Moving a family to Portugal via the D7 visa

0:03 

Chase Warrington  

Hey, what’s going on everyone, welcome to another episode of about abroad where it’s my job to introduce you to people who have built amazing lives for themselves in various foreign corners of the globe. We’re talking with expats and thought leaders about moving abroad, remote work, visas, and all the fun and practical knowledge that you need to know to follow in their footsteps. If you’ve ever dreamed of making a life for yourself overseas, maybe working remotely or embracing long-term travel, retiring or studying abroad, or even just taking a peek inside life beyond your borders, you’ve landed in the right place.

This episode is brought to you by my friends over at E residency of Estonia. If you’re a globe-trotting digital nomad, expat freelancer, or somebody with a business, whether that’s just you or an aspiring unicorn like some of the many other unicorns that have come out of Estonia, then look at E residency of Estonia the next time you’re thinking about where to establish your business. E residency is a digital identity issued by the Republic of Estonia, which is in the European Union, to foreign nationals. That means non Estonians giving them digital access to the country’s advanced online infrastructure and open business environment. And when I say advanced, I mean advanced they’ve been doing digital for decades. Ie residents can start a company 100% online from wherever they are in the world, run it remotely, open business bank accounts, and even submit their annual reports, all with their electronic ID cards. It’s literally international business without borders for location-independent entrepreneurs. Perfect for the abroad audience. The next time you’re thinking about where to establish your business, look at E-residency of Estonia via the link in the show notes.

Okay, now, back to the episode. My guest today shed some light on a subject that I’ve been hoping to get to on this podcast for quite a long time. Now, her name is Alison Baxley. And she’s the content creator behind the website, renovating life.com. She and her husband just moved to Portugal with their two young children. And they’re using what’s called the D7 visa to legally live in Portugal, it’s something that we all have access to. And the barrier to entry is pretty low. So it’s a well-known visa that I just don’t know a lot about. And she walks us through a lot of the details, but also just talks about what it’s like moving to Portugal, the place that they’re living in, why they chose Portugal, and what it’s like doing so with children, getting them set up in school and all that. So it’s a really interesting story about how they came to make this move. And then also just all the practical details that someone wouldn’t need to know if they wanted to follow in their footsteps. So I enjoyed this one. I hope you will as well. Please help me in welcoming Allison abroad.

Hey, Allison, welcome abroad. How are you doing today? 

3:09  

Allison Baxley  

I’m good. So happy to be here.

3:12 

Chase Warrington 

The life abroad experience like every day, there’s something that doesn’t quite go right. Something you’re not quite used to. And you’re like, why doesn’t this work? Allison, I know you’re probably going through this quite a bit as you’re making this transition just recently. 

3:29  

Allison Baxley  

Yeah, definitely. I mean, every single day that we’ve been here in Portugal, there’s been at least one thing that hasn’t quite gone the way that we expected it to go. And sometimes it’s something small, like, oh, you know, the delivery people came and we weren’t at home. So now we have to figure out how to go to the post office to pick up our package. Or sometimes it’s something really big like me losing my phone. And now I’m in Portugal, and I don’t know how to get a replacement because I can’t just go to the Apple store here. I have to somehow get a phone from the US and have it courier hear from you know, who knows, like, there’s sometimes it’s something small, sometimes it’s something big, but I swear every day we’ve had something you know that we’ve had to troubleshoot. 

4:16  

Chase Warrington  

It’s so true. It’s like my wife and I went and spent six months in Ecuador. And we were doing something like an E-commerce business, which requires the internet. And we like to get our apartment set up. And it was a great spot. Like we loved it. And they were like, Yeah, well, we don’t have Wi-Fi but you know, we’ll get Wi-Fi Manana tomorrow, and the problem and like we didn’t know about the Manyana culture, which is like, yeah, that means like anytime between tomorrow and like one month from now and it legitimately ended up being one month before we got Wi-Fi and like every day it was like, oh, yeah, tomorrow tomorrow. And so yeah, you just fight these like battles and sometimes it can be super frustrating. You’re like, why am I doing this to myself? 

