Today, four years ago, we boarded a plane in Miami. We traveled to a country we had never visited. We planned to stay a few years … to travel … to experience a different way of life … to learn new things. We were approaching 67 and worried that if we waited too long, our plans might be curtailed by changes in our health or fitness.
Our First Three Years
We didn’t travel as much as we would have liked during our first year in Portugal. For the first four months, we were in various stages of lockdown. We were also learning how to live in Portugal … so much was new and different. We spent many days in nearby Lisbon and Sintra and two or three-night jaunts to Évora, Óbidos, Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, and Algarve. By the fall of 2021, we were house hunting in Vila Real de Santo Ántonio. Just 11 months after arriving in Portugal, we decided to stay and began our home renovation adventure.
In January 2022, we moved to VRSA. Our Algarve base offered many nearby cities and towns to explore. However, most of the year involved overseeing the conversion of a 100-year-old union hall into a home. We only traveled outside of Portugal to have lunch in Ayamonte, for a quick trip to Seville, or when our workers took a break. In August, we visited Milan, Lake Como, and Switzerland. And then, during the Christmas break, we popped over to Málaga.
Work continued on our home in 2023, and we had to consider our Portuguese classes before making travel plans. However, when friends visited from the States, we encouraged them to depart from Seville. During the Easter school break, with another American couple, we did a “if it is Tuesday, it must be Rome” Italian tour. We ended the year on a Christmas river cruise, visiting Belgium, Austria, and Germany, then drove to Córdaba for a few days.
We committed ourselves to more travel in 2024. We began the year celebrating Carnival in Madeira. We continued the “M” theme spending Holy Week in Mallorca. In May, we traveled to Split to begin our small boat cruise in Croatia. We felt guilty leaving Onix at home with the dog-sitters and decided to take her along on a European road trip. We drove over 10,000 km, visiting eight countries over five weeks in July and August.1 We again took Onix along when we visited Rota and Cádiz. We ended the year with a three-week trip to Vietnam and Cambodia.
“Travel with the Windows Down”
While traveling in Vietnam, I listened to a New York Times interview with Rick Steves. I replayed portions of the interview, making notes of his comments. I noted five ways in which we are fortunate/grateful:
Many Americans are “escape tourists” … with only a few weeks a year away from a stressful work environment, they plop down on a beach at an all-inclusive resort. We are fortunate in that we are neither in a stressful environment nor limited by time. We are “reality travelers”. While we have not mastered slow travel, we enjoy exploring a new place with or without a guide.
We are grateful that we welcome “culture shock”. It has opened us up to learning new things in unexpected ways.
We have never been frightened to travel … nor are we threatened by cultures that do it better.
We are still relatively spry. Of course, my artificial knees cause additional security screening at every airport, and Denise has to travel with her pillow to minimize cervical pain … but we are relatively fit.2
Finally, we are very fortunate to have the resources to travel anywhere we want. Of course, whenever I say this, Denise reminds me of all the years we saved so we could be this fortunate.
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Enthusiastically Exhausted
Our trip home from Ho Chi Minh City took 19 hours. We crashed in a Lisbon hotel on Christmas afternoon before joining friends that night for dinner. Our circadian rhythms are definitely out of whack. However, undeterred, during our bus ride back to VRSA, I planned a birthday trip to London in February. To quote Warren Zevon/Tim Walz, “We can sleep when we’re dead.”
Desejo-vos boas aventuras em 2025, bom ano novo,
Nanc
Note: I have purposely not subtitled the many photos in this post. But I expect most of you will be able to identify where we took each photo.
While I have documented many of our stops, I have yet to touch on our week in Denmark.
There was a couple in their mid-80’s on our last trip of the year. The husband needed a personal escort on every leg of the trip to help him navigate the uneven surfaces, steps, etc. We looked at both of them and thought, we aren’t far behind.
"The husband needed a personal escort on every leg of the trip to help him navigate the uneven surfaces, steps, etc."
And yet, it didn't stop him from traveling. I suspect that you won't be stopped either. Slowed perhaps-- "slow travel" may master us all before we master it-- but not stopped.
Muito feliz ano novo!
Great read. I think so many people don't understand that it isn't going to be rainbows and unicorns the first few years. A great reminder that it's all a journey. Thanks for your article.