Many of you already know from our Facebook group that our trip has not gone exactly to plan. I started this post yesterday (Wednesday, 10 December 2025) while sitting in the American Airlines lounge in Atlanta awaiting our first flight to Philadelphia. I was about halfway through writing the post when the text message I had been dreading popped up:
“American 258 from PHL to LIS on Dec 10 at 7:05PM has been canceled.”
A national strike had been planned for 11 December in Portugal for several weeks. TAP, the Portugal national airline, had already canceled the vast majority of their domestic flights, but from everything we were reading international flights were anticipated to be largely unaffected. However, as the strike day drew near, more unions and labour groups began to join the strike increasing the risk of broader disruptions. But we are back on track.
We now return to our regularly scheduled blog post.
Today’s the Day!!!
In the words of the late great treasure hunter Mel Fisher, Today’s the Day!!! We left the farm Tuesday (9 December 2025) about 11:20am to start driving to Atlanta with eight large duffle bags, two dogs and one gargantuan dog crate loaded in the largest SUV we could rent… it all barely fit!
We dropped the dogs at Pet Paradise in Atlanta where they were supposed to be picked up by Anita with Continental Pet Relocation to get them to the airport for their flight to Porto via Frankfurt on Wednesday evening, 10 December. Their flights have been rescheduled to depart on Friday evening, 12 December, to arrive in Frankfurt Saturday morning, 13 December, where they’ll spend Saturday night at the Lufthansa pet spa before flying to Porto on Sunday, 14 December.
After much deliberation, we decided to pay a pet relocation company to take care of the dog part of the move for us. There’s a ton of paperwork involved and logistics that we just didn’t have the wherewithal to handle on top of everything we needed to do for our own part of this move.
Although it costs a chunk of change, we don’t regret hiring this job out, especially in light of the disruptions to our travel plans. I cannot imagine what would have happened had we tried to manage the dogs on our own when our flight was canceled.
The relocation service communicated directly with our vet and walked them through the process, making sure all the documents were in order, all the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed, and everything was accepted by the USDA and properly signed off on. When our flight was canceled they immediately jumped into action, got them extra nights at Pet Paradise, and worked with Lufthansa to reschedule their flights. The dogs cannot travel or arrive before us so they could not keep their original flights. Continental Pet Relocation will get the dogs cleared through customs and deliver them to our house Sunday. (A lot of) Money well spent.
Packing Lightly for an International Move
We shipped most of our belongings that we are taking with us on pallets through the company U Pak We Ship. These will be delivered to us in about 8 weeks. The rest of our things — clothing, shoes, etc. — got packed to come with us as luggage on the plane. We ended up with eight duffle bags, plus we each have a carry on suitcase and backpack (thankfully we had a couple extra days of clothes in our carry on).
I have always stared in amazement at the airport when I see these people with luggage carts piled high, wondering what on earth are these people packing and where are they going? Now I know, I have become one of them!
How Will We Keep In Touch?
This is the question we get most often — how will we stay in touch? Obviously, there is this blog and our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/4064529313765230). You can also email both of us:
JAY at JTPORTUGAL dot COM
TIM at JTPORTUGAL dot COM
And our US cell phone numbers will continue to function so you can text or call if you wish. We will also have Portugal phone numbers and, thanks to modern e-SIM technology, we only need one cell phone for both numbers.
Although our US phone numbers will work as normal, our preference would be to use WhatsApp. WhatsApp is (surprise!) an app that allows texting, voice calling and video calling but it only uses cellular (or WiFi) data, not minutes, so it is very popular for international calling. If you don’t have our phone numbers, send an email and ask.
We are excited to start this new phase of our lives and settle into a slower, more relaxed pace of life. We plan to start on Saturday with a visit to the local Christmas market followed by visits to some of the local villages to see all the Christmas decorations. Watch for pictures to come.