Recap Post: We're Back Home After a Year on the Move

We’re back home in Austin after an epic year, traveling to 13 countries, 23 flights, 44 Airbnbs, and 16 hotels!

Rowe and Lou turned 5 and 8 in June. Tye and I celebrated our 40th.

I’ve been waiting to write this wrap-up post until we were settled in, as I wanted to see how it felt.

It’s been great to reconnect and hug so many people we missed. It’s nice to be in a city you know so well, where I can harness the George Costanza superpower to know the best public bathroom given any two Austin cross streets.

The home screen has been rearranged with Google Maps and Google Translate no longer pinned to the bottom. Most conversations have been moved over to text, and 100s of WhatsApp threads have been archived. 

This post won’t be as long as the previous ones. In fact, it’s been tough to get myself to jump back into the past year as I shift so much attention into a new venture.

I’ll run through the top 10 reflections that feel the most present.

But first, a few thoughts on Portugal, where we spent the last 4 months of the trip. 

Portugal was never on the docket. We initially planned to go from Australia to New Zealand, and then New Zealand to South America. However, after realizing that the kids’ short-term schooling was the foundation for being happy in a place, we opened up our search after not feeling like we had great options on the initial routes. We landed on the perfect school, Hypha, in Colares, which is 40 minutes west of Lisbon (near Sintra).

The school, the community, and the surroundings didn’t disappoint.

We formed tight friendships with the parents and their kids. We looked forward to going to the beach after school or doing a hike after drop-off. As discussed in previous posts, the conversations focused on how families got there (life path, values, cultural differences). This added depth and overlap created faster relationships among families from all over the world.

We lucked out. In the first week, we saw a sign advertising tennis lessons at a court in the backyard of a house, just 3 minutes from our Airbnb. The owner of the house (formerly ranked #60 in the world) had various locations across Portugal, but this was his boyhood home. He had a cool coach from Switzerland who lived and taught there. Our family quickly gelled and felt at home whenever going over. I was thrilled to take the kids there a couple of times a week. The coach did not treat it like recess, but taught the core foundations while also making it light and fun. It made me realize the importance of a good coach, even more than I already had.

Beyond tennis, the country is a playground of activity, whether it’s beaches, surfing, hiking, biking, swimming, padel, or yoga. All of it in the most beautiful, layered landscape. We became friends with many of the business owners, coaches, and guides. 

Each day, there was a new place, activity, or friend on the horizon. The days were full, yet there was plenty of space. You felt alive and present.

Alright, moving on to a round-up style of top thoughts from the trip. There are so many, but I’m going to narrow it down to 10 and try to have each bullet build on the previous.

1. We are incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to do something like this. It’s not lost on us that we’re in an outlier position to be able to take off a year to travel. There were thoughts around this being irresponsible, thoughts around guilt, concerns about dipping into savings, and notions of losing the career edge accumulated over the years. Ultimately, what helped the most was detaching from all that and realizing the previous 18 years of hard work enabled this gift and experience. As mentioned in the first post, the book Die With Zero was a timely read that reinforced the mindset of not putting off life experiences, especially when we can do it physically, and kids are at ages when they want to be with you.  

2. Tye has always been a big proponent of not putting off adventure, and we were in lockstep throughout. I tell people how sideways things could have gone if we weren't a true team, balancing each other out in many situations where one person might be better or more comfortable. We gave each other the daily space for personal time, whether that was to go to the gym or have a session on the computer. Having that solo time was a huge energy refresher before coming back to the family unit. When we met single parents, I had great respect for the extra challenges they faced.

   

   Watching Portugal beat Denmark in extra time in the UEFA Nations League.

3. Let’s keep to the theme around luck. In Croatia, our Airbnb was 240 steps from the bottom of the town and the kids’ camp. We walked this twice a day because camp ran from 8 to 12, then had a siesta from 12 to 4, and picked back up from 4 to 8. Rowe had just turned four, and you can imagine that last trip up with him (and Lou) was not so fun. There were several more examples like this throughout the trip, where the family had to push a little. Years back, I watched a short clip from Dan Pink where he highlighted a research-backed mindset hack by not telling yourself, “You have to do something,” but rather, “You get to do something.” It stuck with me and became a common family motto. Now, I’m not sure 4-year-old Rowe screaming his lungs out and 7-year-old Lou complaining in the Croatian dark were taking in how lucky they were to be able to walk these steps, but I know the words were being said, and it was helping mom and dad. 

   

   The incredible view from the top of our Airbnb in Jelsa, Croatia. It also came with a good dose of daily exercise.

4. No doubt we did some hard stuff, but we also took the comfortable lodging route throughout the trip. What I mean is that we chose a nicer Airbnb/hotel, where we could have occasionally spent less and truly experienced what it's like to live in the location. Nothing extreme here, but definitely a place where I’m conflicted. If one of our themes was to build more resilient kids, did we cop out on this one? At the same time, we saved a ton by following the sun and staying in places during their shoulder season (1-2 months before or after their peak times). This enabled us to find less expensive options, have fewer crowds, and get a better (less touristy) feel of a place.
   Around the topic of being a tourist and how to get along with locals, I remember one person telling us, “It’s no issue at all, as long as you smile and are nice.” This resonated everywhere we traveled and is one of the simplest, yet biggest takeaways from the trip.

