The Golden Bachelorette’s Joan and Chock Aren’t Moving In Together but Will Retreat to N.Y.C. for 'Alone' Time

Joan Vassos made it clear from the beginning of her Golden Bachelorette journey that she didn’t want to move out of Maryland for a man.

But before Chock Chapple popped the question to Vassos in the Nov. 13 finale, the 60-year-old insurance executive, who lives in Kansas, proposed getting an apartment with her in New York City.

“We're going to be going back and forth between Kansas to Maryland and to New York,” Chapple tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with Vassos, 61. “We'll have a full-time place in New York and whenever we get the opportunity, we're going to be there. We're going to get it figured out this next year.”

In the immediate future, Vassos plans to spend time with Chapple’s family in Wichita, Kan., and “he'll do the same thing in D.C.,” she says. “But when we want to be alone together, we'll probably be in New York.”

The couple will be flying to N.Y.C. on Friday, Nov. 15, and will start looking at apartments on Monday, Nov. 18. Vassos says she and Chapple have their eyes on living in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood.

“That's what we think right now,” she says.

Choch Chapple proposing to Joan Vassos in 'The Golden Bachelorette' season 1 finale.Disney/Gilles Mingasson
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Chapple and Vassos hope to secure a spot in New York City by Christmas, because one of the mom of four’s holiday traditions includes heading to the Big Apple on Dec. 26. “If nothing else, we'll certainly get a hotel or do an Airbnb,” Vassos says. “But I love that tradition. I love Christmas in the city.”

The newly engaged pair, who have a total of six kids between them, will be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in Maryland; the former will give Chapple and Vassos’s children the chance their first opportunity to spend a significant amount of time together.

“Our kids have gotten to know each other a little bit over the phone and texting, but they're finally going to get to spend four or five days together,” says Vassos, who also spends Thanksgiving with her late husband’s family. “We can't wait for them to be together because we feel like they are going to have a lot of fun with each other. It's weird at this age to welcome a new stepsibling into your life, and that's what it's going to be for them.”

Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos and her fiancé Chock Chapple.Disney/Christopher Willard
The Golden Bachelorette says her family prepares the Thanksgiving meal “as a group,” but “there's certain things that your kids want you to make because it's like the classic they've grown up with, so I'll be doing all those dishes.”

Chapple and Vassos have another trip to plan: one to Disney World in Florida that host Jesse Palmer gifted them and their families during the Nov. 13 finale.

“That's the gift of a lifetime,” Vassos says. “Disney World is very, very fun, and you have to do that with your kids and your grandkids. It's a dream that I had before John passed away. We were just getting grandkids, and I looked at my friends who are taking their grandkids to Disney World and I thought, boy, that's going to be really hard when I have to do that alone.”

But now, “I have this wonderful man that I get to do it with,” Vassos says of Chapple. “They gifted that to us, so that was just a dream come true.”

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The Golden Bachelorette is streaming now on Hulu.