Discussion: Thoughts

I’d go to the US events then move to Europe. In Scandinavia, at least, there’s still snow and darkness in Feb-March so your o training would be minimal.
At least, that was my experience when I moved to Sweden for 6 months, but the first few weeks there was no training because of snow etc. Obviously this may not be the case if you’re looking to go somewhere farther south.

Spain is always a great place in winter for orienteering, especially with big competitions in the Costa Cálida and Portugal.

But if you're planning on living in Europe for a while, then I'd take advantage of the chance to have a few months stateside before then.

February is obviously still going to be quiet in the Northeast, but it'll start picking up pretty soon after.

Thanks, those are some valid points. I was thinking probably france, and to go do some orienteering in Spain/ just in general be somewhere with other orienteers just to keep motivation for running. I'm also planning to go home for NAOC. I'm mostly worried about having no motivation for training if I'm home february-april...

Depending on what our Team Trials plans are — the ESC needs to get on that … — there may be another good reason to start off in the US.