The Myth of Perfect Travel
Not every destination feels magical on day one, and that's okay
One of the biggest myths about travel is that every day feels like a highlight reel.
Beautiful accommodations.
Perfect weather.
Charming neighborhood.
Amazing food.
Life-changing experiences before lunch.
As it turns out... real life is a little less cinematic.
When we first arrived in Porto, things just didn’t click.
Our apartment wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t exactly the place you look forward to coming home to after a long day. Then Porto greeted us with a heat wave that made stepping outside feel like being a rotisserie chicken on a spit. Add in the hills, and suddenly every walk became a high-intensity cardio class.
Our neighborhood, while cute, wasn’t the liveliest. There wasn’t much within easy walking distance, so every outing required a bit of planning. “Do we need something from the store?” somehow became a logistical exercise.
After spending three wonderful weeks in Portimão, it was dangerously easy to start comparing everything.
Maybe we picked the wrong apartment.
Maybe we picked the wrong neighborhood.
Maybe we picked the wrong month.
Maybe we picked... wrong.
It’s amazing how quickly your brain can build a convincing case that you’ve made a bad decision.
Then my daughter said something along the lines of, “Life is like a hand of cards. Sometimes you look at your hand and think it’s not great. But every time you do one fun thing, you add another good card. At first you might only have one or two, but eventually you realize you’ve built a really good hand.”
She’s 22, which is very inconvenient for those of us who are supposed to have gained all our wisdom with age.
I haven’t stopped thinking about that. Because when we actually looked at our hand, it wasn’t bad at all.
We’d toured Graham’s Port Lodge. We’d wandered through Mercado do Bolhão. We’d eaten incredible seafood. We’d been on a beautiful walk with baby peacocks in Crystal Palace Gardens. We’d found tiny cafés, beautiful viewpoints, charming streets, and incredible markets.
One good card at a time.
The apartment hasn’t magically become more comfortable.
Porto still refuses to install escalators on all of its hills.
But the weather has finally cooled, hallelujah, which will make climbing those hills feel far less painful. This is the foggy view we woke up to this morning, and we couldn’t be happier about it…
We’ve found a favorite coffee shop, a favorite walking route, and a favorite pork sandwich that didn’t even exist in our lives a week ago.
Most importantly, we’ve stopped asking, “Is Porto as good as Portimão?”
Instead, we’ve started asking, “What’s one good card we can add today?”
Sometimes it’s a massage.
Sometimes it’s lunch.
Sometimes it’s a park full of peacocks.
Sometimes it’s simply realizing that today feels easier than yesterday.
I think that’s one of the biggest lessons of slow travel.
You don’t have to love every day.
You just keep collecting good cards.
And one day you look down, smile, and realize you’ve been holding a pretty wonderful hand all along.
Saúde! 🍷