Relocurious Podcast

When Michelle and Sean visited Portugal for a beach vacation in 2015, they felt an unexpected connection to the country — one that kept pulling them back again and again. Michelle quickly became keen on moving there, so she quietly set the wheels in motion. Sean joined the plan a bit later, but with an open mind. Along the way, the couple encountered a few surprises, some challenging, others more light-hearted.

In the episode, Sean and Michelle share their everyday experiences of finding their way in Portugal, from navigating daily tasks to staying connected with loved ones overseas, learning the language, and a few realizations from their own relationship.

We hope you enjoy their story!

Michelle (American) and Sean (British) are expats who relocated to Portugal one year ago after falling in love with the country on their first visit a decade earlier. While Sean enjoys retirement, Michelle coaches midlife women online, helping them regain control over impulses to overeat, overspend, and overdo.

The couple have embraced the “unknowing” of expat life, celebrating each successful day as a “boss day.” Thankfully, such days are becoming more frequent in their life. You may contact Michelle at [email protected]

What makes relocating so rich in emotions and insights? How does it transform people’s lives? Follow powerful stories as a subscriber.

P.S. Would you like to share your story of moving across borders? Get in touch

This week on the podcast, we meet Tracey Zhang.

Having left home at 16 and relocated across six cities worldwide, she understands firsthand the loneliness, identity shifts, and cultural disorientation that often accompany major moves.

Tracey shares how uncertainty and unmet expectations after moving solo from Hong Kong to Canada, seeking a “fresh start” after a series of personal setbacks, put her on a path of deep personal exploration and transformation. Those experiences shaped her life path, and inspired her work as a relocation coach and somatic practitioner. She now helps expats and immigrants navigate the emotional side of moving abroad.

In our conversation, Tracey names something that many of us experience, but rarely acknowledge: Moving doesn’t fix what hurts. On the contrary, it often magnifies it. Thankfully, that realization can become the beginning of a journey towards healing, clarity, and what Tracey beautifully calls “coming home to yourself.”

Today, she guides others through these emotional challenges through workshops, online sessions, and somatic practices – supporting people in cultivating a genuine sense of belonging from within.

If you are looking for deep insights into the emotional journey that many immigrants experience, this is the episode for you. And, even if you don’t have a relocation on the horizon, Tracey shares gentle wisdom that may help you discover something new about yourself and your journey through life.

Links:

* Tracey’s website: https://traceyzhang.com/

* Free ebook: https://traceyzhang.com/e-book-1

What makes relocating so rich in emotions and insights? How does it transform people’s lives? Follow powerful stories as a subscriber.

P.S. Would you like to share your story of moving across borders? Get in touch

This week, we speak with Matej Adam Balint, a Slovak student whose university program has taken him to Lisbon, Paris, and Berlin over the past three years. Each new city has brought a fresh beginning, then all too soon, it’s time to move on again. Matej shares about the cycle of unpacking, repacking, building friendships, and redefining what it means to belong.

For Matej, relocation isn’t just a practical challenge, each move is an opportunity to learn more about himself. In our conversation, he reflects on how each move has revealed a different layer of his identity, and how living between cultures and languages has given him a deeper understanding of authenticity, freedom, and adaptability.

He speaks about learning to let go of places, routines, and even versions of himself — without feeling loss. Instead, he sees those attachments turn into memories, lessons, and confidence for the next step.

We talk about belonging as both comfort and constraint, about how a new culture can unlock new dimensions of self-expression, and about why taking action — “testing your hypothesis,” as Matej puts it — may be the only way to find clarity.

This is a story for anyone who’s ever wondered what keeps us grounded when everything around us shifts, and how movement itself can become a form of home and self-discovery.

What makes relocating so rich in emotions and insights? How does it transform people’s lives? Follow powerful stories as a subscriber.

P.S. Would you like to share your story of moving across borders? Get in touch.

This week we talk with Catherine Stratton, a writer and filmmaker from Hoboken, New Jersey whose dream to explore the world has brought her to Paris, France.

When her marriage ended, and her grown children moved out of the family home, Catherine stepped out of her comfort zone to embark on new life adventures. She remembers telling herself at one point, “I gotta get out there, make more memories!”

