When I moved to Tulsa with my son in 2021, it was supposed to be temporary. I was living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. when I applied for Tulsa Remote, which offers $10,000 relocation grants as an incentive for entrepreneurs and remote workers to move to town.
With my job fully remote and the long months of COVID lockdowns making it feel as though my son and I were living on our own little island, it seemed like a chance to explore a region of the country I might never have otherwise sought out.
After a year of pandemic life, I was only mentally prepared to commit to the required 12 months in this unfamiliar state. It felt like a bucket list challenge: Say yes to the unexpected, have fun new adventures, experience a part of the country that I imagined to be so incredibly different from places I’d lived — like Virginia, Maryland, and Vermont in the U.S., as well as Spain and Colombia — and see what might happen…