Michael Waite, his wife Whitney and three kids were on an 18-month round-the-world adventure and in Australia for the Southern Hemisphere chapter of their trip to visit family when COVID and family tragedy struck.
With travel plans grounded, the former Seattle-based family had to put away their backpacks and establish a home living in between Normanville and Naracoorte, two regional towns in South Australia, starting a total rethink on their three-to-five-year plan.
With regional South Australia home for the immediate future, Michael, a senior finance and operations executive who ran for State Treasurer of Washington State in 2016 , embarked on an unusual COVID side project, starting the Naracoorte News, which created his own headlines.
With the newspaper now fully up and running, Michael’s focus has shifted from his side-hustle to his main hustle.
Together, he and his wife, a highly experienced paediatrician, are keen to ignite their professional careers while living in a regional area. However, trying to reshape the international experience into a local market and a regional one at that, has meant the couple have faced multiple challenges. A question they are contemplating – is staying more of a short-term plan than a medium term one?