Catherine journeyed through the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France, experiencing the highs and lows of being a solo traveller. These days, she is enjoying life in Paris — yet her journey may not be over. As Catherine says, she is “still figuring it out,” “always looking for the belonging,” continuing her search for that place to call “home”.

For Catherine, inspiration to live a life of her dreams came from an unexpected source: an advertisement for a red Ferrari that caught her eye in a magazine years ago. The ad said, “Only Those Who Dare … Truly Live,” and she still remembered these words perfectly! After the interview, as Michal found this framed poster of the old ad online, it seemed to take Catherine all the way back to those original sparks of her life dream!

What makes relocating so rich in emotions and insights? How does it transform people’s lives? Follow powerful stories as a subscriber.

P.S. Would you like to share your story of moving across borders? Get in touch.

This week we speak with Madeline Wahl, who shares her emotional journey from the United States to Scotland.

Madeline relocated to Glasgow on a study visa, along what turns out to be a deeply personal and transformative journey. During COVID-19, she moved back home to Florida to be a caregiver for her mom. She wanted to pursue the dream of living abroad, but life didn’t unfold the way she expected. What started as a dream to travel became a journey through profound grief and self-discovery.

Madeline Wahl is a writer and an alumna of the MLitt in Fantasy Literature program at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. While living in the States, she worked as a journalist for publications including HuffPost and Reader’s Digest.

She writes about her caregiving experience on her Substack:

She is also planning on sharing more experiences about solo travel and her years abroad on her Instagram @madelinewahlwrites.

Photo credit: Zoë Lintzeris

What makes relocating so rich in emotions and insights? How does it transform people’s lives? Follow powerful stories as a subscriber.

In most episodes, our guests are speaking with us from the place they had relocated to. They are reflecting back on the move, new experiences, and the journey toward feeling a sense of belonging in their new home. Today’s guest, however, has faced obstacles in her quest to relocate from Canada to Scotland, the country that has won her heart.

Tineke is a professional photographer who travels the world capturing the people, places, and cultures she experiences. In 2017, she took a group of photography students to Scotland and thus began a love affair with the wind and the sea and the land. She has returned to Scotland for several months every year since 2021, actively seeking a way to immigrate permanently, but has faced obstacles that have prevented that dream from coming true.

While caught between the two countries, Tineke has learned to create home within herself. In this episode, she shares her story of hope, resilience, and a determination to find a way.

Help us bring you more stories of the ups and downs of moving — by becoming a subscriber.

N.B. In the discussion at the end of Tineke’s interview, Michal references the Bridges Transition Model that outlines how we may transition through big changes in three stages: endings, neutral zone, and new beginnings. In the context of relocating, the model invites advancing gently, with self-compassion and self-care. See if it helps you make sense of your experience: https://wmbridges.com/about/what-is-transition/

Sometimes we need a nudge to finally take the leap and chase the dream of adventure. For paramedics Joe and Tania, that nudge came in the form of Tania’s milestone birthday – a reminder that it was time to commit to her dream of living abroad for at least a year.

What began as a one-year plan quickly stretched into seven. Along the way, the couple navigated the highs and lows of building a life in a new country, gained dual citizenship, and wrestled with questions of career identity, ego, and family priorities.

We loved the energy, reflection, and insights that Tania and Joe wove into their story, we hope you enjoy it too!

As we explore the world, our minds expand. But how do moves affect us emotionally? Join us as we examine the ups+downs of relocating!

Have you ever held onto a dream for your whole life, but never taken the next step to make it happen?

Today’s guest had the dream of moving to Europe, but did not take the steps to make it a reality until a death in the family, and a close look at how short life can be, spurred her into action.

Barbara Grassey is a writer and book coach who moved from the US to Portugal solo in January of 2021, in the middle of the COVID lockdowns. Her Substack, My Expat Golden Girl Life, explores her journey as an expat, from the logistics of moving to slices of everyday life. She is the author of American Expat: Moving Abroad Solo After 60.

We hope you enjoy our conversation!

