Hi, everyone!
My name is Liuba & this is my blog.
You can also see my lovely husband Sasha, our son Leo & our dog Bastian (in honor of Bastian Schweinsteiger) at this photo.
This photo is already almost ten years old. A lot has changed since then: Leo has grown up, Bastian has become a rather distinguished senior dog, and our family has grown as well — our daughter Eva joined us and she is now two years old. This blog has been quietly following our life through all these years and places.
We love to travel together. Well, maybe, Bastian doesn’t, but we never ask)
We are from Belarus. We studied together at university and later got office jobs like many people do.
In 2013 we decided to change something in our lives. We got married and moved to Montenegro.
That was when I started this blog.
The name of the blog comes from a mix of personal story and a little wordplay. My name is Liuba, and love is literally “любовь” in Russian — that’s the first part. Monte comes from Montenegro, where our adventures began. So, Love in Monte is a little nod to both my name and the place where our journey kicked off. Over time, it became not just about Montenegro, but about all the places we explore, share, and fall in love with along the way.
At first the blog was just for our family — so they wouldn’t worry about how we were doing far away from home, and so I wouldn’t have to answer the same questions over and over again.
But gradually the blog became interesting for many other people too. Over time I started writing about different places we lived in, everyday life abroad, and moving between countries.
We spent two years in Montenegro and saw many amazing places there.
And we got a dog.
Later we lived in Thailand for about six months — and that’s where our son Leo was born, on the island of Koh Samui.
After that we spent about a year and a half living in Batumi, Georgia. It was a wonderful experience.
Then came a couple of years of moving around Asia before the pandemic. Every one to three months we moved between countries and cities — Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand again, Sri Lanka and a few others.
We were curious whether this kind of life was possible with a small child. It turned out that it absolutely was.
Looking back now, I’m very grateful that we decided to try it. One of the best decisions in our lives.
When the pandemic began we returned to Belarus, thinking it would only be for a couple of months. Instead we stayed much longer than expected.
During that time we even ended up with our own small forest and an old house in it. We spent an entire spring and summer restoring the place. It became a kind of therapy, meditation and retreat all at once — a quiet refuge from everything that was happening outside.
Eventually it became clear that staying there permanently wouldn’t work for us, so we moved back to Georgia — to the very same house we had lived in before.
Life kept changing, as it always does. Leo started school, I finally learned to drive without being terrified, and many plans had to be reconsidered.
And eventually our journey took us somewhere completely different.
Today we live on the Brazilian coast in the city of Santos. And our little Eva was born here.
These days Love in Monte is less about constant travel and more about everyday life abroad — local places, small routines, cultural observations, and the kind of experiences that rarely appear in traditional travel guides.
Sometimes I write about life in Santos, sometimes about Brazil in general, and sometimes about the places we explore along the way.
Living abroad is not only about sitting under the palm tree with a coconut in hand, or constantly travelling & visiting tourist attractions (well, honestly it’s a part of it, too).
If my writings will interest or help you someway, I’ll be very happy. You may leave a cooment if you want to know something specific.
Thanks for reading LoveinMonte.com! Tchau!