to buy things is completely different than in the US – if you are moving from a country more similar to Georgia, it may be less of a change. First of all (and I really hope this…
Life in Georgia – biggest annoyances
This is my personal opinion, these issues are not a major factor but they do annoy me. I will have a separate post about more significant challenges. Driving. I think Georgian drivers are the worst drivers in the world. Not getting into a lot of details – come and experience this for yourself, then see…
Life in Georgia – things I like most
Here are things I really like here, in no particular order: Food – food is great, there is a good variety and products are typically of good quality (comparing to the US here). Supermarkets have good selection, especially larger ones – Carrefour, Goodwill etc. But food in supermarkets is fairly expensive – while bread, fruits…
Life in Georgia
Living in Georgia is not for everyone – but if it is aligned with your value system, it is a great place to be. There are certainly pros and cons to life here, like with any other country. I am sharing my personal experiences, that I hope may be useful for you to make a…
The actual move day(s)
Well, here is how our move went. Of course we stayed up late the night before to finish packing our suitcases and cleaning up whatever else we could. We made a reservation for 14-seat van about a month in advance, and he arrived on time, actually 15 minutes earlier than we expected. So we had…
Moving to Georgia with (multiple) pets – what you need to know
Moving internationally is pretty stressful by itself, and moving with pets makes it much worse. Why? Because to get any answer regarding pets from an airline (Turkish Airlines in our case) proved to be completely futile. We had 2 cats and 1 dog to fly over, which made it even more difficult. It didn’t seem…
Be ready for the unexpected (or how things can go not according to plan)
We always wish everything would proceed as planned, but occasionally life throws a monkey wrench into the works, making things interesting. On May 20, 2023, the day after movers had collected our belongings for our ocean freight shipment, I suffered a rather unfortunate accident. In the midst of packing, I tripped, fell onto an outstretched…
Shipping your belongings to Georgia – good, bad and ugly
We covered that it is a good idea to downsize before the move, but if you still have things to ship – read on. There are 2 primary ways to ship your belongings to Georgia from a western country that is across the ocean (USians and Canadians primarily): Ocean Freight or Air Freight. If you…
Getting ready to move
We started planning to move about a year before the actual move. Most of this time was spent getting the house ready to sell, but we also started to sell everything we are not planning to take with us based on what makes sense to move and what not to move. Larger and more niche…
Downsizing your belongings
If you are a minimalist and have no stuff to speak of – you will not need to worry about this part. If you are like me, and had things like RV, kayaks, trailers, stationary power tools like multiple saws, air tools, power washers, chippers, shredders, lawn mowers and so on – start selling these…
Selling your property
Since we planed to be in Georgia for at least a few years, we decided to sell out house in Lakeville, MA. My wife and I spent 9 month in 2022 getting the house ready to sell – I replaced the siding on 1/3 of the house (from wooden shingles to vinyl), replaced old trim…
Making work arrangements – how am I going to make a living in Georgia?
You are in luck – if you are in IT, that is. I will give you a hint. Read up. I work in IT field. If you are not – this entry will not be relevant to you… at all. Sorry. If you’d like to follow my approach, either move to IT field or do…
Planning and task management
Any international move requires thorough planning and execution of multiple tasks – and unless you are completely allergic to planning, I suggest using some task management software to keep track of tasks. I decided to use Asana, as it has features I need and even paid version is quite inexpensive. There are multiple similar solutions,…
Introduction – why Georgia
In 2022, we decided to move from Greater Boston area of the US to the country of Georgia. Why Georgia, and what else did we consider? In addition to Georgia we considered: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Switzerland. Each of those countries presented its set of positives and negatives. Due to Covid challenges, Australia, New…