Our Expat Journey to Portugal - So Many Good Choices

In episode 3, our scouting trip comes to an end and the hard decisions about where to live begin. Hard because nearly every neighborhood we visited in Coimbra, Aviero, Espinho, Porto, and Matosinhos met or exceeded our expectations.

We met expats Ross and Kathleen Fields in Porto. They've been living there about 4 months now and are publishing videos about their experiences. Check out their YouTube channel here :    / @ourcontinuingadventure   Lola and I extend many thanks to them for being such caring mentors.

I intend this series to be creative nonfiction, also known as narrative nonfiction. It is not my intention to specifically teach anything about the process of emigrating to Portugal. There may well be lessons to learn from our story, but my primary purpose is to tell our story. I think there is much value in connecting with such a story as you wonder and plan about your own journey. Or, perhaps, you may simply find this entertaining. Upon arrival in Portugal, I will continue to tell our story, but I will begin to mix in travel narratives as we explore the country and Europe.

I am a retired professor of media and journalism from Missouri State University. I am a full-time documentary filmmaker as of mid December 2022. As part of my work with students, I co-founded the documentary film studio Carbon Trace Productions (link below) -- a nonprofit organization dedicated to documentary education and humanitarian service.

Tech notes:
You may have guessed from the tech notes from episode 2 that I'm traveling light. I'm having two phones (Pixel 3a and 4) and a DJI Osmo do all the heavy lifting camera-wise. With those choices come certain limitations -- and certain opportunities. I teach a class in mobile journalism at Missouri State University, and one of the important early lessons is: work within the limitations of your equipment. I hope I've lived up to that advice.

Edited on a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon that's about 5 years old. So this thing is working right at the edge of its limitations :-) Software: DaVinci Resolve 17 -- the free version.

Audio recorded with an 8-year-old TASCAM D40 because I don't want to expose any of my better audio gear to international travel for a vanity project :-)

Please share and tell your friends or anyone else who might be interested in vanity video projects, non-fiction video of all kinds, or the whole expat thing.

No paid promotion in this video.

Thanks!

#portugal #porto #coimbra #espinho #aveiro #aveirolovers #aveiroportugal #expats #expatlife #immigration #emigration #movingtoportugal #d7visa #americanexpat #travel #internationaltravel #documentary #webseries #documentaryfilmmaker #sayinggoodbye #moving #neighborhoods