About Rob + Kate

Wondering how a married 20-something American couple ends up moving to Florence, Italy? Yea, we get that question a lot!

We've both always been wanderers, dreamers and adventurers. Rob grew up in Indiana, went to boarding school in California, college in D.C. and found his way to Arlington, Louisville, Philadelphia and now Italy with Kate, originally from Bucks County, PA.

For years, we brainstormed ways to (legally) live in Italy. In the meantime, we tried living the more conventional life...moved to Louisville (a great city, btw), bought a house, got a car, etc. But, that life just wasn't meant for us.

It turns out that the answer was there all along: jure sanguinis AKA Italian dual citizenship. Kate qualifies through her paternal great-grandfather; Rob qualifies through his marriage to Kate (he knew it would come in handy eventually).

After 12 months of document searching, certifying and translating (including 6 months shacked up with Kate's parents in the Philly area), we made the move to Florence, Italy in January 2010. All of the hard work and sacrifice has totally been worth it. We're not sure how long will be here -- could be forever, could be another year or so. For now, we're living life by the seat of our pants and loving every second of it.

You may be wondering how we support ourselves while living abroad. Well, here is what makes our lives a lot easier: we own a marketing/web consulting business. All of our business is online. Our clients are all over the map. We are truly location independent. We've worked really hard to get our business to this point.  

Looking for someone to help design/strategize for your blog or website? Drop us a line. We're booked until May 2012, but would love to start brainstorming about your project!

So, that's our story. What's yours?

Our "Official" Bios

Kate has a BA in Journalism from The George Washington University and a MA in Higher Education Administration from The University of Louisville. Her professional background includes three years at one of the leading b2b publishing companies and one year in higher education marketing. Before founding Hash Consulting with Rob, Kate worked as an independent consultant for four years. 

Kate loves writing about travel, Italy, blogging and Italian dual citzenship, and has previously written for Design*Sponge, Travelated and Southern Flourish. If you'd like to hire her for a freelance writing gig, shoot her an email at hashconsulting {at} gmail.com.

Rob has a BA in History from The George Washington University and has just one semester left until he earns a Masters of Public Administration from The University of Louisville...he'll get around to it at some point.

Rob spends his days working on content generation, video editing and client services for our company. He has a way with people and our clients love interacting with him! Rob is also a bit of a technology Renaissance Man -- from CSS to Final Cut Pro to InDesign to Joomla, Rob can pretty much get any type of project planned and executed.

Some of our freelance writing...

5 Travel Tips and New Year's Resolutions for 2011 @ EZineArticles.com
Kate Moves Abroad Part 1: Dreaming the Dream @ Travelated.com
Kate Moves Abroad Part 2: Where to Go and How to Get There @ Travelated.com
Kate Moves Abroad Part 3: Money Matters @ Travelated.com
Kate Moves Abroad Part 4: Possession Obsession @ Travelated.com