The Other Kind of Packing
Thoughts for anyone weighing whether to leave, and a few signs this week that the ground is moving faster than the people standing on it.
Midlife Nomads explores how people are redesigning work, travel, and life in our 40s, 50s & beyond.
This week’s newsletter is part update, part field report including the kitchen-table math many are doing on whether to leave their country, and what recent news suggests about doing it without betting everything at once.
I’m in Canada this week for family visits and a suitcase swap (because what I packed in April for Normandy is not what I need for June in Japan). There is a particular pleasure to packing for a trip you’re excited about. You can feel it in your hands.
But that isn’t what I’ve been thinking about while I sort through what to take.
I’ve been thinking about the people in my inbox. The DMs, the long emails, the replies that start with I’ve never said this out loud to anyone but. People who are not packing for a vacation. People who are seriously, privately evaluating what it would take to leave and start over or rebuild — not for two weeks, but for good.
They are terrified. Most of them have never lived outside the country they were born in. Many of them have partners who aren’t sure. Some have parents who won’t understand, or kids whose schools they’d have to figure out. Jobs they’d have to reshape or replace.
The whole architecture of their belonging would have to come apart, carefully, before any of it could be packed up and hopefully reassembled somewhere new.
And still. They are looking.
I’m not here to tell anyone whether to go. The reasons people are looking to relocate, to move abroad right now are their own, and the people doing the looking already know what they are. They don’t need me to validate them and they don’t need me to argue them out of it.
What I want to say is smaller than that.
If you are doing that other kind of packing right now — the kind where you’re not sure yet, where you’re researching at the kitchen table at 11pm, where you’ve started reading visa pages and looking at apartment listings in cities you’ve only seen in photos — you are not alone in it. You are not being dramatic. You are not overreacting.
You are paying attention.
I’m going to keep writing about this — the looking, the deciding, the doing — through this summer. If you're somewhere on that path, hit reply or leave a comment.
You're not the only one working through this.
So here's what I've been writing this past week and reading while I sort through the suitcase… people already living what so many in my inbox are weighing, and the news changing the terms underneath them.
ICYMI on Midlife Nomads
Where I'd Send You This Fall
Enchanted Coliving — Nachamps, France
A small, book-lined coliving in the French countryside between La Rochelle and the Atlantic, created by Bianca after years of living in other colivings. Phone-free Sunday brunches. Slow mornings. Rooms named for imagined worlds: Narnia, Rivendell, Arendelle, Neverland.
For the reader who wants a small intentional community, not a coworking conveyor belt. 2.5 hours from Paris by TGV. Highly recommended by friends I trust who’ve stayed at Enchanted.
From our October Shortlist. These are my handpicked recommendations for stays of a month or longer for working travelers 40+ with quality accommodations, the option of community, and reliable wifi.
What’s On My Radar
Bali Bans Sponsored Posts: What This Means for Your Tourist Visa
The headline is about influencers, but the story underneath is bigger than that. Indonesian immigration has been actively enforcing a much stricter definition of "work" since April — including barter arrangements, unpaid promotional shoots, and brand collaborations with no money changing hands.
Sixty-two foreign nationals detained in three weeks. The pattern matters even for readers who aren't going to Bali, because the assumptions a lot of nomad and slow-travel arrangements rest on are getting tested in real time, and Indonesia probably won't be the last country to do this.
The Future of Remote Work — Nomad Magazine
Nina Hoeberichts maps where remote work actually stands in 2026: some companies clawing back flexibility while others build their whole model around it, hybrid hardening into the default, more countries rolling out nomad visas. The section on economic displacement alone is reason to read it.
Also worth your time this week… a few pieces that, read together, suggest the same thing: stay longer, commit less.
The Rise Of The 'Slomad': Digital Nomads Moving To Chiang Rai In 2026 — Chiang Rai Times
Not a tourist, not an expat: the rise of the midlife working trip — Buenos Aires Herald
The new European train routes that could replace your next short-haul flight — Focus on Travel News
Golden Visa holders to file lawsuit against Portugal over the new Nationality Law — The Portugal News
That’s it for this week. Whatever rooms you find yourself in until we meet again, I hope they're the right ones.
✌🏻 Miranda
P.S. This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Airalo, the eSIM app I’ve used to stay connected in over a dozen countries. I earn a small commission when you sign up through this link; you get to skip the SIM card hunt and get online as soon as you land.