We Lost Our Passports (For One Day)

Living the fulltime traveler lifestyle has its merits.

No two days are ever the same.

I see parts of the world that, at one time, I only imagined existed.

And…the freedom of not being tied to material possessions leaves me with energy to nurture my own mind, body, spirit; chase challenge, meaning, and fulfillment; and most importantly, be present and connect with my children.

Most of the time that is…

I love adventure, however, chasing new rocks to climb, breaks to surf, and trails to folow, can leave me exhausted.

On top of that, we used to travel on way too small of a budget. I was constantly penny pinching. But the real challenge has always been, hustling to create online income. We had a brick and mortar for 20 years and were amazing at connecting with people in person. This digital world was (and still is) tough.

This caused a lot of stress in our travels and led to some major mishaps and meltdowns—like the day we lost our passports in Spain.

We had visited the Basque region of Spain the year before and were excited to be immersed again in the incredible nature of northern Spain—the green rolling hills, the steep rock topped mountains, and the wave rich Bay of Biscay. I love Oregon and Washington, but this coastline puts them to shame.

The uniqueness here is how jagged the coastline is, creating a multitude of bays and coves. The only problem with accessing all these different coves and getting to these hidden rock walls is that it takes a long time to get anywhere.

To save money, I was the only driver for the rental car for this trip. We used Castro Uridales as our home base, again, because it was cheap. However, most days we’d drive at least an hour each way to check surf and often got skunked (no waves or too big), which meant I’d have to drive another hour to the rock climbing destination. Work, surf, climb—I’m good. Work, drive, surf, drive, climb, drive—no bueno. Plus, we were socializing with some friends we met there, and while I’m very social, it also drains me.

Still, after a fun 8 days of work, drive, surf, drive, climb, drive, it was time to check out of our apartment and follow our friends two hours further west to the Picos de Europa. We had a house reserved on the outskirts of the Picos, but there wasn’t going to be WiFi at the apartment.

On that same day, I was also being featured on a podcast, and I wanted to have all our Family Adventure Road Trips posted to our website when the podcast went live. Gabi and I woke up early and worked like madwomen to get all the finishing touches on the trips before we had to check out of the apartment. We relinquished our controlling natures and let the rest of the family do the cleaning and packing

The car was loaded, and the last road trip was up on the website. We closed the door to the apartment and all piled into our insanely small five-passenger vehicle that the rental company described as a seven-passenger van (don’t worry, it had seven seatbelts, just no leg room in the back seats, but luckily, Isabelle & Tatiana are flexible!

Before driving away, I asked, “Where are the passports?” We all start searching the bags, but no one can find them—including myself.

Welcome to FREAK OUT MODE—something that used to happen to me often when I overextended myself for too long. “You must not have packed them,” I told Victor, implying that he is obviously incapable of packing luggage.

We had no key to check the apartment so we had to get the owner of the apartment to drive an hour and a half to open it up for us only to find out there were no passports left inside. (He was not very happy with us to say the least.) Where were they?

I distinctly remembered having them when we left Hossegor. I remembered taking them out of my purse when we arrived in Castro. I remembered putting them somewhere safe. I just couldn’t remember where exactly, but I knew one thing: I had them in the apartment and never took them out, which meant someone must have broken into our apartment and stolen them. How else would they have just disappeared?

As much as I love new adventures and new destinations (and I really do want to see the Picos de Europa), I knew how worn out I was, and the thought of driving more, being too tired to climb well, and not having WiFi to deal with lost passports was too much for me.

I needed safety, security, and comfort. Which meant…I needed to go back to Hossegor to regroup for a few days before the long drive back toward Barcelona. I wanted the familiarity of the surf town I knew so well and the comfort that only French butter can bring!

I love Hossegor. We had just stayed in a gorgeous, brand new, modern house with a huge deck overlooking the forest. It was five minutes from everything I needed—a beach with fat crumbling waves, a bakery with chocolate croissants, a grocery store with Comte cheese and wine from the Pyrenees, and a restaurant that sells my favorite glace, pistache.

We found a house in Hossegor on Airbnb, hit instant-book, and started the two-hour drive back to France.

Ten minutes later, my phone buzzes, and I see an email with a notification from the owner saying, “Sorry, the house should’ve been blocked out for our dates. Best of luck finding a nice place to stay.”

It’s Saturday afternoon, and there’s nothing within our insanely small budget.

