I Changed Career and Moved to the South of France for Long Distance Love

Antonia Miles took a leap of faith and moved from the UK to the South of France after 2.5 years in a long distance relationship. Exclusively for Travelista, she shares her story of life, love and career changes in the brave pursuit of long term happiness.

Moving to France for love. Sounds a little cliché doesn’t it? In August 2024, this truly became my reality when I moved to the South of France for love. I have always loved the French language and the country itself (mostly for the food), but I never in my wildest dreams expected to eventually be living here. I still have to pinch myself every day that I have made this happen. 

After 2.5 years of a long distance relationship between the UK and France, I have now started a new a career in teaching in a country where I don’t fluently speak the language – yet. It’s safe to say it has been a journey. I have already learnt so much about myself along the way, so I am here to share my story and some of the biggest life lessons I have learned so far.

A career change into teaching

I became a primary school teacher just over a year ago. It wasn’t a conventional start, as my first year as a qualified teacher began with supply teaching. However, I now love teaching and working with children is never boring. I began looking for work as soon as I arrived in France, by joining local Facebook groups for English speakers. I knew I would only be able to consider jobs in which I could speak English and naturally I want to continue my career in teaching and building on my experiences.

When I saw a post about a local language school looking for teachers, I knew had to apply. I didn’t get a reply back and for some reason I felt so awkward about it – as if I had just expected this to be easy. After 5 days I had heard nothing but I knew this specific job was perfect as it fit around my language class timetable, so I did something I used to think was embarrassing – I emailed again.

I re-sent my CV and ignored the idea it might look desperate. But it worked and I now teach English to a class of French children. I’ll start by saying that it is completely different to teaching in the UK. Teaching English to children who do not have it as first language is challenging, but I am now 5 weeks in and we are getting into a good routine with their confidence in their spoken English building each week.

“Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is just so important when making a move abroad. No-one is going to laugh at your for working hard to find a job and do something that makes you happy. So email twice, three times if you have to. Go in and show your face and make them pay attention to you, it might just work out.”

Stepping outside of comfort zones with online tutoring

I am very lucky to have found a teaching job in France and I am also tutoring online which means I am able to keep up with the UK curriculum and use what I spent the last 2 years learning. This is also something I started this year that is out of my comfort zone. Online tutoring is entirely based on selling yourself as being a great teacher (despite being new to the job) and you have to sell yourself directly to the parents first. I researched all the best questions to ask and there is so much good advice out there, so I now have 4 students from age 6-10 and I am slowly growing in confidence in my tutoring abilities too. 

Unlocking opportunities with languages

I am doing all this alongside 20 hours per week of my own French classes It’s more studying than I’ve done since school and it’s a lot, but I love it. I love learning the French language, which has opened up so many doors to me both socially and professionally. Every French person I have met here so far has been so supportive and helpful. In shops they are patient and friendly and respond to me in French and wait for me to translate in my head and try to respond. There’s even a café that cheers for us when we correctly pronounce a word of phrase – that is a great feeling and it’s a feeling I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t willing to ‘embarrass’ myself daily by stumbling through my words.

“I mean, is it really actually embarrassing to be making the effort to speak another language? No, and I don’t believe there are real mistakes. You learn from every mistake you make.“

I helped a couple in the supermarket and after they said merci multiple times to me, I confidently replied loudly with de nada which is ‘you’re welcome’ in Spanish and not French. I walked away cringing but I now always remember to correctly say de rien! I even survived a 2 hour beauty appointment completely in French. It has reminded me why I love to travel and explore new cultures. It isn’t always easy, and sometimes I can feel my confident English personality hiding when I don’t know how to say what I want to in French but I know that will become less and less of an issue the longer I am here.

Making friends from around the world

Not only am I learning more and more French culture, but I am in a city which thrives on the cultures of other countries. I have already made friends from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Indonesia and America and I am learning more about these countries and the differences and similarities between life there and in the UK. It was so important for me to make my own friends here, I get on very well with my partners friends but they are his friends first and I need my own social group.

“What better than to find a group of people who understand the struggle of living somewhere where you all don’t speak the language? Find something to bond over like this and go from there, it’s truly wonderful.”

Learnings from a long distance love

Most people will tell you long distance is hard, whether they have experienced it or not. In my case I knew no one personally who had been through long distance. At first I felt like a fish out of water, but I quickly understood the boundaries I needed to put in place to make a long distance relationship work.

1. The first thing I would say is to be open and honest with how you feel to each other. Of course, this is the foundation of all relationships but it’s especially important when you’re not physically together. We vocalised to each other everything we felt, and we did so without fear the other wouldn’t feel the same. If you’re worried about your partners’ feelings being different or not as strong as yours you maybe shouldn’t be committing to long distance? Sometimes he missed me more at certain times and sometimes I missed him more and we vocalised it no matter what. I even sent him a surprise love letter in the post once when he was having a hard time with the distance and he would send me surprise flowers if I was struggling more than usual. 
2. The next thing I knew I needed was a confirmed plan for the next time we were seeing each other. I am a planner. I couldn’t function if I didn’t know exactly when I was next going to see him. I needed dates and being a teacher, those dates were pretty much laid out for me. So a lot of time there would be a discussion about dates and I would book flights based on when I could fly.
3. Make sure you’re getting what you need from your long distance partner. Maybe you can go with the flow and don’t always need a plan like I did. That’s also OK, as long as you’re both on the same page. You might think you know what boundaries you need but if you realise they’re not working, change them. The effort needed for long distance relationship to be a success is huge.
4. Talk to friends, even if they don’t understand fully they will be able to help you chat through your feelings and sometimes just vocalising out loud can make your thoughts clearer. I knew early on that I was willing to move my entire life to France to see if we can make it work here, and that is what we worked towards. We both knew it would be hard, but we also both wanted to try.

All of this has reminded me why this move was more than just a move for romantic love, it was a move for my love of learning, my love for teaching and my love for traveling all rolled into one. I can’t wait to see where it takes me and which path my life takes next.

Did you love reading Antonia’s story? Check out more articles like this in our inspiring women section.