Why We Chose to Leave the United States & Move to Europe
On December 12, 2022, my family and I boarded a plane,
and moved to Portugal.
I never intended to keep it a secret, but over the past year, our lives became incredibly public. It felt like overnight everyone knew everything about us - including our home address. A few things happened that were a little creepy and had us both feeling a bit over-exposed. Between the restaurants and my social media, it was a lot.
We were also moving to a small village here in Portugal, and since the pandemic, this little town has had an influx of ex-pats and international investors, resulting in a higher cost of living for the locals. The last thing I wanted to do was to contribute to that imbalance. I intend to proceed consciously and try not to add to contribute to any of those issues as much as I can.
Social media is a tricky balance I’ve discovered. While I love sharing my creative visions, projects, and parts of my life, I’ve also learned that boundaries are necessary. I’ve made so many incredible connections and friends through my Blog and Instagram, and for that, I’m incredibly grateful, and I look forward to continuing to do so. I’ll continue to share with you here and on social media, but just note, this time around, I won’t be sharing evvvverything:)
I’ve received tons of questions about why we moved, and the truth is, there is no short answer. I kept it light on Instagram because I had no intention of sparking a debate (which can sometimes happen there), and I still have zero desire for one, just simply to share my personal feelings and experience. There’s a variety of reasons why we left the States, both good and bad.
So I guess let’s start at the beginning. As a kid, I grew up traveling domestically but never traveled outside of the US. After my first big trip to Bali in 2012, my mind was blown, I knew I wanted to live abroad.
Laura in Bali Indonesia
Laura & Strader in Bali, Indonesia
I launched my jewelry line, Turquoise + Tobacco in the Fall of 2014. I manufactured the line in Bali, with the hopes that we’d spend half the year in Bali, and half the year in California. Thinking that Strader and I would eventually end up moving there.
7 months pregnant with Coyote in the California Poppy Fields
But just as my line was gaining momentum, in 2016, I got pregnant with Coyote (also the year of the Zika virus - oh yeah, remember that one?), and traveling to Bali was a no-go if you were preggers.
41 weeks pregnant with Coyote, June 2017
Managing design and production remotely became increasingly difficult. Simultaneously, Strader was opening his Michelin Star restaurant in LA, Hatchet Hall. So, needless to say, life happened, and my dream of living abroad slowly went by the wayside. In July 2017, I gave birth to Coyote Hawk Moon, and providing him with a home became our number one priority.
Our last day at our house in Venice, Oct 2018
We left Venice Beach and moved to Long Beach in the fall of 2018 to buy our first house, a little Spanish fixer-upper, I nicknamed The Blanco Bungalow.
The day we got the keys at the Blanco Bungalow, Oct 2018
Since giving birth to Coyote, my jewelry felt forced. I knew I wanted to do something different, I just couldn’t figure out what that was yet. I felt stuck. I honestly just wanted to be a mom for a minute, and soak every ounce of baby Coyote in. But living in LA off one income was virtually impossible, and without family support to help with childcare, it was hard.
Since the fashion and jewelry industries were all I knew, I decided I would give it one last shot. I poured all of my creative energy into a new Collection, a fine jewelry line. I launched it at LA Market in March of 2020, 7 days before the lockdown. I remember no one came to the show, and everyone was whispering about the Corona Virus - and I had no clue what they were talking about. I mean I’d been living under the new-mom rock for the past three years. It was kind of hilarious, because looking back, I didn’t want to do it anyway, it was just all I knew, I should have listened to my gut. And my gut was telling me it was time to move on. My line went on to get picked up by Anthropologie, Rose Ark, and some other great accounts that year, but overall, I was over it, and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
So once we were in full lockdown, my industry shut down. Most of the specialty boutiques I sold to across the country either temporarily closed or permanently closed. My husband’s industry also shut down because restaurants in Los Angeles were forced to close. Suddenly we went from both being gainfully self-employed to being painfully unemployed. We’d just bought our first home, and in a flash, we were about to potentially lose it. On top of that, we hadn’t made that many friends pre-pandemic, since we were both commuting back and forth from LA. So once covid was in full swing, everyone was scared to hang out with each other, no one wanted to get sick, and making new friends didn’t really happen. It was a bit of a shit show, as I’m sure it was for a lot of people. But my motto is never to waste a crisis, and we both knew we had to pivot in order to survive.
