Get your passports ready! You’re headed across the pond, any pond, to Outside the Continental United States!
Headed to the castles of Germany, the vineyards of Italy…. Or keeping it in country and headed to the beaches of Hawaii or the Northern Lights of Alaska? Wherever the military has told you is home, Mission: Milspouse will have you hanging with the locals in no time.
From the beginning of your journey to your trip back to the continental U.S., we have the information you need.
Whether it’s baggage allowance at the airport, living minimally while your stuff leaves before you, how to find your tribe in a different country, or just how to emotionally and practically prepare for the move, Mission: Milspouse writers are ready to speak from experience and get you where you need to be.
Your adventure of a lifetime starts here at Mission: Milspouse!
I always say that it’s worth taking a shot on an OCONUS PCS. Living overseas in a new place can be exciting with plenty of things to see and do.
But it can also feel isolated, scary, and too new for comfort.
I spent three years overseas in Germany, living in a very small German village, so I feel I have a little bit of perspective on this. I didn’t live on post. I was in a set of six row homes, all of whom were Americans, but we were surrounded by Germans.
It. Was. Hard.
We didn’t have an option to bring a car with us to our new OCONUS location, unless of course we wanted to pay to ship it and have it brought up to Japanese emissions standards and drivability requirements on our own dime.
So, no option, really.
Located at the official end of the Alcan Highway, the highway connecting the contiguous United States to Alaska, in the very small community of Delta Junction, Fort Greely is situated between the White Mountains and the Alaska Range. It is home to the nation’s arsenal of ground-based interceptor missiles. The post also hosts the Army’s Cold Regions Test Center and supports rotational units who train in the Donnelly Training Area, also known as the DTA. Fort Greely is also the only installation to close under BRAC and reopen.
There is nothing that screams “spring has arrived” as fresh flowers. You can smell them wafting in the air—wisteria, lilacs, roses. A symphony of colors, shapes, sizes, and scents all intermingling together remind me that winter has shed her coat, donned her sundress, and let all her beauty radiate through.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, embodies this more than visiting Keukenhof Gardens in beautiful Holland, and that is the next stop on our virtual passport around the world.
While OCONUS living has its challenges, which I’ve written about in the past, traveling is not one of them. Actually, to rephrase, the logistical part of traveling in foreign countries can be ultra-challenging but actually traveling is pretty darn cool. In the little more than a year we’ve been stationed in Italy, we’ve seen and done things I only saw on Pinterest, tucked away in a file I named “Bucket List.”
On May 22 of last year, we got our OCONUS assignment news!
It was exciting and then it wasn’t.
I was a giant ball of stress for most of our prep time before relocating overseas. I’m not going to say that the instant we landed in Japan was the moment I felt all the stress melt away, but it was close. Let’s say it was our first full day here.
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