Sawasdee 👋 🙏

June 01, 2026

Sawasdee 👋 🙏

Hello all!

What a whirlwind of a month it has been! I am writing this currently sitting on the floor in a bamboo hut in Thailand. So obviously a lot has happened…let’s rewind a bit!

We started on our Camino de Santiago from Porto, Portugal. It was a freeing feeling to just start walking and know that was all we had to do that day. We had our big packs full of “all our necessities in life” and we quickly found out how little of the stuff we actually needed on a day-to-day basis. Too many clothes, teas, toiletries, electronics, etc. add up quickly when you are carrying them around everyday. We walked close to 150 miles over 15 days, with the very occasional bus ride when we needed a bit of a rest. For me, it was a bit of a roller coaster, feeling exhausted and challenged, but also feeling myself getting stronger and continuing to persevere. For Connor, walking and carrying heavy objects is kind of his thing, so he enjoyed the journey. Of course there were challenges that we had to navigate such as making sure we could get into a hostel to sleep for that night and not getting much sleep in dorm rooms with snoring strangers. It was quite a busy month for the Camino so we got to meet LOTS of people from around the world. At times it was tough to strike the balance of wanting time to walk in silence and to be contemplative versus being social and striking up a conversation with the next stranger. We met some great people that we coincidentally continue to meet throughout the journey and got to celebrate with once we reached Santiago. Overall, it was a great adventure and one that allowed us to take time to think about our travels and what we really wanted for this time in Europe and the next stages.

After Santiago, we made the trip down to Madrid, Spain to meet up with my host mom (from back when I studied abroad there 11 years ago in college for 3 months). She was living in the same place in the cute town of Alcala de Henares. It was so nostalgic to be back there, walking the same streets and being in her apartment. We met her for dinner there and got to chat about the last 11 years and all that has happened. Connor got to practice listening to a Spanish accent with the lisp and all! It was a precious time for both of us and truly so happy I got to see her again.

We stayed near Madrid for a couple of days trying to figure out our next move in Europe. We were exhausted from moving…still recovering from the Camino and from lack of sleep from early train rides and travel. It had been about a month since getting to Europe and we wondered why it continued to feel very go-go-go and draining. We were still uncertain of what our main purpose for being there was and felt that things just weren’t flowing how they had been in South America. After both a lot of discussion and hypotheticals as well as a bit of spontaneity, we decided that Asia may be where we are feeling more drawn to at the moment.

So - we booked flights to Thailand for 2 days later! Ha! And now here we are, on a small rice-paddy farm about 2 hours outside of Bangkok with the sweetest Thai family. Still of course recovering from MORE travel and movement…but really happy and excited to be here!

More to come. Miss you all - only a 14 hour time difference now!

With love,

Abby and Connor