4:56  

Allison Baxley  

Yeah, it definitely can be a bit frustrating sometimes, or even just you kind of have to laugh at it. Because the same thing here in Portugal, you know, everything’s on Portugal time. So you know, we have a landlord who has been doing some fixes around the house and he’ll say, oh, yeah, the plumber is coming tomorrow at four. And so will immediately as soon as the landlord leaves will say to the plumber is coming tomorrow sometime between 8 am and 8 pm. We’re not sure. You know, they say a time and you just have to assume it’s going to be an hour or two before or after that time. So yeah, you just have to roll with that, I guess roll with the punches daily. But you know, you walk outside and you’re looking at Sunshine and the water is beautiful. And you kind of forget about all the hard parts whenever you’re enjoying all the great things. 

5:49  

Chase Warrington  

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s an Iberian Peninsula thing, like Spain and Portugal sharing this culture around like really not caring too much about time. Like it’s not, it’s just not baked into them the same way it is for us. In the US and many other countries. I mean, even if you just pass up to the border, you know, the other border here in Spain goes up to France, as they care about time again. And it’s very interesting, like my Spanish friends here, and my Portuguese friends. I work with a lot of Portuguese colleagues. And it’s hilarious like, we joke and like company meetings and stuff. It’s like, oh, yeah, no, the Portuguese will be here in like, 20 minutes, and we all crack up about it. Because it’s, it’s just so it’s so true. Like, there’s just like this relaxed approach to time. And it can be frustrating when you’re like, you know, when you’re like, hey, it’s four o’clock, and where’s the plumber? But at the same time, it can be super calming, if you get into that flow, and you realize, like, oh, I don’t need to rush to get to the dinner reservation, like, you know, it’s at 8 pm. But if I get there at 830, like, they’re not gonna give my table away, because they’re not that concerned with the time. So there are two sides to that coin, for sure. 

6:53  

Allison Baxley  

Definitely. And my husband is one of those people that are 15 minutes early to everything. So I have to constantly, you know, slow him down and say, we can’t be 15 minutes early, because then we’ll be waiting for an hour. Because if we’re 15 minutes early, we’re, you know, 45 minutes earlier than what they expect us to be. So yeah, it’s a change of pace for us. But especially coming from New York, where everything is so fast-paced, it’s been interesting to figure out how we can slow down 

7:24

Chase Warrington   

Absolutely. Was that part of the motivation to make the transition from New York to Portugal like, like, you know, that pace of life or like a calmer life, or what was the push-pull factor there? 

7:37  

Allison Baxley 

Absolutely. I mean, even just being quarantined during COVID, the days just passed so much slower, because there was less to do. And yet with two kids at home and not being used to trying to work from home with kids at home, it felt very frantic. And so in New York, it feels like you’re always on this hamster wheel, where every day is the same until you get to the weekend. But then you’re so tired on the weekend that you don’t feel like enjoying the weekend. So definitely part of our motivation was to slow down, be able to be present every day and enjoy each day and not feel like we’re working towards some future goal that you know, has yet to be set.

8:20  

Chase Warrington  

That’s amazing. Yeah, it is kind of interesting in theory, right? Like, you could take that mentality and apply it to yourself in New York, right? Like, you could say, I’m going to slow down, I’m going to enjoy my weekends, I’m going to work less. Like in theory, it’s just a mentality, but like there is something about the environment and where you are that facilitates that a lot easier. So, for instance, I feel the same way when I’m in Spain, and even in broader Europe, I feel like the pace is slower, and there’s a more relaxed approach to life. And you know, that’s, it’s not such a hustle culture. And that calms me like I find myself getting in that flow. But when I go back home, and like I work, I find myself working more. I get up earlier, I work later, and I get back into the flow of the US. My mentality hasn’t changed, but the environment has changed, meaning it happens rapidly. 

