In 2007 moved with my wife and 5 year old from Virginia to Montevideo, Uruguay for 9 months then to Buenos Aires, Argentina for another 4 months. When we arrived, we didn't know a soul and chose that part of the world based mostly on the fact that it was relatively inexpensive and safe.
We lived mostly like locals. We rented a house and bought a car. I worked in the mornings and we spent afternoons and vacations exploring the area. We saw quite a bit of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil and met a ton of great people along the way, both locals and other expats, many of whom we keep in contact with still today. My son went to preschool in Uruguay and learned to speak Spanish fluently. My wife picked up a ton of Spanish and my own improved immensely.
While we were down there we lived frugally and my part-time work as a software developer was sufficient to pay our expenses. It wasn't hard to come back and find a full-time job.
It was an awesome experience, I'd highly recommend something like it to anyone. I briefly blogged while I was down there, if interested, it's here: https://guay.wordpress.com and if you haven't already, check out Rolf Pott's Vagabonding book.
We lived mostly like locals. We rented a house and bought a car. I worked in the mornings and we spent afternoons and vacations exploring the area. We saw quite a bit of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil and met a ton of great people along the way, both locals and other expats, many of whom we keep in contact with still today. My son went to preschool in Uruguay and learned to speak Spanish fluently. My wife picked up a ton of Spanish and my own improved immensely.
While we were down there we lived frugally and my part-time work as a software developer was sufficient to pay our expenses. It wasn't hard to come back and find a full-time job.
It was an awesome experience, I'd highly recommend something like it to anyone. I briefly blogged while I was down there, if interested, it's here: https://guay.wordpress.com and if you haven't already, check out Rolf Pott's Vagabonding book.