5. A common question we get is where we felt the most unsafe. The answer is we never felt unsafe. Sadly, we feel more unsafe at times in Austin than anywhere we've traveled. Not that we feel unsafe in Austin, but definitely more when you see the occasional homeless person on meth fumbling through the neighborhood or screaming at the park. On our travels, we never felt the need to lock doors. Guns and shootings are not a thing. Our first night back in Austin, Lou asked us, “Why do we need an alarm?”
   The story I tell is that in Bali, Uber for scooters is the norm. You see guys everywhere waiting on the side of the road watching their phone to see when their next ride will come through. For school, we would sometimes use the app to put one of the kids on a scooter with a driver while Tye or I took the other one. Occasionally, the driver would pull ahead because of the natural traffic flow, and you had no stress that he would be waiting for you (with a smile) at your Airbnb.

   

   This was in Vietnam with the nicest man, who showed us around his village for the day.

6. As Americans, it’s a shame that so much of our default is to focus on what can go wrong. Early on in the trip, a seed from a long time ago came up around the concept of API (Assume Positive Intent). The gist is in the name. Life is so much better when you don’t assume some malicious aim from others. Combining API with the advice around always smiling & being nice is a winning formula to open up a location. An example of this was in Portugal, driving back to the house after dropping off our kids at school. A young guy was trying to hitch a ride along a route where it was clear the bus was running late. I pulled over and drove him to his waiter job in our town. We talked in broken English about his town and about his love for Benfica Football Club. He was so grateful, and it was cool to walk by him from time to time at the restaurant. I remember that ride home from school and not many others :). 

7. The trip's central thought centered around how to raise good kids who have the tools to find their way in the world. The highs of the trip were when you felt like you were succeeding here, and the lows were when you saw streams of behavior in direct opposition to what you were after. There are so many ways to approach raising kids. Social media is filled with everybody touting the correct way, but I don’t think anybody knows for sure. Doing your best with unconditional love seems to be the only definitive truth, and what matters the most in the end. That said, I’ll try to pull out a few threads that felt the most persistent.

   • How you behave is the ultimate teacher. And man, it’s hard when many times all you want to do is yell, “Are you serious right now?” There’s nothing worse than when I hear Lou say something to her brother that you know is something you wish you hadn’t said to her. Like, “Rowe, how many times do I need to tell you?” Ughh. It remains the hardest thing for me: establishing clear boundaries and consequences without resorting to empty threats or raising my voice.

   • There is so much value in exposing the kids to as many teachers as possible. This felt like an unlock when considering that the price of a lesson isn’t just about the value of the skill itself, but rather the combined value of the skill plus the exposure to a new type of person/teacher. Our mindset became ‘default yes’ to seeking out anything new.

   • Taking the extra time to include the ‘why’ creates a better opportunity to minimize pushback from the kids. This is so simple, and yes, I was doing this before the trip, but I was definitely more lazy here than I should have been. Especially with Rowe, I learned that if you tell him the reasoning (even if he doesn’t understand it), there is way less argument. And even more obvious, why not take every chance to educate? For me, I wish this didn’t feel like extra effort sometimes.

   • Towards the end of the trip, Lou started to say people's names more and more when greeting people she knew. This has been something my dad has preached and lived (oftentimes overdoing it), and it has always stuck with me. Lou and I talk about how good it feels when someone else knows and says your name. And she takes in and absorbs these types of chats. I point this out because it’s been hard on the other end of the spectrum, around her lack of desire to lean into reading/math. I constantly try to remind myself how she is excelling at the more important human, social level. Her teacher in Bali wrote me this advice that has helped, “Stay patient with the learning journey, you really have to ride those waves of interest and engagement, push on with things that they enjoy and are motivated by 'academics' will come when she really has a use or need for it, keeping within touching distance in the meantime is a win.”

     

     Love this picture of Tye making a grocery list with the kids in our Airbnb overlooking the ocean in Portugal.

   

   I tried to put Lou into a weekly Portuguese soccer league at the local soccer field. She was a trooper for this first one (even scoring during scrimmage), but wasn’t a fan of being the only girl on the field. Tried to convince her it was actually a good thing, but she wasn’t having it.

8. When traveling, it’s People, People, People over Location, Location, Location. Sure, you don’t want to be in a place you don’t like, but assuming there are abundant choices to travel/live, the people and community around you shape the experiences and memories. It’s why slow travel trumps fast travel. I don’t think we fully appreciated how traveling forces you to form new relationships, make new friendships, and open yourself to so many new types of conversations. When you’re in your known routines with family and long-term friends, it’s really hard to open up space for anything new. I think Tye and I will be better here when in Austin. I can think of so many interesting families and people in Austin to lean in more with.

   

   We had a great community of friends from the school in Hypha. Tye especially bonded with an awesome group. They would sometimes grab coffee or hike after drop off.

9. I started playing padel in Bali and absolutely love it. Then in Portugal, I played twice a week. It made me think of this clip from Matthew McConaughey talking about giving himself guilt-free time when he started playing and enjoying tennis so much. Playing padel has further highlighted the importance of taking care of my body in a stricter way. The invaluable price I would pay to extend my ability/time to play something that’s a great workout, social, and fun.

   

   The padel facility in Ubud, Bali, was a short 5-minute scooter ride from our Airbnb. It was covered, so the best sessions were when it was pouring down rain outside. As with school, we formed great friends and a community through padel.

10. Finally, I was catching up with a buddy this week, and he asked me something that felt big, and yet I hadn’t thought about it. He asked, “What about yourself do you think changed, or what will you do differently?” I didn’t have an immediate answer, and I still don’t know if I have something clear, but what popped up for me is the importance of having harmony across all dimensions of life. How my definition of success needs to contain equal elements of family, friendships, personal/health, and work. At the same time, knowing the balance sometimes comes with sprints across dimensions (mainly work).

I am so happy that family and friends pushed me to write throughout the trip. What I didn't expect was that going away for such a long time would actually bring me closer to so many people. Thank you all for the support, reactions, and reflections. Each one was a shot of energy.

Much love and thanks for reading!

The Fausts