For Strader, he saw the first restaurant he’d ever owned quickly disappearing before his eyes. With the city’s strict regulations, they struggled to come up with a plan to re-open the restaurant that his two partners could agree upon. Owning a fine dining restaurant in Los Angeles during that time was gnarly, and I feel for anyone who knows firsthand what I’m talking about. Strader decided to exit the partnership and open a fast-casual pizza spot in Long Beach called Little Coyote Pizza with his new partner, Jack. Almost instantly, they received rave reviews from all the top food publications, including the LA Times, naming their pizza best in LA, which was great, because it wasn’t even in LA. They continued receiving glowing reviews from Eater, Infatuation, Time out, and many more. Overnight they had a viral brand on their hands (no pun intended). The community support was incredible and we were beyond grateful.
And for me, I was still struggling to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was full-time mommin’, probably going through a mid-life crisis, overwhelmed with anxiety, and watching the news like a complete psycho because I thought the world was ending. The only thing that gave me any sort of peace and calmed the intense pain in my chest was working in our yard, doing manual labor, and tackling home projects. I swear, there’s nothing like ripping out a box hedge and chopping down a tree to calm your nerves.
I started @BlancoBungalow and it quickly became all I wanted to do.
I remember Sunset Magazine reaching out during the lockdown and offering me the job as their Gardening Contributor, and I was like what? I have no idea what I’m doing and I learn everything via google and youtube! But I ended up making one video for them (linked below) and contributed to an article (you can read HERE), but in the end, turned down the gig because I felt underqualified and like a complete fraud! If anything, it was a nudge from the universe that I was on the right track, and that this could really be something profitable, but at the time I lacked confidence and couldn’t see it.
The only thing that lit me up during that time, was working on my home. So I followed my inspiration and began sharing what I was doing on social media, and people started following. The next thing I knew, I was getting write-ups from Dwell Magazine, Hunker Home, Apartment Therapy, Better Homes & Gardens, contributing to My Domaine, and more. Brands such as West Elm, Samsung, Kohler, Zia Tile started reaching out to partner with me.
In the Fall of 2021, I decided to go back to school at Parson’s The New School in NYC for Interior Design.
I’m fully aware that I’m going off on a really long tangent, but in a nutshell, the past four years were really really hard, and those led us to where we are today. Yes, we both pivoted and both created new successful endeavors for ourselves. Compared to others, I recognize that we were extremely lucky and extremely fortunate, but we also worked our asses off to make it through.
Life in Los Angeles never felt the same post-pandemic. Political and racial tensions kept rising. Prices of everything from food to gas kept rising. Everyone seemed constantly stressed out, including us. I mean we were both “doing well”, but we weren’t living, we treading water and just surviving.
And not to get political, because please know, I am not speaking about Republicans, but one individual in particular, Donald Trump. He really scared the shit out of me. I felt like ever since Trump came into office, he gave people who already had hate in their hearts a giant megaphone, a license to speak to others in a way that never seemed socially acceptable prior to his term. It was mind-blowing to see how one individual managed to ignite such hate, divide families, and take away any sense of human decency. I’m not placing blame on him entirely, because everyone is accountable for their own actions, and has a choice of how they act. But the way I saw people treating and speaking to each other was simply embarrassing. And for me, raising a boy and having grown men set those kinds of examples for him, was terrifying. Every week it was something new, something more appalling, and every week we became more and more desensitized to his behavior.
And then there was the murder of George Floyd. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness and outrage. Everywhere I looked, there was hatred, pain, and division. There were protests and riots in the streets, and our neighborhood along with many others was destroyed and looted. I 100% sided with the actual protestors, but there were other forces at work undermining their voices. I remember the night of the riots and looting, Strader slept on the couch with the windows open, wide awake, listening for potential intruders. Our neighbor across the street had an AK-47 ready if anyone started looting homes. How was this happening? The entire neighborhood was on watch. We could hear windows breaking and chaos outside, but there were no police to protect anyone. We realized after that night that we were on our own. Strader went out the next day and bought a gun, which I’m incredibly against, but he didn’t feel like he had any other option. He needed to protect our family. I couldn’t live like that anymore. I realize that for us to be able to leave, is a privileged choice, and one I’m grateful we were able to make, and I know many don’t have that choice. For me, I was tired of speaking up, posting, protesting, arguing, voting, and feeling like nothing I said or did would ever make the tiniest difference. There is still so much racism and prejudice in our country, and it’s sad. I’d love to say that we stayed and fought because I am a fighter, but at some point, I had to choose the health and happiness of my family above all else. And again, I’m incredibly grateful that I’m able to make that choice, because so many are not.