9:14  

Allison Baxley 

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I’m interested to see when we go back and how we adjust. But you know, we spent a few months in Texas living with our family during quarantine just because, you know, they have a nice house and a pool. And we thought, you know, let’s get out of the city for a little bit longer and go spend some time there. And it kind of set us up because they’re retired. So it kind of set us up for this life of leisure, I guess, you know, doing a little bit of work, but just what are we going to do today? Are we going to swim today or let’s go to lunch? We finished up the couple hours of work that we needed to do and now we have the rest of the day to just have fun. And I think that was a nice way to sort of ease us into slowing down even more once we’re here. I don’t feel like we’ve slowed down too much yet just because it’s been sort of a hustle. Since we got here, we had a housing snafu and had to hit the ground running here. So I’m excited to slow down once we get, you know, fully settled. But like today, when we get done with this recording, I’m gonna go to the beach, because I can and I want to, I have nothing else that I have to do. So 

10:25

Chase Warrington    

Amazing! That’s the way to live life. Well, what was the housing snafu? I’m very curious. 

10:30

Allison Baxley    

So to apply for the D seven visa, you have to have long-term accommodations, meaning it depends on which consulate you’re going through, or which VFS office you’re going through. But for most people, that means at least six months of accommodation in the form of a lease. So with our application, we didn’t have a lot of wiggle room in the timeline. So we wanted to make sure we had everything covered perfectly for our application. That way, there was nothing that they could say we did wrong and deny it or have to redo anything. So we went ahead and got a one-year lease, we found a house that we loved, it was furnished and it was right in the center of town. It was, you know, a nice big modern house that was sort of the opposite of what we had in New York. We lived in the top story of a walk-up, third-story brownstone. So it was just going to be a lot more space for us to enjoy and have the kids run around and we were going to have a pool and everything was going to be furnished and ready to go. Once we got there, we wouldn’t have to be running around, you know, finding furniture and, and all that. So about a month before we moved, we found out that the owner of the house had sold it. And we’re in the process of trying to cancel our lease. So a lot of back and forth with the owners and lawyers and things like that. But eventually, we canceled the lease, and we agreed and canceled the lease. And we decided, you know, this could be a blessing in disguise, because now we can get to Portugal and look at properties in person. So there was a silver lining, but it did mean that we had to get towards go and look at properties. So we found a one-month rental for our arrival. And then once we got here, we hit the ground running. And we started looking at apartments and houses and just basically everything because we couldn’t be picky enough to say, oh, you can’t, we don’t feel like seeing that house, we had to look at every house. And so you know, after about three weeks, we finally found what we thought would be the perfect house for our family. And it’s worked out so nicely because the owner is Portuguese. And she’s very sweet. She’s a nice older woman, an ex-teacher, and her son works during the day, but he lives with her and helps take care of her and has sort of become our go-between, you know, with the language barrier. And he comes over and helps us fix anything we need to have fixed and all that. So it really did work out for the best, but it made the transition, you know, quite a bit more stressful, and we still have a half-empty house.

13:07  

Chase Warrington  

That’s not a pleasant Welcome at first, I’m glad that I at least let you know, like a month ahead of time, but still not the start you were hoping for I’m sure. 

13:17  

Allison Baxley  

No, you know, it’s just one of those things like Okay, now this is happening. So now we have to figure out how to troubleshoot this problem. We’ve got nowhere to live. Let’s find a place to live. Now as we’re troubleshooting sort of how to furnish a home without spending a million dollars, you know, just to get all the necessary things, beds, and couches, and we made sure we have the TV and the sound bar, you know, the husband got the TV and the sound bar right away. Those were priorities. coffeemaker. But yeah, we’re slowly but surely, you know, getting all the right pieces to the puzzle. So it’s fun like I enjoy interior design and we didn’t bring any furniture or anything like that with us. We only brought suitcases. So it’s been a fun part of the process to have to redecorate, I guess and you know, reassess our style, and based on the house is a bit older and has some Portuguese style. So you know, you can’t go modern, you have to kind of keep it in the right decade, I guess. But yeah, it’s fun. It’s just a lot of work. 

