For one month, we traded the Airstream for an apartment above a gelato shop in the Portuguese hills. The kids made friends in three languages. I ate my weight in pastéis de nata. And somewhere between the cobblestone streets and the daily routine of school-then-gelato-then-sunset, something shifted in how I thought about what "home" means.
What brought us there
Boundless Life is a co-living and education program for traveling families. You show up to a village (in our case, central Portugal) and join a community of other families who've made similar choices. The kids attend school together during the morning, learning alongside other world-schooled children with professional educators. The afternoons are free for exploring, playing, or, if you're Calvin, reading books in increasingly creative locations.
We'd been on the road for three years at that point, mostly just our family of four. The idea of being around other parents who understood this life, who didn't need the explanation, who weren't going to ask "but what about socialization?", it was deeply appealing.
The village
The town was small and perfect and ancient. Narrow streets. Terracotta roofs. A central square where the old men sat on benches and the kids ran in circles and nobody seemed to be in a rush to be anywhere else.
Our apartment was above a gelato shop. I want to tell you this was a challenge, that the daily temptation tested our resolve. It did not. We went every day. Sometimes twice. The pistachio changed my life and I'm not being dramatic.
Calvin started learning Portuguese from the other kids within the first week. Millie made a best friend named Luna who spoke French and Spanish and somehow the two of them communicated perfectly through a combination of pointing, laughing, and sharing snacks.
What slow travel taught us here
Portugal was where we first truly understood slow travel. Not as a philosophy we'd read about, but as a felt experience. We didn't try to see the whole country. We didn't have a bucket list. We just lived in a village for a month and let the routines form naturally.
Morning coffee at the same café. School drop-off, wave at the same neighbors. Afternoon walks through the same streets, noticing different things each time. Evening gelato (obviously). Dinner at the apartment, windows open, the sound of the village settling into night.
It was boring, by travel-content standards. And it was one of the best months of our entire journey.
The people
The families we met at Boundless Life became some of our closest friends. There's something about meeting other people who've blown up their conventional lives in pursuit of something they can't quite articulate. You skip the small talk. You go straight to the real stuff. Within a week, we were sharing childcare, cooking communal dinners, and having the kinds of conversations about parenting and purpose that you normally only have at 2am with your oldest friends.
I have a feeling we'll cross paths with some of those families again. The nomad family world is small. Once you're in it, you keep finding each other.
Why Portugal matters in our story
Portugal was the month that planted the seed for what came later. The idea that settling down, even temporarily, even in someone else's village, could be as enriching as constant movement. That community didn't require permanence. That roots could be seasonal.
I think about that gelato shop more than I should. I think about the view from our apartment window. I think about Luna and Calvin playing in the square at dusk.
We'll go back. Probably not to live. We don't know what our next chapter looks like yet. But we'll visit. We'll eat gelato. We'll remind ourselves that this all started with a willingness to try something different.
If you're curious about Boundless Life or slow travel with kids, I'm always happy to chat. Drop a comment or send a DM. We love talking about this stuff.
