The thought hit me somewhere between Cala San Vicenç and Port de Pollença — a proper long run along the coast, the kind where your mind wanders as your feet find their rhythm. Three weeks into this Mallorca fitness retreat, and I’d finally settled into the pattern of it all. Early work sessions, then a run along the seafront, yoga, HIIT, breakfast, more work. I was the only one actually working through all this. Everyone else was on holiday, taking proper time off. I was squeezing conference calls between HIIT sessions. The weather was perfect for me — sunny but not too hot, sometimes grey but never cold. Almost everyone else was waiting for beach weather. I was out running in it.
When you choose where to live, you choose how to live.
It’s a simple thought, but it’s taken me months of this digital nomad life to really understand it. This Mallorca stint — four weeks in one place — is the longest I’ve been anywhere other than Porto since I started this whole adventure. Long enough to know the best running routes, where the coastal path gets crowded, how the light changes through the day. Long enough to not feel like a visitor.
But I’m also noticing what doesn’t quite fit. The schedule makes US calling hours limited — that’ll only get worse when I hit Asia. Need lots of early mornings and late nights for calls! The retreat food is good, but I miss my own kitchen, the simple freedom of choosing what and when to eat. Small things, maybe. But they matter when you’re trying to build a life rather than just pass through one.
Two days before leaving, I sprained my ankle slightly. Not badly — I can walk fine — but it’ll be a couple of weeks before I’m running again. Coming back to Porto with that limitation made me realise something: I know these streets so well I can walk them differently, find new routes, adapt. That’s what home gives you — the depth to handle the imperfect bits.
Porto feels like home now. Started feeling that way early this year, partly because I genuinely like it here, partly because I have no other bases. It’s the closest thing I have to home — by default and by choice. Good friends help. Familiarity helps. Having a place to unpack properly helps.
What I’m learning is that variety and nature give me energy, but I like that anchor too. Mallorca was peaceful and vibrant at the same time — peaceful on those morning runs, vibrant when you wanted it. Porto has that same quality, just differently calibrated. I love my river runs here, probably prefer them in some ways, but it’s good to run somewhere else sometimes, to remember why you chose where you chose.
The complications are real — dating without a full-time base, building deeper connections, maintaining friendships across time zones. But none of it is insurmountable. It’s part of shaping a life that’s genuinely mine, not inherited or assumed.
For now, I’m back in Porto, walking instead of running, seeing my familiar streets with an injured ankle’s patience. It’s not all figured out. Maybe it never will be.
But I’m learning that when you choose where to live — really choose it, not just end up there — you’re choosing more than geography. You’re choosing your daily rhythm, your challenges, your small pleasures. You’re choosing who you become in that place.
And that choice? It’s one you get to keep making.