Links:

“My Expat Golden Girl Life” Blog on Substack:

The Book: https://barbaragrassey.com/american-expat-the-book/

“Finding Your Portugal” conversation with Barbara and Kathy:

Like many children of immigrants, Sarah heard beautiful stories of her mother’s home country of Portugal. But it wasn’t until she visited her mother’s birthplace — the Portuguese island of Madeira — that she felt an undeniable pull: this was where she was meant to be.

When fate offered her a month-long artist residency on the island, she didn’t hesitate, she leapt at the chance. The one-month residency turned into twelve years (and counting).

In that time, Sarah has experienced both the exhilaration of feeling spiritually connected to the land and the isolation of being an outsider, even while speaking the language. The highest highs and the lowest lows have shaped a deeply personal journey of self-discovery. We’re so grateful to Sarah for sharing that journey with us on this episode of the Relocurious podcast.

Join us in exploring the emotions of relocating as a free or paid subscriber to Relocurious.

More about Sarah:

Sarah Linhares is a Canadian-Madeiran multidisciplinary artist, mystic, and transformation guide based on Madeira Island, Portugal.

Through music, poetry, and movement, her work explores the sensuality of raw human emotion — alchemizing pain into power, passion, and purpose while harmonizing the divine and physical realms. Her self-produced album and poetry book, SUBTROPICAL: Musings on Paradise Found, chronicle her own hero’s journey of healing and relocation from Canada to Madeira, and are available online.

With over 30 years of experience in personal development, energy mastery, and spiritual practice, Sarah’s current project and YouTube channel, EMBODY · MY · SOUL, bridge spirituality with grounded human experience. Blending ancient wisdom with modern healing tools, she inspires others to awaken their soul’s truth and live in deep alignment. She offers private consultations, mentorships, group workshops, and transformational retreats.

* 🎥 YouTube Channel — EMBODY · MY · SOUL: youtube.com/@sarahlinhares

* 📖 SUBTROPICAL Poetry Book: sarahlinhares.myflodesk.com/subtropicalbook

* 🎶 SUBTROPICAL Album: sarahlinhares.myflodesk.com/subtropicalalbum

* 🌟 Book a Soul Consultation: sarahlinhares.myflodesk.com/embodymysoulconsultation

* 💫 Follow the journey → instagram.com/sarahlinhares

In this special episode, we (your hosts, Kathy and Michal) pause to reflect on our own experience of dreaming about living in another country, eventually relocating from Canada to Portugal — and the journey that sparked the Relocurious project.

As we’ve listened to the stories of our podcast guests, examining the emotional layers of our own experience of moving, what has started to emerge is a sequence of stages that we all seem to be moving through. We call it The Relocurious Arc — a five-stage framework for making meaning of the unfolding emotions of relocating.

Our relocation journeys seem to start with Imagining, gradually progressing through Letting Go, Leaping, and Re-rooting, until we eventually arrive at Belonging:

* Imagining is the stage of browsing maps, dreaming of reinvention, watching travel videos, joining podcasts, and wondering who you might become elsewhere.

* Letting Go is the quiet, often overlooked stage of release of routines, identities, ‘stuff,’ and communities and circles of family and friends that once defined you.

* Leaping is when intention becomes action. The decision is made, plane ticket booked, suitcases packed. Some may have doubted you, but you are doing it!

* Re-rooting is where you begin to build a new life. The arrival is real, though the systems and customs are still unfamiliar, and it doesn’t yet feel like you belong.

* Belonging: Over time, something shifts. You recognize the streets. Someone remembers your name. You feel ‘seen.’ A sense of here-ness begins to settle in.

In this milestone conversation, we explore what these stages have looked and felt like for us: the dreams that gave rise to our move, some of the complexities of leaving, the excitement of arrival, the slow (and sometimes surprising) rhythms of settling in, and the evolving sense of home in our new country. Each stage brings challenges and rewards, and each gives rise to deeply personal questions.

We invite you to listen in, reflect on where you (and those you are moving with) may currently be on this arc, and consider what questions arise for your next step.

Not yet a subscriber? Join us as we start a new season of podcast episodes and reflection posts on the emotions of relocating.