After settling in France, we tested a lot of services and products, some great, some not worth it. These are the ones we actually use and recommend. If it’s listed here, it’s because it’s worked well for us.
Banking
- Schwab Investor Checking – The best checking account for travelers, bar none. All ATM fees are reimbursed, worldwide. Plus the account is totally free.
- Wise – The easiest way to convert between currencies, an absolute essential for expats. Every month, we deposit USD from our brokerage account, convert to Euros, and pay our rent and utilities straight from our Wise account.
- Interactive Brokers – The best brokerage account for expats, and possibly the only one supporting Americans in France. Better currency conversion rates than Wise (.2% vs .3%), albeit less convenient for everyday banking. Sign up through our referral link above and earn up to a $1000 bonus.
- Bonus tip: You can generate your monthly account statements in French and in Euros, eliminating the need to get your bank statements translated when renewing the Carte de Séjour.
Insurance
- Feather – VLS-TS visa compliant health insurance for expats, which can be converted into a Mutuelle after joining France’s Social Security system and receiving the Carte Vitale. Get $15 off per policy with code FRANCEFI.
Finance
- Capital One Savor – A great travel credit card with no annual fees, plus 3% back at grocery stores, our biggest spending category.
- Chase Amazon Card – One of the few no-fee cards with no foreign transaction fees and travel protections like Car Rental Coverage. Great if, like us, you don’t have a high annual fee travel card like the Chase Sapphire or Capital One Venture.
- Our Spreadsheet Budget Tracker – While we’ve used tools like Personal Capital before, we prefer not to give access to all of our financial accounts. Now we track all of our spending on our own spreadsheet. By popular request, its available for free to download.
Travel Hacks
- Maya eSIM – The easiest and cheapest way to have phone service the moment you land in a new country. We simply load the eSIM before leaving, and when we land, switch from our normal French eSIMs to Maya’s eSIM. Boom, we’ve got connectivity before the plane taxis to the gate.
- Google Voice – We ported our American phone numbers to Google Voice for $20 each, and now we don’t have to maintain a cell plan but can keep our old numbers. We’ve had no issues receiving 2FA texts, sending images, or being in group chats.
- iPostal1 – What we use for maintaining a mailing address in the US. A bit of a hassle to set up, as a Postal Service form must be notarized, but it works well once everything is in place.
- Opera Browser – We don’t use a VPN and rarely run into websites that need one. But when we do, we use the Opera browser’s free built-in VPN for appearing in the US.
Books
- A History of France, by John Julius Norwich
- A comprehensive history of France, from Julius Caesar up to WW2. A very approachable and easy to read history book that covers France in broad strokes
- The Oxford History of the French Revolution, by William Doyle
- A fantastic deep dive into the end of the French monarchy and the course of the French Revolution. Excellent at describing the why, not just the what.
- Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts
- An extremely detailed account on the life of Napoleon, based on the thousands and thousands of letters written by and about him.