About our Expat Life in Cape TownIn my about page I will tell you a bit more about me and how I came to write this guide on expatriate living in Cape Town South Africa. We are a German expatriate family living in Cape Town since 2005.
After traveling the world, living and working on five continents in the last 16 years, we really had to settle down with two little kids in tow.
Although the boys are already keen travelers, they need some settling time now too. Therefore as the opportunity arose to move to South Africa, we grabbed it. And have not regretted this move for one minute. Here in Cape Town we enjoy living by the sea, the beautiful landscape, great food and wonderful outdoors life. Our young children love jumping in the pool or playing at the beach after school. Now they are playing with their friends outside instead of staying inside most of the year, as we moved here from beautiful old England, where the weather is not so uplifting most of the time. But let’s start from the beginning…I grew up in beautiful Bavaria/Germany but always loved to travel abroad and learn languages.So after graduating from University with a Masters degree in philology, i.e. languages and cultures (German, Italian, American Culture and History) as well as Business Studies, it was time for me to move on and experience other cultures. When I met my husband we both had been bitten by this bug of adventure, travel, living and working abroad... Living the typical expat lifeWhen we were living in all those countries mostly being sent abroad by my husband’s German company, I was fortunate enough that my experience as a trained teacher helped me to find work everywhere we went.I worked as language tutor or teacher at the German cultural institute, the Goethe-Institut, at language schools and at universities as well as a publisher’s representative for an Australian university press. I enjoyed all my jobs and had lots of interesting times and got to know so many amazing people in so many places. During the last 16 years we lived in the USA, Belgium, Australia, Singapore and England. We got quite experienced with all the moving process, however, every time when another move came up we were desperate for information on the new destination. Most of the reliable information on a new country we got from fellow expatriates who had been to these places we moved to or referred us to somebody who lived there. Finally settling in Cape Town South AfricaWhen my husband was to be transferred to South Africa, I was again desperate for any information, searching the bookstores and the internet for hours without end to finally get some of the information an expatriate desperately wants to know about.After making some good and some not so fortunate experiences when moving to South Africa, we finally have found our little piece of paradise in the West Coast town of Blouberg, just north of Cape Town. With all my active knowledge about moving and living abroad and several years of experience in teaching I found there should be more to it than keeping all the secrets of moving to Cape Town to myself. So I started writing this Expat Guide. With the help of some friends and a wonderfully easy website building program. I am happily living in Cape Town and sharing my insights. Have you already subscribed to my ExpatCapeTown Newsletter with lots of more Cape Town Insider Tips? Just add your details here and you will get it monthly delivered to your inbox.
Thanks for visiting my website. This expat guide will be constantly be updated and so if you come across some information which you would like to share or should be researched in more depth please let me know. Please feel free to contact me via my contact page, if you think I should follow up on a certain topic or look for info which I have not included. Positive comments are welcome too.:). Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours,
Regina Graeff
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