People hear "three months in Europe" and they picture a vacation. Postcards. Cafés. Not a care in the world.

Paul and I are planning something different for the summer of 2028, and I want to be honest about the difference — because the difference is the whole point.

Yes, we're planning about three months: Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, and London. And yes, there will be beauty in it, and good food, and days that feel like a gift. But the Spain part of that trip is not a holiday. It's a scouting trip. We are going to look at a possible future home with our eyes open, and a scouting trip has a job to do.

A vacation asks: am I having fun? A scouting trip asks: could I live here?

Those are different questions, and they send you to different places. A vacation stays in the pretty center, near the sights. A scouting trip walks the ordinary streets. It finds the grocery store, the pharmacy, the bus stop. It asks what a normal Tuesday looks like — because if Spain ever becomes home, most of my life there will be normal Tuesdays, not postcard days.

The questions our trip has to answer

I've started a list, and it keeps growing. These are the things three months on the ground can tell us that no amount of reading ever will:

Which towns feel like home? Not which town photographs best — which one feels right at street level, at our pace, at our age. A place can be beautiful and still not be ours.

What does daily life actually cost? Not the tourist prices — the resident ones. Rent on a real street, groceries for a real week, the ordinary expenses of ordinary days. I don't need a guess from the internet; I need to stand in the store and see for myself.

What about healthcare? Where's the care, how does it work for people like us, and what would we need to have in place? At 63, that's not a footnote. That's a headline.

What does the paperwork really require? Visas, residency, the order things have to happen in. I've read plenty. Now I want to see it from the ground, in real offices, with real timelines.

Could we do daily life there? The language, the rhythm of the day, the distance from family. My grandchild will be growing up an ocean away — that one sits on my heart, and I won't pretend it doesn't. The trip has to give that question an honest hearing too.

How I'm preparing now

2028 feels far away, but preparation is just faith with a calendar. So now looks like: keeping the questions list and adding to it as I learn. Paying attention to the downsizing — every box sorted here is practice for living lighter there. Reading, saving, praying, and talking honestly with Paul about what we each need this trip to tell us.

I don't need the trip to sell me a dream. I need it to tell me the truth. If Spain is meant to be home, the truth will hold up under ordinary Tuesdays. And if it isn't, I'd rather know it standing in a grocery store in 2028 than find out any other way.

Either way:

I am not done.
I am not invisible.
I am not too old to dream.
And I am Spain bound.

One question for you

If you could take a scouting trip to the place you dream about — not a vacation, a real look — what's the one question it would have to answer for you? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one, and I'm adding the best ones to my list.

— Patty

P.S. New here? This is Spain Bound: My Second Chapter — for women over 60 who aren't done yet: retiring, downsizing, and dreaming my way to Spain, with faith at the center. Subscribe and come along.