14:29 

Chase Warrington   

Yeah, you gotta take the good with the bad and find this, the silver linings in there. There are a few in there. And I’m curious about what you had to do if I correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you applied for the visa the D seven ahead of time before arriving. And you have to show that you have a lease during that process, or is that correct? 

14:50  

Allison Baxley  

Yes. So I think one of the craziest things about applying for the D seven is they’ve put a bunch of measures in place to weed out people who are coming over just to test the waters, they want to know that the people who are coming intend to live here. And they want to be part of the Portuguese culture and society and contribute to the country and not just more like a vacation and just try it out. So what they’ve done is they, you know, there’s a lot of requirements for the application for the visa, like having a Portuguese bank account with a certain amount of money in it. Having the lease for six months to a year, we had to get private Portuguese insurance.

15:33 

Chase Warrington   

You guys are doing this as a family like you’ve got two young kids and I often hear I think it’s probably the question I get asked the most, like, when people send in requests for types of episodes, things to focus on, or questions or whatever. It’s like, yeah, I love listening to these people’s stories, but like, I have kids, like, I can’t do that, or do you know anybody with kids that’s doing this? And your, your guys have made this rather big move, and you’ve got you, I think you’ve got your kids in school now, like, but let’s dive into that a little bit. What’s that process been like for the kids and planning around that and getting them into school and just in general, as a parent, how’s the process been? 

16:14 

Allison Baxley   

Yeah, I mean, they were big catalysts. And why we wanted to do this, we had not done a lot of international travel with both kids, because my son was only one year old, whenever COVID hit. So we’ve been, you know, either in quarantine, or keeping it local, or domestic, I should say, and mostly just visiting family. But my daughter, we had taken her on quite a few international trips as, as early as I think she was just over one the first time we took her to Europe, and then a few other trips after that. But part of what we wanted to experience and one of them to experience is living internationally and just understanding the world better from a different perspective, because we grew up in a small town. And, you know, we’ve become very worldly people and consider ourselves, you know, somewhat global citizens, but they had only ever lived in New York. And that in and of itself is its bubbles, you know, so giving them another perspective and having them understand what life is like for other people and other cultures and trying other food and just making other types of friends. And learning a new language like this is all stuff that we wanted for them and ourselves, but definitely for them, because it’ll give them so many opportunities in the future. And whether they want to stay in Portugal or Europe or go back to the states, eventually, when they’re, you know, off to college or, you know, whatever they may pursue later on, we just thought it’d be a great opportunity for them to be sorted at the level that my husband and I are at now, but just at a much younger age. So having their interests in mind was part of the process of making this decision. And yeah, it’s been interesting to find the right school for them somewhere that they can thrive, you know, in a foreign place. And we think we have found a wonderful school, it’s a bilingual school. So there is, you know, English and Portuguese, but it’s in a private Portuguese school where there’s a very global student body. So it feels like a nice mix between being at a Portuguese school versus an international school. 

18:21 

Chase Warrington   

Wow, that’s what I’m like, so jealous of your kids in this instance, because it’s like, I wish that I would have had that exposure as a young person, but like, even just on the most basic of levels, like access to learning a foreign language, as they’ll probably I mean, they’re, of course gonna learn Portuguese, English, they’ll probably pick up some other bits of languages, and then also just the exposure to a bunch of different cultures, the different ways people approach things like I think it’s such a good experience for kids. I mean, I’m not a parent, so I don’t have the perspective directly, but just my outside perspective is, what an awesome experience for the kids and an opportunity to grow and learn. And that’s such an interesting and rapid pace. 

