In this vlog, Nate Ritter and his partner Tilly document a day of family travel in Portugal after arriving from the United States. The video opens with the couple juggling luggage, coffee, and kids while navigating a crowded train station. They discover that the apartment they booked near the station may be a scam—no one answers their WhatsApp messages and they are left waiting outside a construction zone. After multiple calls, they finally obtain the correct address and head to a local burger joint for a much‑needed meat meal. The vlog then follows their journey southward: a regional train strike forces them onto a bus, delaying their arrival in Faro/Algarve by several hours. They describe the scenic Mediterranean landscape, a dinner of tagliatelle‑pizza hybrid and carbonara, and the excitement of settling into a new month‑long stay near the beach. Throughout, the couple shares candid moments with their three children, humorous commentary on travel chaos, and reflections on transitioning from a U.S. RV lifestyle to international backpacking.
Chapters
One of the hardest things to do when you're traveling is film when things go wrong. So, um, something's gone wrong.
We're Nate and Tilly. 18 months ago, we started traveling the US in an RV with our 3 kids. Then we sold it all again, grabbed our backpacks, and are now exploring the rest of the world together. After making the jump from the US to Portugal, we're about to take the journey to the Algarve to see what all the hype is about. Good morning. Good morning.
It's like sour buddy.
Sorry. Yeah, the American's not out of me quite yet. It's only been 11 days. I have to have 2 espressos in the morning at least.
Don't forget my bag.
You don't need this one, right?
Not that one. That has all the school in it. Yeah, that's me.
Throw it away. Aww, you brought me coffee! Coffee! Thank you!
Nice!
Aww, you bought him 7-Up!
I bought myself this.
Aww, you bought us all Oreos! No, I did.
Look, it has like imprint things on it. Like Xbox.
That makes it more delicious. On to the hotel. That was a bit of drama. That was so much drama. All those bags are stuffed inside and like it was just packed.
And everybody's trying to like get past you and you're trying to pull the dude's bag.
I know, everybody's trying to do the same thing all at the same time and nobody's letting anybody do anything. So you all just sit there.
And then Everly freaked out in the door. She didn't want to get off the train. So then like she had this whole line of people and she wouldn't move.
That's okay, little one. You're okay. We got it. Go, go, go!
One of the hardest things to do when you're traveling is film when things go wrong. So, um, something's gone wrong. We got off the train maybe 45 minutes ago. The place where we are staying, it's an apartment about 5 minutes from the train station. The people told us to call them, they would give us the instructions and the address. Well, we've been standing outside a construction zone for 15, 20, 30 minutes.
Minutes.
Nate's been contacting them through WhatsApp and no one has gotten back to us. No one has sent us any information, so I don't know if it's a scam or if it's just a huge misunderstanding or whatever, but Nate is super frustrated. The problem is, is hotels in this area— there's a lot of nice ones— they run about $400 a night, which is not gonna happen. So we feel a little stranded, um, but I'm super thankful that it's the afternoon. It's like, I think just turned 5:00 and it's not like the middle of the night. Originally we had plans to get into Lisbon at like 8:00 PM, so I'm so glad that we're here much earlier. Hard to turn the camera on when things are going wrong, but this is where we're at.
All right, well, we're in. That wasn't cool, but What is cool is that—
Nate had to call a bunch of people, and finally we got the right address for the place.
That's good.
We don't even have to walk very far to the train station tomorrow, which is the whole point. We are starving, so we're heading to dinner. We've been eating pastries for like the last 10 days, so we're going out to a burger place. We need some red meat. We haven't really eaten meat in a week, which is probably good, but we're ready for some hot hamburgers and french fries.
They're not regular burgers like American burgers, but better. But, uh, I think so. I think they're better, but they're still in a mall. But I don't care. Little bit of a redemption. The view is nice.
And number 2. All right, good night, people. Good morning. Good morning. We had breakfast at a nice little cafe. We took it easy, got to the train station. Now we're headed to— well, on the way to Faro. And then we'll take a detour off of one of the stations and head to Porto Meio, and we'll take a bus to Alvor, and then we will be in our new place for the month. I'm excited to be near a beach. Alright, well, the first international time that we've hit a strike. Got to a place where the regional train is having a strike for this very specific time period, and so we would normally have to wait until 5 o'clock, and we don't want to do that, so we're going to end up taking buses instead. We'll get there about 5:30 instead of 2:30. So 3 hours late, which, you know, whatever. But it's all good. We're in the southern, southern coast. So let's just, I guess, take it like Mediterranean style. Slow. Go with it. Bus number 2, final bus of the day, let's hope. Crazy person in the back. I'd say we're doing a pretty successful day today, wouldn't you? I mean, I mean, for there being a strike, I'd say not so bad. Like, easy going. We'll get there at 5:30. The place we want to eat is open at 6:30 for dinner. Hopefully everything lasts that long. I think there's pizza at the end of this day. We're here.
Oh, can you see it? It's beautiful.
It's not bad. Welcome to the Mediterranean. How's your pizza, little miss? Is it good? Is it yummy? It's Doug?
It's Doug!
Your face tells that story. What'd you get?
I don't remember the name of it. Tagliatelle? Yeah, tagliatelle. It's amazing. It's a meat pasta with like ham and bacon and stuff. But then it has— he said it has a pizza flatbread over the top, and he wasn't joking. And I don't know from— I guess I eat it like— is it a wrapper?
Do I dip it?
I hope I'm not offending anybody.
I went Italian carbonara, and it is good. Yum, yum, all the way around.
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
Good morning from our last day in Porto. Um, Portu— I don't know how to say that. Porto likes their receipts like CVS. Woo! That was her joke, not my joke.
