Our Travels

We’re the Schwartzes, Michelle, Jordan and Zev, this is our travel journal.

Seattle is our long-term home, but when we travel, we like to do it for a decent spell. Because we both have jobs that don’t tie us down to a location (Jordan’s software company, event apps for conferences that care about community and relationships, doesn’t have an office, everyone works remotely anyway; Michelle is consulting with people looking to improve their health through nutrition), we have the freedom to take it on the road.

Back in 2007, we rented out or house to a triplet of Buddhist nuns and backpacked Europe for three months, deciding whether to stay one morning to the next (before settling down for a month in Florence.) In 2015, we repeated the plan, this time with our then six-year-old son Zevin, and spent another three months moving around Europe, settling for a month and a half in Lisbon and finally two weeks in Amsterdam.

We liked Amsterdam so much we decided to go back in 2017, renting an apartment just off Vondelpark for the full spell. (That trip was delayed a year due to a catastrophic achilles tendon injury.)

As of this writing (June 2018), our next adventure is a three to four week trip in our Roadtrek camper van to the American southwest. We’ve handed off our van to a couple from Seattle who are driving it one-way to Albuquerque, enjoying their own #vanlife adventure on the way, and then dropping it at the airport there, where we’ll meet it for the return journey.

Jordan works as he travels, enjoying the life of a digital nomad. Michelle’s passion for food is challenged by her Celiac Disease, which is part of why we stay in places with a ktichen (or bring our own, via our camper van.) But that doesn’t stop us from enjoying local food along the way: in fact, it makes sure we spend more time at local farmers markets and talk to the local chefs. Zevin will turn 10 in 2018, and loves stories and adventure. He’s all in.

Please drop us a line if you’ve got suggestions or want to say hi!