A 9-point guide: How to live in Paris for a year.

Most people have a cherished dream, something they are going to do one day when the stars align.

My dream was to live and write in Paris, the full fantasy; balcony, red geraniums, laptop open on desk. It wasn’t an original dream, but then dreams mostly aren’t, they are a shared image of an unattainable perfect life. The years slipped by and my dream stayed just ahead of me, as dreams do.

Then, one day, I decided I would make it happen. Half way through the next year I was living in an apartment on the slopes of Montmartre with a balcony, red geraniums, laptop open.

Most people thought it was luck, that somehow I had accidentally stumbled into my dream – and at times it felt like that, the sheerest good fortune – but in reality, it took a full year of planning, saving, arranging. A dream will stay out of reach unless you track it down.

Here’s my nine point guide to How to Live in Paris For a Year:

1. Decide it’s what you really want

Decide that it is really what you want by imagining it is possible. Once you think it is possible, you might realise you would really rather stay in your own comfy place with a kitchen you can swing a cat in, a good shower and no language hassles. If you can imagine it as real, and still know you want it, you are half way there.

2. Put a date on it

It might seem obvious, but I’ve found nothing happens without a date on it. Put a date on it and you have almost arrived.

3. Check your visa status

Check the French Consulate website to see if you can get a work visa. If you have recent English or European ancestors, then you may be able to work in France. Otherwise, apply for a ‘long-stay’ visa. Start this process early - our visas arrived two days after we had left. I couldn’t possibly tell you how we stayed in France for a year without a long-stay visa, but it did involve visits to Dublin and Istanbul at three monthly intervals.

4. Save like crazy

If, like most people, you can’t just up and go to Paris because you feel like it, make a list of what you can and can’t live without and budget. Make only life-saving telephone calls, turned appliances off like an obsessive, bring a thermos of coffee to work – and write down the amount saved every month. Watching it mount up will keep you on track through all deprivations.

Related content: The true story of an unlikely farmer.

5. Supporting yourself in Paris

If you can’t get a work visa, find out if your employer minds if your work from home - and then mention you will be moving house, ahem, to Paris. It sounds unlikely, but my partner who worked for a university did exactly that. Technically he was still working and being paid in Australia – and therefore didn’t need a work visa - he just lived a long way from work.

Otherwise, find out if there is any free-lancing work where you are paid from outside France – again, you are not technically working in France, but can still earn. And, if you own one, rent your house out – I survived on a combination of savings, rent and some free-lance writing.

6. Extracting yourself from home

This is the trickiest part as we are all tied into lives here in many ways, familial, financial, practical. These days, with Skype and other technologies, it is possible to keep in touch with elderly parents or wayward children. If there are younger children, then check the listing of International schools in Paris.

For all other financial and practical ties, make a long, detailed list: mortgage, bills of every kind, mail, garden, pets. It will look impossible at first, but work through them one by one, deciding which bills you need to keep paying, which to transfer, which to cancel for a year. I found renting our house out covered a number of these in one go – make sure you find a tenant who will take care of a garden. Pets, unless you know the tenant, are best with family or friends who already know them.

7. Start learning or brushing up your French and read French writers

Most people in shops and tourist cafes speak some English, but you are not a tourist, you are living in Paris, voila, you need to speak French. There are many courses available, from informal rendezvous through Meet-Up, to classes at Alliance Francaise. Start as early in the year as possible, so that you have a few workable French sentences by the time you land . And read as much French literature set in Paris as you can - some essential writers: Balzac, Zola, de Beauvoir, Modiano.

8. Find Accommodation

There are numerous accommodation businesses in Paris (often geared to vacations, so much too expensive) and many house-swap organisations, (just too difficult to find the right place at the right time) but I found FUSAC online to be the most useful. There is nearly always a good range of long-term furnished rental apartments on offer. I strongly suggest a furnished apartment - installing furniture is no easy feat in Paris. Even if your building has a lift, it will not fit more than your suitcase.

9. Once there: connect to Paris Life

Shop at the markets and small speciality shops - the shop-keepers will get to know you and you will be able to practise your French. Read newspapers, watch French films and television so that you are up-to-date with what’s happening in France and will have something to discuss.

Enrol in any class other than French - class, pottery, dance, yoga, philosophy – it gives you the chance to speak ordinary French, and to make friends, especially if your work, like mine, is solitary.

By the end of my year in Paris, the geraniums were blooming, I had a manuscript written and it was time to go home. Now it seems like it was a dream – and I can’t wait to do it all again!

Check out these helpful sites:

French Consulate

Paris Rentals

Accommodation

Alliance Francaise, Sydney

International schools