My partner and I moved to a coastal Portuguese town, sight unseen. We finally have the work-life balance we’ve dreamed of. [Video]

I was born in Paris and raised in New York, which has made me a city girl through and through.

I didn’t think I’d ever leave NYC, but when my partner — who grew up in a tiny town in Normandy — suggested we look for a calmer life across the Atlantic, I considered it.

A few months later, we were moving all our things across the Atlantic to a small town in Portugal we’d only ever seen in a travel book.

It took me a minute to recognize I wasn’t happy with my fast-paced city life

When talks of moving began, we had just returned from a one-month road trip around France in a van my partner had built. We came home to New York, and the traffic, construction, and fast-paced commuters that were always familiar now felt intrusive.

I reflected on my last year in the city, how consumed I’d been with work and making enough money to pay …