ABOUT
We moved for the math, the medicine, and our nervous systems. All true.
We're Jonathan and Karen. Married 23 years, met in 1993. We left the United States in January 2025 and now live in Cuenca, Ecuador. GenXpat is where we share the tools, conversations, and honest takes that actually helped us make the move.
WHO WE ARE
The short version.
We met in 1993 at Northern Michigan University. Jonathan grew up in Gwinn in the Upper Peninsula. Karen grew up in Detroit. We've been best friends since college and married since 2003.
We're not influencers. We're two midlife people who'd been crushed by the math: retirement out of reach, healthcare at $1,000 a month with a $6,000 deductible, and a country that kept feeling harder to live in. We spent three years thinking carefully about whether leaving was possible, and another two getting it done. The decision was practical, emotional, financial, and political. All at once.
GenXpat exists because most relocation content is either selling you a fantasy or selling you a course. We wanted something different: tools we actually used, conversations we actually had, and standpoints we actually hold.
The full story - the YouTube rabbit hole, the scouting trip, the day we decided - lives on our YouTube channel. We tell those stories there.
WHERE THIS STARTED
One text. From a YouTube rabbit hole.
Karen sent this to Jonathan while he was playing gigs out of town. It was a joke. Sort of. Three years later, here we are.
August 4, 2022
Where We Stand
Expat is a privilege. Immigrant is the truth. We use both honestly.
Most expat content defaults to a white perspective and treats it as neutral. It isn't. Jonathan's experience as a Black man moving abroad is foundational to how we see and talk about relocation. Karen's experience is different. We name that.
We use the word expat because it's the search term that brings people to us. We use the word immigrant because it's the word that's actually true. Both, honestly.
US, INDIVIDUALLY.
Jonathan and Karen.
Jonathan
A drummer at heart who's been in bands his whole life. Within months of arriving in Cuenca, he plugged into the local music scene and started playing gigs, which is how we've made some of our closest community here.
He grew up in Gwinn, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. For years he worked as a Manager in Client Services, a job he did well but never wanted defining him.
His perspective as a Black man moving abroad is foundational to how we see this whole project. The "welcoming to Black people" field in our Prep Kit isn't a marketing add. It exists because Jonathan named what most planners skip. He's also the person Karen runs every plan past before it becomes a tool. Nothing on this site got built without him.
Karen
A Detroit kid who spent years as a Marketing & Events Director before going out on her own and running her own businesses. She handles the strategy, content, and operations side of GenXpat.
Her thing is structure: spreadsheets, worksheets, and the small details that don't fit on a checklist but matter for actually living somewhere new. Most of the worksheets you'll find in Resources came out of her trying to organize the move for both of them.
She and Jonathan have been a team since 1993. As she puts it: "We can hire out the actions. We can't hire out the important conversations."
our heart
Jeremy.
Our kiddo Jeremy is 19 (she/her, all pronouns welcome). She came with us when we moved in January 2025, along with one of her best friends Rowan, and stayed until she turned 18 in March. She's back in Madison now, working and starting school for esthetics, building her own foundation while always having a home here with us.
With everything happening in the States, we'd love for her to be here. We also understand that she needs to figure out her own footing on her own terms, and we trust her to do that.
THE furry family
Soluna.
Soluna is our 9 year old pittie. She made the international move with us, and is the reason we built a Moving Abroad with Pets Checklist - because dogs deserve good planning too.
What Now
Three ways forward.
If you want the full story, the move itself, the daily life, the things that surprised us, that's on YouTube. If you want the tools and the worksheets we built from what we actually used, those are in Resources. If you want to talk through your specific situation with two people who've done it, book a Reality Call.
Otherwise, glad you stopped by.
Jonathan & Karen
Still Standing. Just Somewhere Else. More Life. Less Noise.