This Seat’s Taken interview series: James & Jemma of Portugalist

Travel dreams come in all shapes and sizes, and when James and Jemma of Portugalist. decided to make their couples travel dreams come true, they started out as hard work. Fast-foward to today, and while they’re still working hard, they’re also successful travel bloggers and freelancers living abroad for months at a time. Curious how they do it? Read on!

What’s your story?

We met while working at a marketing agency in Edinburgh: Jemma worked in social media and I worked in PR. While working together, we got to know each other, and one thing led to another.

It didn’t take long for us to start talking about traveling together. It was something that we both wanted to do, but we also didn’t want to give up on our careers. We decided that we wanted to be digital nomads (before we had heard of the term), and set about trying to make that happen.

We initially started out as house sitters, and managed to house sit in France for 9 months straight looking after everything from cats and dogs to turtles and even a farm of 18 alpacas and 7 cats. It was fun but hard work and, since our freelancing work was starting to pick up, we decided to rent through Airbnb instead.

• 

We then started renting apartments instead of house sitting, staying in places for 3-6 months at a time. Since then, we have managed to live in places like Lisbon, Seville, Berlin (twice), and Cape Town in South Africa. We’ve also taken some time to do the backpacker thing around South East Asia and Eastern Europe.

We’re still traveling more or less full-time, but now spend a little bit of time settled for some of the year. This is usually in Portugal, hence Portugalist.

Do you have the same travel style or different travel styles? How does this impact your adventures together?

We initially started off with very different travel styles: Jemma liked luxury and I was used to budget travel. A combination of compromise and a travel budget that doesn’t allow 365 days of luxury travel has meant that we’ve met somewhere in the middle.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned from traveling as partners? What makes your partnership work on the road?

We work really well in a crisis together. We’ve had quite a few situations that have involved some very complicated planning, but that’s actually where we shine. If we suddenly need to rush home or urgently travel across a couple of countries, we can work it out rationally and put together a really intricate plan.

I also think we’re quite good at splitting up the travel admit (e.g. one person has the passports, and the other knows where to get the taxi from at the other end). This isn’t something we’ve consciously split up, but we’ve developed our own roles over time. Splitting it up is good because it means that each person is only stressed half the time rather than all the time.

• 

What’s the best part about traveling as partners? And the biggest challenge?

There are ways that solo travel trumps traveling as a couple definitely, but overall it’s great to be able to have someone to share this experience with.

I think the biggest challenge is keeping some magic and mystery, and that requires a lot more effort when you’re on the road. Traveling together means you’ll often be tired, sick, sweaty, smelly, and generally at your worst, but that doesn’t mean that you can stop trying the rest of the time.

Based on your experience, what’s the best advice you have for couples who have just scheduled their first trip together?

Try and rent apartments rather than stay in hotel rooms as much as possible. It’s tough sharing a small amount of space with someone else, and the more space you can give each other the better. With a hotel or hostel room, you both end up sitting on the bed whereas in an apartment one person can sit in the living room and the other in the bedroom.

• 

Any additional thoughts or words of wisdom?

I think it’s important to consider how you’re both different, and to incorporate those travel differences into your schedule. If one of you is an introvert, make sure that person gets some alone time. If one of you is an extrovert, make sure that person has a chance to meet other people on the road.

We can both be a bit introverted, so we try to give each other some space wherever possible. Because we both work from home, one of us will usually work from a café or co-working space while the other will work from the apartment or hotel room.

Don’t forget to share the wisdom!