About

Welcome…

We are a familly of four, with dual French-Australian citizenship. After having lived 14 years in Australia, we moved back to France in Autumn 2020 with the plan to settle in the countryside.

We created this site to document this new adventure.

Lacanbio?

“Lacanbio” is a mix of our familly names and does not mean anything in French. “El cambio” in Spanish means “the change”, so we thought it was relevant too!

The start

When we decided to move back to France, we only knew that we wanted to live in the Southwest part of France. While still living in Australia, we looked at many different maps of France found online. Those maps gave us great information about the climate, infrastructures, costs of living, rainfall, sun, nuclear sites, mines, etc… That allowed us to narrow the location to 3 “departments”: Dordorgne, Correze and Haute-Vienne.

We also listed some hard requirements for us:

  • House and cottage with at least 5000 sqm land
  • Proximity to a school/high school
  • Proximity to a small/mid-size town
  • Good rainfall and sun exposure to grow food
  • Altitude between 100 and 500 meters
  • No immediate threats/polluters
  • Diverse local culture

After our arrival in France, we searched for properties that met those requirements. We visited about 20 properties and we bought the last one we visited!

Property’s overview

The property is located near Excideuil in the Dordogne Department. It is part of a small village of about 460 inhabitants.

The property’s size is just over 10 hectares (25 acres). Approximately 60% is woods, the rest is grassland and the different buildings. The property includes a stone house where we’ll be living in, a cottage for familly/friends & rental, a barn, a bread oven and a swimming pool. Oh, it came with 3 chickens too!

So all in all, it did fit all of the requirements listed above, and more!

See tab “Site analysis and design” for more info.

Our goals

  • Short term goals:
    • Grow healthy food for family and friends
    • Observe, learn and enjoy the surrounding nature
    • Improve ecosystems
    • Engage with local community
    • Get revenues from the cottage’s rental
    • See our famillies and friends more often!
  • Long term goals:
    • Be more resilient and as autonomous as possible (food, energy, water, etc.)
    • See thriving ecosystems
    • Get revenues from:
      • Selling food locally
      • Designing sites for others
      • Sharing knowledge via workshops, classes, etc.

A few pictures