What Living in France as an American Has Taught Me

A softer way of living, one shared meal and honest conversation at a time.

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I never meant to move to France.

I was traveling as a digital nomad, hopping between places that sounded dreamy on paper. When I arrived in Nice, I imagined it would be like every other stop: a few months of sunlight, a few beachside cafés, and then onward.

But something shifted.

Maybe it was the morning market stalls and the soft, everyday beauty of shutters opening onto quiet courtyards. Or maybe it was the boy I met, who would become my partner, and eventually my reason for returning.

Slowly, without a clear before or after, this place became home.

And while the geography changed — sun-drenched beaches for stone alleyways, the golden haze of California for the soft shimmer of the Mediterranean — so did the way I lived. I didn’t notice it all at once, but looking back, France has taught me things I didn’t even know I needed to learn.

Here are a few of them.

Wealth Has More Than One Meaning

One of the first things my partner ever said to me was that he considered himself wealthy because he had a good quality of life. I remember blinking at that. It wasn’t about money, he explained. It was about time. Comfort. The ability to enjoy a long lunch with friends or a walk after dinner.

In the U.S., we often equate wealth with output: how much you can earn, how much you can build, how much you can do. But here, I started to notice a different currency.

There are holidays constantly — and I mean constantly. Every few weeks, the rhythm of life pauses. People rest, they gather, they travel to see family.

At first, it felt indulgent, like a break no one had really “earned.” But now, it just feels human. There’s a softness to it, and a refusal to treat exhaustion as a badge of honor. Once you experience that pause, it’s hard to go back.