What our 2023 Road Trip to Portugal Taught Me

“The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ‘In Search of Lost Time’ — by Marcel Proust.

Our recent road trip to Portugal was more than just a vacation. It was a transformative experience that offered valuable life lessons and insights.

This article is the first one in a series about our travels and discoveries.

Both my husband and I felt a strong yearning to go far away for our holidays. We needed to escape after a long school year with all three taking turns getting sick and a long season of cold weather. We desperately needed a change in lifestyle and fresh motivation.

One afternoon in March my friend Roxy posted some beautiful photos from the beach, doing yoga, feeling the sand, and the music of the Atlantic waves. I just knew my place was there!

“At times, you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ― Alan Alda

My intuition told me we should go.

My husband was quickly okay with the idea. So I contacted Roxane and we planned our stay in Ericeira. In two weeks we had our bookings and our itinerary. We didn’t know much about the small coastal town we were going to, just saw the photos of the white and blue houses, the waves, and the surfers. For us, it was enough.

Plus, our motivation for going was in itself unusual. We followed our intuition, we were looking for something. We were traveling as a family of five, with three kids under 8 years old.

This was going to be an adventure in itself.

We would finally have proper holidays with our kids, no expectations. It was indeed, the first time we went on a real holiday that didn't include visiting relatives abroad.

Here are some lessons we learned about traveling with small kids.

If you’ve also experienced a similar road trip, I’d be curious to hear your learnings in the comments.

Flexibility

This is key.

Often times we needed to stop to use the restroom in designated places, even if we had planned not to stop until 1 hour later. We were basically going with the flow.

It always depended on when and how many kids would fall asleep while we were on the road.

On our 2nd day, for example, we managed to drive continuously for 3,5 hours, between Udine and Sousa, as our youngest had slept 2,5 out of the 3,5 hours. We could thus escape the traffic around Milan by a narrow margin.

Accordingly, we could enjoy a two-hour stop in Susa, a beautiful old town at the border with France, just before we were going to go through the Alps.

Patience

To scream or not to scream, that is the question. While traveling in the car, kids would start bugging each other out of the blue. Of course, there was always a reason and we could offer them solutions.

>>>> Solutions: <<<<

• Give them snacks (avoid leaking, melting or creamy ones)
• Offer the iPod with headphones,
• Offer the opportunity to nap,
• Coloring books and crayons
• They could draw something special they saw on the way
• Water painting for the littles
• Singing songs
• Listening to language learning podcasts (they all fell asleep while the French learning podcast was on!)
• Snacks: A million snacks are still not enough. Going into the gas station on the side can be a mini holiday in itself

Pre-bookings are a must

We had pre-booked everything with booking.com or Airbnb.com. We made sure they had either flexible checking or late check-in possibilities.

We often arrived in the evening and most places had lockers with the key. We were sent the code by WhatsApp and never met the owner in person.

Snacks

I cannot stress this enough. Give them snacks :D

I hope you enjoyed the first article in our Portugal trip series.

Have you been to Portugal?

Have you been on a road trip with small kids?

Let me know in the comments.

Stay human, be loved,

Gabby

***I originally published this article on Medium.***

Thank you for reading! Your support means a lot and fuels our passion for travel and my motivation to write about our experiences. It takes me a few hours to craft an article about various travels, and we do travel quite a lot! So expect more in the future :)

I write about our travels with kids and our parenting journey. I hope to raise money for our next trip this coming summer. We plan another road trip across Europe to reach the Atlantic again.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for all the stories in this Portugal Trip series and other travels with our kids too.

If you feel generous, send me a tip, Buy me a coffee, or a tea, and let’s chat in the comments.