19:05  

Allison Baxley  

Yeah, we’re, we were really excited for how they’ve already adjusted but just everything that’s in store for them, you know, we’re eager to see sort of how they embrace the language. And we’ve made several friends, just through the blog and through Instagram, you know, we’ve connected with so many people who are also making this move. And we ended up becoming sort of virtual friends with several families who all had kids who were going to start the same school in the same grade. So we came over here and instantly we had a little pot of people that we could hang out with and they were all you know, there’s a family from Canada, but they’re the parents are originally from Venezuela. And I think Ecuador, and then but they speak French, English, and Spanish, and now they’re going to be learning Portuguese. And then there was another family from California who we ended up living 10 minutes walk away And so our girls have become sort of best friends already. And they’re in the same class at school. So the power of the internet is sort of amazing because we didn’t feel alone, once we got here, which it would be very easy to feel alone, if you show up in a foreign country, and you don’t know anybody. And maybe you’ll make friends through school or whatever. But being able to settle in and like, instantly have friends has been an amazing support for them. And it’s fun for us too, because, you know, we’ve made friends as well. So we had that coming in, which made it a little bit easier for us to get settled, and especially for the kids to feel a little at home. And in such a foreign place, you know, to have friends right away is a huge deal, especially for my daughter.

21:00 

Chase Warrington   

Oh, yeah. I mean, you’ve got to, we all crave our community, our tribe, you know, and it’s a little bit scary to leave that behind and have nothing going forward to look forward to. But it is always amazing to me, like in my experiences living in different countries and talking to people on the show, you generally overcome that challenge, like pretty much everybody finds their way and, and settles in, you know, generally fairly easily. I mean, there are some horror stories or people who have bad experiences, but like, in your case, people connected with you through it’s been kind of through the kids and through the website and the Instagram, which we gotta get to also but you know, I think it’s something like a lot of people has a lot of fear of And my experience has told me like you always kind of generally overcome that because there’s a plethora of people out there that are in the same boat as you kind of also trying to overcome that challenge. 

21:50 

Allison Baxley  

Yeah, I mean, and especially as adults, it’s hard to make friends as an adult, you don’t just walk up to somebody at the playground and say, Hey, can you be my friend? So where do you find people who are like-minded and, and, you know, you’ll have similar interests and, and things like that? And the expat community here is quite strong. And while we wanted to have sort of a foot in that expat community, eventually, it’s, you know, the goal is to integrate into the Portuguese culture as well. But they’re pretty closed off as far as allowing, you know, new people to come in like they don’t like foreigners, they, you know, are great for expats, because they’re very helpful. They’re so nice, but being invited into a Portuguese home for dinner. Like, that doesn’t happen as often. So it’s good to have that expat support, especially, you know, the friends we’ve made are kind of from all over, but particularly having girls the same age that you know, can be in the same class and sort of become instant friends is great. But yeah, it’s, I would say, so many people are doing what we’re doing that it was easy to find a few who we could reach out to, from the very beginning. 

23:07 

Chase Warrington   

There’s a similar stereotype in Spain that expats have, it’s funny because like I have, I feel like I do have my foot. I’ve been here for almost four years now. So I kind of have my foot in both doors, both with the local community, but also with expats. And those two groups overlap quite a bit, as well. And like, you know, in a social setting, it might be pretty, pretty mixed in that way. But there is a stereotype like amongst the expats, that like, you know, exactly, as you said, like, you know, the Spanish are very warm and open, and they are like, you know, there’ll be the first to invite you to sit down and have a drink with them and put their arm around, you hug you, it feels very warm, but then to go to that next level of like, hey, come over for dinner, come meet my parents, you know, come to this family cookout or whatever, that that takes a long time. Generally, like, you know, there are exceptions, but that’s kind of like the stereotype. And then the Spanish have this stereotype of the expats that like, they don’t want to come here and learn our language. They don’t want to know, they don’t know anything about our food in our day. They just want to come to eat the tightest breakfast and a pie and sangria and go home. And so there’s like, it’s funny how it kind of goes both ways. It’s like, hey, let’s, let’s bring everybody together. We all want to hang out actually. I think it’s one of the fun parts about really integrating into society. And that’s cool that you guys already have that perspective. Like ultimately what we want to do is integrate, but it can be a challenge. And so are there any other ways that you kind of established a community ahead of time, like a lot of people that come on the show, they mentioned Facebook groups for expats, or any but are there any other kind of methods you might recommend if somebody’s looking into moving to Portugal? 

