By: Victoria Harmer

Dear International Living Postcards Reader, Disillusioned with life in the suburbs, Atlanta couple Grace and Amanda decided to search for a better life overseas for themselves and their three children. They considered several Scandinavian countries as well as Belize and Costa Rica, before ultimately finding everything they were looking for in Uruguay. Their story, below…
P.S. Discover all it has to offer you when you join us for the first-ever Uruguay Private Screening.
By Jen Phillips April “We were dissatisfied with things in the U.S. Our health wasn’t great and we didn’t love living in the South. So, we started looking for alternatives,” says Grace Alexander of her decision to move overseas. With Grace’s portable career as a copywriter, her family were location-independent. Their requirements for a new home included high-quality healthcare, a good education system for their children, and gay-friendly laws. When an online article pointed them to Uruguay, renowned for its stable democracy, robust economy, prosperous middle class, and progressive attitudes, they knew they had found their perfect place. Uruguay is also a major regional hub of the tech industry, so fiber-optic internet is widely available throughout the country and reasonably priced. This meant Grace would have no problem continuing her career from there. The family now live on a spacious ranch in the lush Uruguayan countryside. “We have five hectares and a six-bedroom, five-bath house with a large porch. It has a four-car garage and a barn almost as big as the house. We pay $1,800 a month,” says Grace. “We also have three horses, four goats, 10 cats, and 20 dogs. We went to the local rescue and took the worst-case dogs and nursed them back to health.” They have a veterinarian visit every Thursday to take care of the brood. “She comes for a couple of hours and it’s about $80,” says Grace. In addition to its pastoral countryside, Uruguay, which borders Argentina, has numerous spectacular beach destinations along its roughly 410 miles of Atlantic coastline. English is widely spoken, since the education system requires it in elementary school.
Uruguay boasts lush countryside and sweeping beaches. Thanks to the affordability and high standard of local services, the family enjoys a high-quality life for a fraction of the cost back home. Take healthcare. Grace suffers from a degenerative spinal disc disease and had to access the Uruguayan healthcare system shortly after arriving. “When we first arrived, my spine was bad. A neighbor called the doctor who came to the house, reviewed my X-rays, and gave me low-dose morphine to ease the pain,” she says. The doctor’s visit cost about $100. Private school for her youngest son, who is autistic, is affordable too. “In the U.S., my youngest was being mainstreamed into the school system and he wasn’t getting his needs met. Here, he’s in a class with six to seven other kids and they relate well to him. Everyone is respectful, takes responsibility, and tries to meet his needs. The cost is about $120 per month,” says Grace. Another advantage of living in Uruguay is the mild weather. Uruguay has four seasons, with the average summer high temperature reaching 82 degrees F, cooling down to 63 F at night. Meanwhile, the average winter high temperature is 57 degrees F, falling to 43 F at night. Because Uruguay is in the Southern Hemisphere with opposite seasons, summer is in December, January, and February. Grace notes that where you choose to live in Uruguay will make a big difference in your expenses. “The capital of Montevideo can be expensive if you move into a gated expat community,” she says. “We choose to live more local and more affordably.” Editor’s note: You may not be able to travel to Uruguay right now, so we’re doing something we’ve never done before: We’re bringing Uruguay to you. Join us for the first-ever Uruguay Private Screening—an online, participate from anywhere event specially designed to help you discover everything you need to know to determine if Uruguay is the ideal place for you. Then, when you’re able to travel to Uruguay in person, you’ll have all the knowledge and contacts necessary to move forward with confidence.