Happy New Year, friends and family!

2025 has been quite the year for our family. We left the USA in early January to travel the globe in search of a new place to call home. It was a scary prospect full of uncertainty, and it was also filled with the most incredible adventures.

Over the year, we visited 33 countries, stayed in 68 different accommodations, and traveled more than 90,000 kilometers by train, plane, bus, car, boat, and everything in between. In many places we played tourist, staying just a few days, and in the places we seriously considered settling down, we stayed longer and built in time for real life, rest, and recovery.

Some of our highlights include riding elephants in Thailand, bathing in thermal springs in Iceland, exploring the excavations in Pompeii, going to a flamenco performance in Sevilla, making fresh pasta in Tuscany, seeing a ballet in the Sydney Opera House, learning to row gondolas in Venice, juggling on the street for spare change in Dublin, dining with capybaras in Tokyo, praying at a water temple in Bali, feeding monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar, eating döners in Berlin, sleeping on an overnight train in Norway, visiting a night zoo in Singapore, entering a working windmill in Belgium, mudlarking on the Thames in London, walking on Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, exploring castle ruins on Loch Ness, eating baguettes in Paris, cliffside driving the Amalfi coast, feeding wallabies in Melbourne, attending the international redhead festival in the Netherlands, petting tigers in Thailand, braving the red light district in Amsterdam, riding a double-spinning ferris wheel in Wales, swimming in the Blue Lagoon in Malta, trick-or-treating in Vancouver, and many, many more moments we’ll never forget.

Out of all our travels, we fell in love with Australia immediately! it feels comfortable and familiar. It’s clean, safe, welcoming, and offers a unique mix of individuality and community. It truly feels like a place where we can not only survive, but thrive.

So we got serious about immigrating to Australia. We kicked off the process while we were travelling in Thailand, wrote our applications in New Zealand, fingerprinted ourselves for background checks in Czechia, and got medical exams in Denmark. You can imagine our joy when we found out we’d been granted permanent residency. Knowing we all have the option to live, work, and study here for the rest of our lives still feels pretty surreal.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve settled into life in Melbourne. Rachel found us a great house in an amazing location, Marc started a new job in robotics, and the kids have signed up for drama and theatre classes. Our home sits across from an urban forest full of trails, ponds, and native plants—and we’ve officially named it The Gnome Home.

We know it’s far, but we would absolutely love for you to come visit us at the Gnome Home in Melbourne.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, and Happy New Year,

Marc, Rachel, Abigail (13), Evan (11), and Isaac (9)

Our New Address:

35 Bruce St.
Malvern East, VIC 3145
Australia

Family Email: strausshouseoz@gmail.com

Marc’s Phone: +61 493 346 616

Rachel’s Phone: +61 461 422 577