I moved my family of 4 to Portugal. Leaving the US was the best parenting decision I've made.

• My family of four moved from the US to Thailand, and then to Portugal.
• In the process, we experienced lows and highs and grew as a family.

In 2018, my husband, two kids, and I packed our lives into two suitcases, boarded three separate planes, and traveled 23 hours to our new home in Phuket, Thailand.

It helped that my husband and I were experienced at living abroad — or so we thought. We had lived in two other countries prior to having kids and had done our fair share of traveling. I'd built a location-independent business, so we had the income side set. And we knew from experience that we loved living abroad: the newness of every day, the immersion in other cultures, being outside our comfort zone, the adventures, the food, the memories.

But we quickly discovered that living abroad as a family was vastly different from being 23 years old, childless, and able to jump on a bus on a whim and stay in cheap hotels around the Caribbean and Asia. Our children needed more structure than we initially planned for.

We moved again, this time to Portugal, where we found everything we all needed.

At first, things were hard

We spent the second week after moving to Thailand hospitalized with food poisoning and the first months nursing our kids through violent illness after violent illness. Our attic was infested with bats. We read daily reports of foreigner deaths from traffic accidents and dengue. Two king cobras were caught a couple of miles away, on a road where my husband often rode his bike.

Still, we learned to drive in traffic on the other side of the road. We tried to acclimate to the sticky heat. We practiced safety outside: bathing ourselves in bug spray, staying away from bushes and dense jungle trees.

We also had many wonderful adventures — hikes in the jungles, day trips to nearby islands, weekends in Singapore and Vietnam. We spent Sundays at the beach, swimming in the ocean and playing on the sand. But our kids kept getting sick, our son especially, and with the threat of dengue too near for comfort, we picked another home: Portugal.

Then things got so much better

We packed our suitcases again and moved to southern Portugal.

We spend weekends at the beach or hiking the extensive trail system near our home. We walk cobblestone streets, eat casual oceanfront meals, admire succulents growing seaside, explore forests, and take surfing lessons.

Here, we have the space we crave, the safety our family needs, and the newness of a place that isn't my Idaho hometown.

At school, my daughter has classes in gardening, mindfulness, and animal care alongside writing, science, and math. My son is in a warm, supportive Portuguese school with teachers who value him as a whole person. They share classes with kids from all over the world, opening their minds and horizons.

We've learned a few lessons along the way

In the transition, we uncovered truths about moving our whole family abroad that hadn't applied when we were just a couple. Although Thailand is an incredible country, a clear "needs" and "wants" checklist prior to moving might have helped us recognize some of the quality-of-life issues that would be incompatible for our young family.

We also discovered the power of taking action. Once we picked a moving date and told family and close friends about our plans, our dream began to feel real. We then made it concrete by booking flights and an Airbnb for a month, getting on school waiting lists, and researching our new home.

And finally, we learned the power of seeing a dream through. If we had thrown our hands up in despair after our move to Thailand, we would have never experienced the wonderful life we have now in Portugal. There are still certain challenges with living far from friends and family. But we've grown as people and as a family as we embrace living in a country that's beginning to feel like home.

Stacy Ennis is a No. 1 bestselling author, success and book coach, and speaker on a mission to help leaders use the power of writing to uncover their unique stories so they can scale their impact.