Sweden provides its citizens and visitors (with the right paperwork) with great social benefits

Like a Swede (a way of living) from Diego Ragnar Angemi on Vimeo.

One great benefit is paied parental leave which spans through many days! The idea to spend parental leave somewhere else (not in Sweden) came to us long time ago (maybe even before the baby). There were a lot of destinations for our parental leave escape and for a long time the Canary Islands was the main contender. The benefits were

• close to "home" in case of some medical emergency
• known environment - we have been there many times and we love it
• good climate - great place to spend the winter there.
• should be cheaper than 'home' country

all of the above was great but it felt somewhat cowardy besides where we really wanted to go was ASIA! So it has been decided to spend our parental leave (a few months of it) in Asia, more particular in Malaysia and Vietnam.

So December 23rd 2017 we packed our stuff (all we had), put together one big suitcase (of about 25kg) and left Gothenburg to spend 1 day in Stockhoml and fly to Asia.