Our Family’s Year Abroad
Leaving Canada for a year of travel with our 4 kids — starting in Portugal
The Setup
Turning dreams into plans
Eric and I started talking about making time for extended travel over a decade ago — before we got married. We loved hearing stories from people who had pulled off a year abroad, and agreed it was something we’d love to do, eventually.
How could we?
A massive unlock for our family has been teaching our kids that can’t is a bad word, and turning “must be nice” into either something we admire or something we emulate.
This meant asking ourselves how we could pull off long term travel for our family.
We are dedicated planners and as part of our planning sessions, the travel transformed from a dream into a long-term plan. We found a window where we could make it work in our family and professional lives and started taking steps to make it happen:
- We started interviewing families who had done extended travel about when and where to go.
- The pandemic gave us a crash course in homeschooling and spending loads of time together.
- We researched short term schooling options around the world.
- We made lists of things we wanted to learn and experience.
- We created a budget.
and then….
We booked our first stay and our first plane tickets.
Now this was a real thing. The countdown was on.
Preparing to leave
Summer 2022 began with adding a new baby, transitioning professionally, and subtracting a home and a vehicle.
We welcomed Emily to our family on June 28, then shortly after, began packing all of our belongings into storage containers and moving out of our house.
At the same time, we started getting organized for a year of travel, and kickstarted renovations on a new home that we’ll *fingers crossed* be moving into when we return next summer.
Living the Dream
The travel still felt like an idea and not something we were actually going to be doing until our bags were packed and we were heading to the airport.
Leaving on a jet plane
We flew direct from Toronto to Lisbon September 1, on an overnight flight.
We steeled ourselves for an all-nighter of melt downs and angry passengers, but our kids did absolutely amazing with the help of some snacks and in-flight entertainment. The baby barely made a sound.
It was too good to be true, so we knew there had to be a catch.
The bag with all the clothes for our 4 kids never made it on to the plane in Toronto. We finally got it on day 5 and we are now lifelong Air Tag evangelists.
Arriving in Sintra
We are staying in Sintra, Portugal for the next three months. Sintra is a beautiful, historic community just outside of Lisbon. Its hills, forests and castles are filled with history and charm. Sintra is minutes from Lisbon and great surfing beaches on Europe’s West coast.
We decided on Sintra primarily because of an incredible program we found called Boundless Life, which provides housing, workspace, schooling, and community activities specifically for families.
We were blown away by our apartment and how thoughtful the Boundless team was in setting it up to fit our family and make the kids feel at home. We’ve been trying different dishes, exploring our new city, meeting new friends, and getting ready to start school (tomorrow!).
We will do our best to keep you updated. You can follow these posts by subscribing to this publication on Medium. You can also follow along on Instagram at @ourlifereframed .