24:42

Allison Baxley    

Well, we ended up through one of the Facebook groups and realized that there were several of us who all had kids the same age and that we are all sort of interested in this same school. And so that helped and we ended up sort of making our little subgroup outside of that Facebook group and getting all the moms on the same thread, so we could all sort of get together. And then, you know, just a few weeks into being here, we had a meet-up at the park and let the kids meet each other. And all the parents were, you know, sitting around having a glass of wine and letting the kids play. So that helped. But I’m typical, you know, somewhat shy somewhat of an introvert, but somehow, like through this blog, and my Instagram, like really having to put our story out there, it’s helped me sort of be a little bit more outgoing in saying, hey, why don’t we meet up or Hey, like, normally, I would wait for someone to invite me out to do something. But I’ve sort of instigated a lot of these situations, which I think is a cool sort of thing that’s happened to me, I mean, I wouldn’t normally do that. So there’s something about being in a new place, or, you know, putting yourself in a new situation that makes you go outside your comfort zone. And I think that’s what’s so cool. And not just for me, it’s going to be for all four of us and all of these families coming over. It’s part of the challenge. And part of the reward of being here is just learning how you can push yourself. 

26:07 

Chase Warrington   

We’ll be right back to the show after a quick break for a note from our sponsor.

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Okay, now, back to the episode. Absolutely. I think this is interesting actually, like think about even when you just travel, like when you just you know, you go on vacation or something, you often like to meet new people, you’re very like, open, right? Suddenly, you’re making friends with the person sitting at the next table, or you talk to your taxi driver, and they end up, you know, giving you a tour of the city or like these kinds of things happen where like this would never happen to me back home. And it’s something about us, something about you at that moment, that kind of change like I’ve experienced this so many times. And then it was kind of like that for us like when we would move to a handful of different places over a handful of years. And like when we first got here to Valencia, for instance, like we were just meeting people left and right exchanging numbers and like instigating social meetups and things like that, and then that sort of starts to fade as you get back into you’re like, Oh, I live here, I’m kind of in this, you know, I’m in my bubble. Again, I’m in my routine or whatever. But I think it’s something good that happens when you like it when you move somewhere. And then you move outside your country and you’re sort of like you’re out of your comfort zone, and you’re amongst a bunch of other people who are also in the same boat, like you kind of find these parts of your personality that come out that you didn’t even know were there. And it sounds like you’re describing that a little bit. I don’t know if that resonates at all, but as I have that’s how I feel a little bit. 

28:55

Allison Baxley    

Absolutely. I think he hit the nail on the head.

28:58  

Chase Warrington  

 I think that would be cool to kind of talk a little bit more about Portugal as a whole and just kind of like what drew you guys to Portugal, and hopefully, it’s living up to that. That already but you could it sounds like you could have you know, the world was your oyster. You could have looked anywhere. And so what was it about Portugal that called you guys there? 

