We Moved to Portugal. Life Had Other Plans

The original pull was Europe. My husband wanted to be closer to his mother and sister in England, to be on a European time zone for work, and there had always been a longer-term plan for our children to eventually attend school in the UK. At the time, I had just had a baby, and life in Los Angeles felt increasingly fragile. Fires, COVID, and the general unpredictability of that period. As Americans, the visa options made Portugal more straightforward than most other European countries, and slowly, an idea became a plan. Portugal made the move to Europe possible at a time when we needed something that was workable for our initial relocation.

First time in Portugal

I had never been to Portugal. I didn’t know the language, didn’t know the culture, and if I am honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what daily life would look like there. But sometimes decisions in life are not made because you know everything. Sometimes they are made because life seems to be pushing you in a direction, whether you feel ready or not.

All at once

What followed was a period where everything happened at once, and none of it on my timeline. We left Los Angeles and went to Colorado so I could spend time with my father, whose health was failing. Around the same time, my husband was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition that required emergency open-heart surgery. While he was recovering and my father was getting weaker, I was gathering documents, chasing paperwork, trying to hold the practicalities together. Looking back, what I was really doing during those months was trying to build a future while also saying goodbye to a past.

Documents ready

Once all our documents were ready, we scheduled our visa appointment in San Francisco. As luck would have it, my father passed away the morning of our flight. I don’t remember that morning clearly. I remember the phone call, and then I remember being in a hotel room in San Francisco, not entirely sure how I had gotten there, with a one-year-old, a four-year-old, a folder of documents for four people, and an interview I had needed to show up to. The days around that time have a quality of unreality to them that I still can’t quite explain. You keep moving, not because you are strong but because stopping doesn’t feel like an option. The interview itself was straightforward. We sat with an official one-on-one, handed over the documents, and answered a few questions. Then I went back to Colorado to grieve and wait.

About six weeks later, we received our visa approvals. Suddenly, this was no longer theoretical. It was happening.

Finding the best place to live

A month before the move, I flew to Portugal alone for four days to see where we were about to live. I landed in Lisbon, rented a car and drove to the Algarve by myself. I remember being struck by how calm everything felt. The roads were clear, the landscape was open, and for the first time in a long time, I could hear my own thoughts.

I stayed in a small Airbnb in the hills above Loulé and spent my days driving through Quinta do Lago, Almancil and Vilamoura, trying to imagine what an ordinary life might look like there. The first place I ate at was Spikes in Vale do Lobo, which at the time felt unbelievably fancy. But what stayed with me was not the restaurants or the scenery. It was a feeling that life here might be manageable. I remember thinking, quietly to myself, I could make a chapter of my life work here.

Not long after that trip, we left the United States and came to Portugal.

Staying on a farm

When we first arrived, we stayed at a farm called Quinta Vita for about six weeks while we looked for a long-term rental. I used to walk through the orange groves in the evenings with the children, ponies and chickens wandering around, thinking about how different our life looked from just a few months earlier. Los Angeles felt very far away, in every possible sense.

Our children’s education

The boys started at a British international school in the Algarve, which had always been part of the thinking. A bridge between where we were and where the longer plan had always pointed, which was England. It meant that even as we were finding our feet in Portuguese life, there was a continuity to their education that kept one eye on the direction we had always intended to travel.

Making friends

Slowly, without entirely meaning to, I began to find my footing too. I built friendships with people from all over the world who had also, for one reason or another, ended up here. I started writing again, covering local life, restaurants, cultural events, and that work grew into something I hadn’t anticipated but was glad of.

Going through changes

Then our family situation changed. We separated. And for the time being, Portugal was where I remained.

My eldest has since moved on to school in England, following the path that was always part of the plan, and the pull to be in the same country as both my boys is something I carry with me. That was always where this was heading. For our family, the UK was never an afterthought. It was part of the plan from the beginning. His younger brother is already on the admissions list to join him when he is old enough, which means our lives will continue to be tied, in very practical ways, to the UK for many years to come.

Glad to be in Portugal

People often ask if I am glad we moved to Portugal. The answer is yes, though not in the way I expected. I didn’t come here looking for reinvention. I came here because it was my husband’s plan to return to Europe, and then the plan changed, and I was still here. What I found, slowly and imperfectly, was that I was still standing. Still writing, still working, building something in the in between.

Ongoing story

For me, this has been a chapter rather than a conclusion. Portugal gave me room when I needed it, and I am grateful for that. But the story is still being written, and where it goes next has always been clearer to me than where I have been.