I left Texas for Europe more than a decade ago. Living in France is affordable, and I'm happier.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Leah Young, a 34-year-old from Dallas who moved to Spain in 2015. Young is the founder of Fearless Abroad, a company that helps Americans working remotely relocate to Europe. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

A lot of people love the idea of traveling to new places and experiencing something exciting. What excited me about living abroad was the adventure. When I was younger, I'd taken a few short trips, but there was still so much more of the world I wanted to see.

For years, I tried to make it happen. In high school and college, I looked into exchange programs and studying abroad, but my family was always like, "No way."

Eventually, a friend mentioned a government-run teaching program in Spain that had an open call for applications. I jumped at it, even though I was working in a completely different industry. I figured it was finally a way to get to Europe.

I thought I'd spend just one year abroad, then return to Texas and live my life as I always had. But that year turned into many, and I stayed, though in different ways over time.

Preparing to leave for Europe was really scary. I had never lived abroad, and I didn't know anyone else who had. I remember thinking, "How practical is this, really?"

The visa process was stressful. My teaching program gave me permission to come, but I still had to handle the visa process myself. I got through it by diving deep into Facebook groups and random blogs, piecing everything together and learning as much as I could.

I was really worried about whether I could afford the cost of living in Spain. Yes, I was moving with a job contract, but I would earn only €700 ($813) a month. Even in 2015, that wasn't much. I didn't know whether it would cover my rent, let alone leave money for anything else.

There were so many other things I had to figure out, like whether to cancel my US health insurance — my government contract came with Spanish coverage — and what to do with my phone plan, car, dishes, furniture, and everything else in my apartment.

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In the end, I left the US with nothing but two suitcases, filled with all the wrong things, and a visa. The truth is, I was totally freaked out. But I went for it because I saw that other people had made it work — and, ultimately, I did, too.

I feel like I've become an expert at starting over. After living in Spain for five years, I spent two years in Germany, a year in Argentina, a year in Brazil, and now I've been in France for a year.