29:20  

Allison Baxley 

We have visited the school a few times on vacation. On one trip in particular I was here with two girlfriends and we rented a car in Porto which is in the north and spent about a week driving down the coast stopping along the way. And then we ended up in Lisbon. And in Lisbon. My husband came over and stayed the weekend. There. He was. That was when we were actually living in Iceland. And he was working during the week and so he came over on the weekend and we spent the weekend in Lisbon and I don’t know what it was about Portugal but something about Portugal just felt so inviting. I don’t think it’s hard to put you know it to work. but the food is amazing, the wine is amazing, and the people are so nice and sweet and willing to help you do anything. You know, the weather, it’s so sunny. And we’ve had a few days of rain, in almost two months of being here, we’ve had maybe four or five days of actual rain, you know, it’s not too hot, it’s not too cold. It’s, you have a coastline, everywhere you look, there are a million beaches to choose from. There are so many places I want to go and visit in Europe. But I have to remind myself, I have a whole country to see first like there’s, you know, I’ve not even been to the Algarve yet, which is one of the most popular areas of Portugal and this is on the south coast. So we’re going to spend a little bit of time sort of exploring Portugal before we make any bigger trips outside the country. But I don’t know if there was just something about it, we don’t typically travel to the same place twice, other than maybe London, because that’s just one of our favorite places. But, you know, typically, we want to go somewhere new. And we came back to Lisbon twice. And we just always felt so comfortable. And at home here. So in addition to that, it’s one of the easier countries to get a visa where you can live long-term. So and even Spain, I think, with the non lucrative is just a slightly more difficult process than the D seven. And you know, there was one point we were looking at London for a project for my husband, and we were trying to figure out, okay, well, how would we move there if we don’t have a job? And it’s, it’s nearly impossible to do. So, without a job offer? It’s really hard to get residency in a lot of European countries. So you know, that was something that we had to look into a little bit but we had to kind of already decide on Portugal. And then when we looked into the visa process, we said, hey, this is going to work like we can make this work. So we’re kind of a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants kind of family. I mean, we’ve made several cross-country moves, deciding one day to just move, and then within a month, we’re gone. So it’s not unlike us to just up and go. So our family wasn’t particularly surprised when we said hey, guess what we’re doing next? They said, Oh, God, where are you? Where are you moving to? Now? We’re going to Portugal. Everybody was like, okay, cool. Like, I mean, they just weren’t surprised. So yeah, we just kind of decided if we could go anywhere, where do we want to go? And Portugal came up from, you know, out of both of our mouths. And we said, Okay, well, let’s see if we can make it happen. And six months later, here we are. 

32:33  

Chase Warrington  

It’s so funny. Well, six months was rapid because I had a very similar situation, and we were just like, we liked staying. And we wanted to come to Spain, but we’re like, oh, well, I don’t know. I wish it was possible. It’s not you know, we were Americans. We can’t just move to Europe. And then my wife stumbled across a blog, which was very similar to yours. And a lot of ways like just saying, Hey, here’s how it’s possible to move to Spain. And we’ll never forget this moment. Like we were sitting at a pizza restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina. And she was like, Chase, look at this. We can move, we can go live in Spain. And I’m like, No, we can’t. And she’s like, Yeah, look, these people did it. And I’m like, oh, okay, I guess we’re moving to Spain. Like, it didn’t happen quite as fast. But it was just like, Okay, this is possible, we want to do it, let’s make it happen. So it’s, it’s cool to see that like, and I love talking to people like yourself, especially I think with kids because I think that can that can be that that blocker that says, Well, we’re just we can’t pull them out of school, or we can’t change their lives upside down like that. But as you’ve expressed, like, it is possible and can be such a net positive for them as well. So I love that story.

33:40  

Allison Baxley  

I was just gonna say the kids are kind of at the perfect age to make this kind of move. My daughter is going into first grade, my son is two. So he’s just in nursery school. And, you know, while we were pretty established in Brooklyn, and you know, we had our little circle of kid friends and things like that, you know, they’re young, they’re resilient, they can bounce back from, you know, sort of being ripped out of there, there would be I think, if the kids were a bit older, and might have given us a bit more pause, but we kind of said, you know, if we don’t do it now, it’s never gonna happen. Because then you do sort of get, I don’t want to say stuck, but you get like, really in the routine, or your kids get, like, immersed in whatever school system they’re in, or things like that. And so I think we decided it’s now or never, but yeah, it’s one of those things that we came up with last summer probably toward the end of May when we said, you know if we could go anywhere, where would we go? And that was when Portugal came up. And we said, Yeah, let’s go to Portugal. And then we spent the rest of the year sort of doing a bit of research, kind of figuring out how the process works and all of that, but not acting on anything. But on January 1, I said, Okay, it’s time to get serious. And so literally January 1, I joined the Facebook groups and I started, you know, downloading information and like really getting ourselves set up. And so January 1 to, let’s say what I think our initial application meeting was mid-April, so about four and a half months of solid, like document gathering and bank account opening and that kind of stuff. And then within six months, we were approved. 