4 Months Pregnant with Coyote protesting at the Womens March, Los Angeles, 2017
Another major reason, which goes along with the above is gun violence - especially in our schools. I grew up in a small town in Kansas, and I remember one of the first mass school shootings in the country happening in our small town. I believe it was in the late 70’s early 80’s. I remember how horrific and shocking that was back then, but somehow they’ve now become the norm. There are mass shootings all the time, at schools, movie theatres, music festivals, restaurants, everywhere. They happen, and then they're forgotten a week later. And not by the victims, but by the public. We’ve become so desensitized to these mass acts of violence, and nothing about that is normal.
As our son Coyote neared his first year of Kindergarten, another horrific school shooting happened in Texas. It was then, I said no. I refused to put him into public school. I only have one child, and my number one responsibility as a parent is to keep him safe, and if I can’t trust that he is safe at school, then where is he safe? I will not lose my child to something as senseless as a school shooting. If he can’t feel safe going to school, then how is he ever going to feel safe anywhere?
In the summer of 2021, I went to Ojai with my girlfriend Vanessa, and on that trip, it hit me that we hadn’t traveled outside of the US in three years. I pulled out my laptop and started looking at flights. I booked our first trip to Sayulita, Mexico in October 2021.
We wanted to go to Hawaii in December, but it was ridiculously expensive, and no offense, but after being locked down with a bunch of Americans for so long, the last thing I wanted to do was to go on vacation, and be around a bunch of Americans! I longed for culture, diversity, inspiration, adventure, and all the things. I started thinking about the one place we’d always wanted to go, and Portugal popped into my head. I looked up tickets and they were $400 round trip. Much better than $800 to Hawaii. I called Strader to get the green light and his response was “Hell Yes!”. So I booked our trip for the month of January 2022.
On that trip, we instantly fell in love with Portugal. We felt our nervous systems calm down. Life felt simple, slower, calmer, and more intentional. Exactly the opposite of how we had been living. Everything felt more civilized, more accessible, more chill, and just easier. Oh, and the surf, the landscape, the people, and the surf! Haha, my husband lives to surf, so Portugal was like his ultimate ocean playground.
We started brainstorming and bouncing ideas on how we could move here, and every morning we’d wake up with a new plan. We came back to the States in February of 2022 and started working towards our move. That whole year we went back and forth over whether to keep our house or sell it. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, and it took a lot of therapy, mediation, and deep work to let it go. I mean I thought we would keep our home forever. Everything I was taught since I was little, was that if you could ever afford to buy California real estate, you never sell that California real estate, no matter what. But there we were, having to make the hardest decision we’ve ever had to make. Both of us had difficult childhoods, and this was the first house that ever felt like home.
I turned 40 in October 2022, and I told my husband, all I wanted for my birthday was to move to Europe.
So for those asking, there it is.
Apologies for the lengthy explanation, but as I said, there is no short answer.
We had outgrown Los Angeles and wanted to raise our son in nature by the sea. We were tired of struggling, tired of the chaos and turmoil surrounding us, and were ready for a new chapter in life, full of new things, new places, and new experiences.
And instead of going on the same old road trips to the same old places, we can now drive to Spain on the weekend, or hop on a quick flight to Italy. I mean, it doesn’t get much cooler than that.
Life is short, and there is no time like the present to live our best lives.
Saying goodbye to the Blanco Bungalow, December 10, 2022
Me crying my eyes out, as Coyote begged me no more pictures please:)
We created this in the front yard, so if Coyote ever comes back, he can always have this to remember his first home
We sold our home in December 2022 and moved to Portugal the same month. It’s crazy because I’ve focused so much on manifesting this move that I wasn’t ever even concerned about what would happen next. I knew it would all work out. I also never thought about what it would feel like to have every single manifestation on my list come true. Strader and I finally got married last year after 11 years of being together, we sold our home for double of what we bought it for, and we moved to Europe!
I mean, I’ve made vision boards before, and my manifestations eventually come through, but this all still seems so unreal and so beyond what I could ever imagine, it’s hard to put into words.
I’m eternally grateful and can’t wait to see what the future holds.
I know that want to find the next Blanco Bungalow.
A beautiful historic Portuguese home loaded with character, wood beam ceilings, exposed rock walls, a massive fireplace, a pool, an incredible view, and a rental unit so I can finally fulfill my Airbnb dreams.
Beyond that, the rest is still unwritten, so stay tuned.
I guess it’s time to make a new Manifestation list…
Thank you for continuing to follow along,
I’m grateful for each and every one of you.
with gratitude,
Laura
