Hello! My name is Amy Falk Petermann.  I am a Wife, Mom, Christian, and I had a dream. My dream was to live in Florida some day so I could go to Disney World any darn tooting time I wanted too.  Of course to also live in the warmth of the sun, and no longer worry about the winters of Wisconsin. Yes, I come from the land of cheese, Packers, and freezing cold temperatures. After falling on the ice in 2009, I laid there on the cold patch and while looking into the sky I said out loud “This would never happen in FL.”

We had always talked about it, maybe even joked about it more. What if? What if we took the plunge, left the security of family and friends for a new adventure? After so many vacations to Disney World, one thing was always the same- the feeling we all had on the way home. Sadness, depression that it was over, and just the overall final feeling of it. But what if that “arrival to FL” feeling could last all the time? What if we never went home? Thus, the idea was born.

Craig, my husband of 18 years, came up with the fantastic name, “The Relocated Tourist,” and I became the head and main writer. On February 26^th, 2010, we posted our first blog and held our breaths. Did we care what people thought? I guess a little since we were putting it out there for public viewing, but it became something bigger as time went on.

We became accountable, I became accountable. You can’t write a blog about relocating to Florida and then not do it- we were in, for better or for worse. Now of course if we really couldn’t have moved, we wouldn’t have, but we were 100% in and dove right on in.

On June 3^rd, 2011, a beautiful summer day in WI, we packed up our two vehicles with everything we had and headed to one last spot. It was in a public park, where we had played Pooh sticks so many times together, there we prayed and said our official goodbye to what we had always known as home. I remember taking it all in and just taking a deep breath of “Here we go.”

We arrived in Orlando, FL on June 5^th and we have been here ever since. The blog is here to help, educate, inspire and keep things real for those of you looking to relocate to Central Florida some day.  Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have to amy@therelocatedtourist.com

Enjoy the blog and welcome to the Relocated Tourist family!

“Going from ‘What if… to Why not?’ “  ~The Relocated Tourist