Preparing to move to Portugal hasn’t looked like cafés and coastlines — it’s looked like crawl spaces, inspection reports, and five trips to Home Depot in one day. It’s hard work, but it’s also proof that big life changes aren’t impossible, just demanding.

What looks like a dream move to Portugal is actually built on scraped knuckles, hard choices, and a lot of letting go. We’re selling two homes, shedding decades of stuff, and walking toward a better-aligned life—together.

Despite political shifts, immigration reforms, and bureaucratic delays, Portugal remains open and attractive, and we’re choosing to move forward with realistic expectations rather than fear. Ultimately, we’re moving not for policies but for a slower, more connected, walkable life that aligns with the direction we want for our future.

We don’t lack for things. What we lack is margin—time, energy, and flexibility. As we sell and gift away our possessions, we’re designing a life built around experiences instead of inventory.

As we get older, time doesn’t speed up — it disappears faster because our days stop feeling new. Life is short. We’re moving to Portugal to break the blur and make the time we have left feel longer.

Moving to Portugal isn’t as simple as packing a box and hopping on a plane—it’s a multi-step obstacle course of paperwork, passport photos, bank accounts, FBI checks, and purging decades of belongings. But each step, even the messy ones, feels like a step toward the life we want. And getting to do it together makes the whole process worth it.

My adult life has unfolded in three chapters; first as a soldier, then as a father building a blended family, and now preparing for a new beginning in Europe. Life #3 is the first chapter I’m creating entirely on purpose, driven by adventure, freedom, and time with my wife. If there’s one lesson in all of this, it’s that you don’t have to wait for life to change—you can choose your next chapter and build it boldly.

Two truths at once: excitement for Portugal and a sharper love for the Pacific Northwest I’m leaving. Choosing presence over logistics—savoring skies and mountains, lingering with family and friends, treating time as precious—even as I accept imperfections on both sides. That same daily practice of attention and gratitude is what I’ll carry across the Atlantic to start life in a new home.

We’re excited to move to Portugal—but not wearing rose-tinted glasses. We’re trading one set of challenges for another, on purpose, to build a fuller life.

In America, we’ve lived in fast-forward—always rushing, always consuming. In Portugal, that pace won’t exist, and that’s the gift: space for slower days, deeper conversations, and moments we’ve been missing.

Preparing for an international move has a way of redefining what matters. Every item we touch—whether kept, sold, or let go—forces us to ask if it belongs in the life we’re creating, or the one we’re leaving behind. Letting go isn’t just decluttering; it’s making space for a new chapter in Portugal.

What would you do if your parents’ future depended not just on family, but on the country they lived in?

When you make big changes, they might make sense to only you.