OUR PORTUGUESE ADVENTURE

Small plates in Lisbon, fancy soaps in Porto, sandcastles on the beaches of the Algarve... Jessamine Chan and her family fall for a country with something for everyone.

- Jessamine Chan

It wasn’t planned. Our six-year-old daughter’s first wiggly tooth had been bothering her for days and had fallen out just before we left for the airport. I wrapped the precious cargo in tissue, promising that the tooth fairy would visit her once we reached Lisbon. 

We were setting off on what Lulu called “the magazine trip.” She’d been desperate to join me on my recent book tour, which wasn’t possible, but here, finally, was an adventure for all of us. For Lulu, there would be many firsts: her first transatlantic flight; her first visit to Europe; her first time staying anywhere that wasn’t an Airbnb or a great deal on Priceline.

Though my husband, Adam, and I had traveled extensively before becoming parents, this would be only our second family vacation, with four destinations in Portugal spread over 10 days. We’d talked about visiting Portugal for years. Adam, a documentary filmmaker, loves Pedro Costa’s Letters from Fontainhas, a trilogy of films set in Lisbon. Over the years, my interest had been piqued by stories from our friends Miranda and Gabriel, who’d lived in Portugal when their first child was an infant. During my own childhood, I was fortunate to have my curiosity shaped by traveling with my parents. Here was a chance to continue that tradition with Lulu.