35:20 

Chase Warrington   

Wow, that’s awesome. How cool. It’s great that you guys have made it work. And, your website spells it out nicely. I didn’t want to go too much into all the details of the D seven specifically, you know, I wanted to get a little bit of an overview of it because your website spells it out nicely, people can go there and just dive in and learn a lot more than we could ever cover in, you know, 45 minutes or so here. So, before we wrap this up, can you do a shameless plug for your website and Instagram handles so people know where to go to learn more about you guys? 

35:53  

Allison Baxley  

Absolutely. So as we started this process, I was a freelance advertising person, and my gig had ended. And I said, it’s now or never, if I’m going to do a blog, I better get started before my next gig, you know, comes up. And then four months later, I had no work that whole time. But I have been working full-time on this blog. It’s www dot renovating life.com. And it’s so far everything that we’ve had to do to get to Portugal, why we came to Portugal, what drew us into this beautiful country, and essentially, you know, renovating life or we are changing the way we live daily from you know, what we buy in the grocery store, to how we get around to, you know, what do we do after school because normally we’d come home, have dinner and go to bed. And now it’s you know, pick the kids up from school and have a playdate or go to the beach or just swim in the pool, things like that. So it’s all the ways that we’re changing our lives daily. And right now, the blog is focused on how we got to Portugal. So how to apply for the G7, how to open your bank account, how to exchange your driver’s license, and all these sorts of technical things. And now that we’re here, we’re going to switch the focus. And you know, how are we changing how we live every day and becoming more Portuguese daily? So I hope you guys will come to take a look. Maybe you’re interested in moving to Portugal and need some tips and tricks, or maybe you just want to see what our crazy family is up to. I don’t know, but love for you guys to subscribe. And then we also have an Instagram account for renovating life underscore calm. And I post a lot of beautiful pictures of Portugal, lots of daily life happenings, how we’re getting along here in Portugal, and lots of interesting stuff coming up there that speaks with some other expats who are living in Portugal. So there are lots of stories and lots of practical and fun information there as well. 

37:55  

Chase Warrington  

Perfect and I can attest it is a well-done blog. Like when I first saw it, I was like, like, this looks so professional. And then I learned more about your history. I’m like, Oh, well, that’s why there’s tons of awesome content, and Instagram is a lot of fun too. So we’ll plug those into the show notes as well. So people can go back to the show notes if they’re listening and just click and go follow along and subscribe. And also, while you’re listening right now, you know you know where to go. So Alison, thank you so much for sharing your story and a little bit about Portugal and your family and everything. The D seven visa, it’s all very interesting, and super pertinent to the audience abroad. And, I just enjoyed getting to know a bit more about the story. So thank you so much. 

38:36  

Allison Baxley  

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a lot of fun. 

38:39 

Chase Warrington   

You’re welcome. And thank you for dealing with all the technical difficulties that go to you, as well as the audience. If you heard a little bit of trouble throughout this episode, we apologize. But stick with us and thanks for tuning in.

Thanks for tuning in today from wherever you are in the world. Once again, I’m Chase and this has been another episode about abroad. For those of you wondering how you can best support the show, I have made it super simple for you. Just go over to the show notes of the episode that you’ve just finished listening to and click on one of the two following links about abroad.com/newsletter to get our monthly newsletter, no spam guaranteed, or rate this podcast.com/about abroad where you can quickly and easily leave a review for the show. It’s not just important to me it also helps more wanderers just like you find us. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to your podcast platform of choice. And we will see you again next week. Thanks again. Hasta Luego Amigos!