In November 2025, we boarded a plane to fly to a country we had never been to before to see if it could be our new home.
It’s one year later.
We’ve been living in Portugal for 3 months, and know we made the right choice. Our scouting trip was one of the most pivotal, critical parts of planning for this move, both logistically and mentally.
Why take a scouting trip?
I know that it’s not an option for everyone. Not everyone has the privelege or luxury of the time it takes to visit a country before moving, or the money to fund it, or the time to take off work. We had the time, but we had to adjust our travel plans & budget to make the trip happen. I would absolutely recommend anyone thinking about moving to a new country take one if at all possible.
A scouting trip gives you a chance to visit a place through the lens of “could this be home?” which does not happen when you visit for a vacation. Vacations are usually just for fun, sightseeing, experiencing new things, relaxing, or some combination of those. A scouting trip can be some of those things too, but the focus is on the big question: is this where we want to live?
How we chose places to visit.
Once we started to consider moving, I spent months searching Facebook groups and the internet in general researching things like access to public transportation, population sizes, schools, access to hospitals, etc. I decided what our most important factors were, which will be different for every family. And some of the things I thought would be most important have turned out not to matter much, or at all.
We wanted a town that was similar in size to where we were living in Maryland— a smallish suburban area close to larger towns or a city. I knew that the weather can vary greatly in a small distance, and we wanted moderate temperatures— no extreme heat or cold. Not isolated, but not directly in the big cities. Access to public transportation. Not a tourist area (like the Algarve, where the summer population is exponentially larger than the winter population). Year round homeschool communities. Moderate cost of living (ie, again, not directly in Lisbon or Porto). Access to hospitals and healthcare. We came up with a list, and then planned the trip around it.
What our scouting trip looked like:
We spent 3 weeks driving around Portugal, exploring towns, villages and cities that we thought matched our needs on paper. They were all bigger towns along the Silver Coast, like Ericiera and Figueira da Foz. Turns out, none of those places was where we felt most at home. We spent our first few days in Coimbra, and thought the love we felt for that city was just from the magic of being somewehre totally new. It wasn’t. It’s still the city we enjoy most. We didn’t expect much when we visited a learning community south of Coimbra… but it ended up being the place that felt like home. So many people have asked why we chose this area. Small villages and little towns that aren’t remarkable to most Americans… but it’s where all 4 of us felt grounded and connected.
We visited grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, met with other immigrant/ex pat families. We visited parks, went hiking, went to A LOT of beaches. I wanted to also visit libraries and use public transportation, but either happened during the trip. We made sure to visit places and do things that I knew were big parts of our lives and that we wanted to continue with. We spend a lot of time outdoors, so we visited parks and went hiking. We have some dietary needs and I wanted to know what navigating grocery stores and restaurants was like. We wanted to continued to homeschool in some capacity, so I found, reached out to, and connected with other homeschool families to meet up with while visiting.
Logistics.
After making our best guesses for towns, we booked accommodations in each of them. I decided to go with booking . com since we could make sure we had kitchens and laundry. Kitchens to cook for ourselves (to save money, because of dietary needs/food intolerances, and to give a better feel for living here), and laundry because we only packed carry ons— we would definitely need to wash during those 3 weeks. We tried to stay in each place at least 3-5 days, using it as a home base to explore nearby areas. It was honestly too much. It was really disruptive to all of us, we couldn’t settle in anywhere, and it’s not nearly enough time to really get a feel for any one area. AND, I still think it was the best way for us to do a vibe check on as many areas as possible during the trip.
We obviously needed a car, and booked through sixt, which went well. I knew we couldn’t use a compact tiny car because we’d have our luggage, and I knew we didn’t want an SUV or anything large so I booked (what I thought was) a smallish car. It ended up being more like a station wagon. Which is way too big on tiny European streets and miniscule parking garages. We did ok with it anyway. Although there was one place where we parked in the garage for the apartment… and it took literally an hour to Austin-Powers-799-point-turn it to get back out.
Including & supporting the kids.
I knew from the very beginning that if we moved, it would be possibly the biggest adjustment the kids would ever have to go through. With over 15 years of providing therapy to kids, teens and families, I wanted to make sure we were helping them through the process as much as we could. It started even before the scouting trip— but most of that will be a whole other blog post. For now, here’s how we included them with the scouting trip.
I picked up some guide books on Portugal, and we looked through them together. They were each able to choose a place or 2 to visit that had nothing to do with us moving. The Youngest immediately picked out a picture of a place he wanted to visit, so we added it to the list (turns out, he chose a fort in the Berlengas, which required an overnight near the coast, a high speed ferry ride, and a hike to visit). They wanted to go swimming, so we planned a few days down in the Algarve at the end to just relax and play at the beach. They both wanted to eat as much gelato as possible. And McDonald’s (the McDonalds here all have gluten free options, which do not exist in the US so they’d never had it before). And castles! So, we made sure to stop at castles, McDonald’s, and gelato shops all throughout the 3 weeks.
Food is a big deal for most kids. We’re very lucky that ours are not picky eaters, but they do love food and have some food intolerances that take consideration. In deciding where to stop to eat, or what to order, or what foods to pick out at the grocery store— we tried to give them as much control as possible. We honestly ate a lot of rice noodles, chicken, and steamed veggies since those were easy to find safely gluten free in grocery stores, and that was totally fine. And of course, McDonald’s. We stopped at McDonald’s almost as much as we stopped at castles.
Travel is hard on kids in general, but having so much moving around during the trip made it harder. We kept a routine as best as possible, and as similar as possible to home: morning snuggles and breakfast, consistent meal times (not as easy, but still mostly doable), some TV/video game time in the afternoons or evenings, calm/quiet activities between dinner and bedtime. Sometimes things had to shuffle around, but keeping it consistent helped their brains and bodies (and ours) stay in our rhythms and be chill.
If you’re thinking, dreaming, or planning a move… find a way to make a scouting trip work. You and your family won’t regret it.