We called our new friend, the stranger who happened to be at the beach last year when Victor cut his face on the surfboard and took us to the hospital (see a few posts back). I felt a little bad asking, but the thing is, I have a rule about asking people for help- if I want them to do the same if the role was reversed, then I don’t hesitate to ask

Of course, our incredibly kind friends said for us to stay in their house and that we actually had it all to ourselves because they were already on their way to Paris to fly to Canada to see their son. They just needed to turn around, and they’d meet us there in two hours to give us the keys. Sure, I’d do the same for him, but oh, the guilt we all felt for them to have to backtrack so far just to help us out.

By 6:00 p.m. we were all sitting on his patio holding our beers up, clinking them together, saying Cin!, and smiling that we got to see each other one more time.

I feel bad that the circumstance of Victor getting hurt is what brought us all together a year ago, but I am forever grateful for the role they have played in my life. Jean Marie lost his daughter to breast cancer. She found out when her baby girl was only a week old and sadly lost the battle three years later. Her daughter, Emma, is five years old now and spends a lot of time with her grandpa. Tati and Emma had spent hours playing together even though they couldn’t understand a word the other said. (This is one of the many examples of what kids gain from travel and may miss out on from spending their lives in a classroom.)

Despite the heartache of losing his beautiful daughter, Jean Marie is the most positive person I’ve ever met. He is like a teenager, even though he’s almost two decades older than me. He’s a great surfer. When we come to his house, he takes out his Carver board and homemade Indo boards. He says they keep his legs strong when he can’t surf or run. When Victor got hurt, he told him to meditate on healing his eye (which was before Victor became spiritual), and when we were bummed about lost passports, he said, “It’s in the past, you must move forward.”

What are the odds that of all the people I meet in France, I meet someone more passionate than me about mindset and living a playful life?

I went to bed that night bummed that we lost $1300 cash and it would cost $900 to replace our passports, but being surrounded by photographs of his gorgeous daughter quickly helped me put things in perspective and reminded me to just enjoy the journey we are on.

Then, at 3:00 a.m. I woke up to go pee and instantly knew where the passports were. I jumped out of bed, grabbed the black REI backpack off the bathroom floor and unzipped the front pouch. The same one that we didn’t even know existed for the first nine months we owned it. The same one we carried on every hike that summer. The same one that, in our haste packing up, had completely forgot existed—again!

I reached in and pulled out the seven passports, Victor’s wallet, and an envelope with thirteen Benjamin Franklins on it.

My shoulders dropped. My chest lightened. I couldn’t believe what an idiot I was, and yet, at the same time, I thought to myself, This is so typical of me!

I woke Victor and said, “Should I hide them in Daniel’s backpack and play a prank on him so that when he woke up and found them he would think he had overlooked them even though he had scoured his backpack a dozen times the previous day?” Victor gave me the you must be joking, you can’t do that to him look. For once, I listened to him.

Twenty four hours earlier I had been preparing myself for the reality that we might have to cancel our New Zealand and Bali trip because this loss of money & passports would drain our budget too much.

I had spent the drive from Castro to Hossegor wondering how the heck someone entered our second story apartment, that was built like a fortress— they must be rock climbers— and why would they didn’t steal our laptops too? I thought, Was this a sign from the Universe telling me that being a traveler was too much stress for my family. I was beginning to prepar my soul for the possibility of a new path.

And now, I’m back in my favorite European town.

I drove to the bakery to buy six chocolatine croissants and three loaves of bread for dinner—Lucas, Cereales, and Tradigraine.

I ran into the familiar grocery store and got my favorite French staples of lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, meat, wine, and a HUGE stick of butter. I then head to the beach to surf one of my all-time favorite surf breaks—hoping it’s a little less crowded on the peak now that the WSL contest is over and the tourists are gone (as if I’m not one of them).

Later, I go for a run with Victor, enjoying all the orange and yellow leaves under my feet, relishing in how wonderful it is to be somewhere with seasons, but not so cold that I’m freezing.

I don’t have all the answers. I mess up often. Usually, it’s in the form of trying to do too much, causing me to do stupid things like forgetting where I put seven passports.

But most days I wake up with laser focus and feel like the path we’ve chosen is exactly where we need to be. My life has been a roller coaster of surprises. Some days the drops are so much fun, and some days they scare me a bit. But I know one thing for certain: obstacles are ALWAYS opportunities, and so I’m grateful and keep trying to enjoy the ride. I also know for certain that my story is supposed to be shared. I hope you continue to follow along and that these stories inspire you to chase your dreams, too.

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