On Time Off, Holidays, and Learning to Pause

One of the quiet adjustments of moving abroad, especially from the States, is time.

Not time zones (though those matter), or even working odd hours to stay aligned with U.S. schedules. I mean time as it’s protected and treated in daily life.

In the U.S., time off is often treated as a luxury. Or privilege is maybe more accurate. You have to earn it, and it can just as easily be expected to be postponed or cancelled if something else comes up. You end up planning your life around the few times PTO and school breaks line up, with a general expectation that work continues.

Living in Portugal has challenged that assumption in ways we didn’t fully anticipate.

Our kids just came off a week-long school break. In a few weeks, they’ll have a couple of days off for Carnival. Then two full weeks over Easter. All of this follows the long winter holiday break they had not that long ago.

And this isn’t unusual. It’s simply how the school year is structured.

At first, it felt disorienting.

In practical terms, more school breaks mean more childcare planning and more moments where the cadence of U.S.-based work feels out of sync with local life. When you’re working U.S. hours while living abroad, these breaks don’t magically make your workload lighter. Deadlines and meetings don’t disappear. Sometimes, it genuinely makes things harder.

But instead of viewing these breaks as disruptions, we began to see them as signals. Reminders built into the system that rest is not an exception. It’s necessary.

In many countries outside the U.S., vacation and time off aren’t something you apologize for. They’re not framed as a lack of ambition or commitment. Schools close. Offices slow down. Entire cities adjust their pace. The assumption is not that life must bend around work at all costs, but that work exists within a broader, human rhythm. You have off for a national holiday? There’s a good chance your neighborhood cafe is closed too, because they deserve it as well.

If you’re coming from a culture where productivity is closely tied to identity, slowing down can feel uncomfortable. Even irresponsible. There’s a learning curve, both emotionally and logistically, in allowing yourself and your family to take breaks without justification.

We noticed it first with our kids. They weren’t counting days off as something “special.” They simply accepted it as part of life. Time to rest and reset. Time to be together. 

We notice how time is treated in smaller ways, too. Like how playdates happen.

Back in the U.S., social time often felt scheduled weeks in advance. Text threads where coordinating availability felt like a small project. Here, it’s much more casual. A conversation at school pickup. A message that says, “Do you want to come by this afternoon?” Kids knocking on doors. Plans that form, and dissolve, without stress.

We were used to planning ahead and optimizing schedules. But over time, we realized how closely this casual approach mirrored the broader relationship with time itself. There’s more trust that things will work out. More space for spontaneity. Less pressure to extract maximum value from every free hour.

That was confronting in the best way.

It forced us to look at our own conditioning: the reflex to fill every free day, the urge to stay “on,” the background belief that rest, and even personal connection, must be managed and optimized. Living abroad didn’t erase those instincts, but it did put them under a brighter light.

Over time, we started making small, intentional adjustments.

We stopped trying to replicate a U.S. schedule in a non-U.S. context. We got more honest about capacity. We let certain weeks be lighter, knowing others would be heavier. We began treating breaks not as inconveniences, but as structural pauses and opportunities to reconnect, recalibrate, and be present with our family.

That doesn’t mean every break feels idyllic. It’s still incredibly stressful to manage childcare. And it highlights the tension of living between systems. The local life on one side, U.S.-based work on the other. But even then, the underlying message remains: life is allowed to slow down.

That idea alone has been transformative.

Moving abroad didn’t just change where we live. It changed how we think about time, success, and what a “full” life actually includes. It nudged us away from constant motion and toward something more sustainable. We did not plan it that way, but the culture around us insisted on it.

This is one of those changes that doesn’t show up in relocation checklists or visa guides. But it matters.

If you’re considering a move abroad — or are already living through one — this adjustment is worth naming. More holidays. More breaks. More pauses. Not as perks, but as part of the fabric of daily life.

Sometimes, the biggest move isn’t where you go but how you learn to stop.

Until next time,

Benn (+ Melissa)

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