Friday, 14 February 2025

BRAZILICANS – Meet the nomad family that fell in love with Dubrovnik

Written by  May 24, 2018

Brazilicans – that's a name of interesting Instagram profile showing a life of one nomad family. Mum Rapha, dad Aaron and little Orion are traveling around the world together and share their journey on their website! They recently visited Dubrovnik and we just had to meet them. Here’s their story. 

Can you introduce yourselves to our readers?

My name is Rapha Luz, I'm 24 years old and from Brazil. I'm a stay-at-home mom, Travel Blogger and Licenced Massage Therapist. My husband's name is Aaron Anderson, he is 33 years old, from the United States of America and he is a Remote Digital Marketer. We have a lovely boy, his name is Orion, he is 3 years old, born in Brazil, happy and energetic little soul who loves dinosaurs, airplanes and ice cream.

We are world travelers, have been Digital Nomads for 4 years, basically since we met. About 2 years ago we left my country Brazil, where we were living that time, to start a new adventure around the world. We came to Europe and have been living in a different country every month for these past 2 years. It has been a wonderful experience. We've learned so much about new cultures, history, different people, beautiful places and good food.

 

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When and why did you decide to become a nomad family?

Our nomadic lifestyle started with my husband, he is very motivated by freedom of time and location. His goal for years was to be capable of working remotely, that way he would be able to decide when and where to work. He learned digital marketing and was able to start working online from anywhere before we met. We met on Facebook back in October of 2013 in the USA, while I was doing an exchange program in New York.
Living in different states and having a long distance relationship, made us travel a lot to see each other, so we would always combine a weekend trip to different places when we wanted to meet up. That made us realize how much we loved to travel together and that we wanted travel to be a very active part of our life. We got married in August of 2014, less than a year after we met, and that's when we started our nomadic life.
We had all the freedom in this world, which can be challeging sometimes, especially right after getting married. We then decided to moved to Brazil, my home country, and spent about a year and a half there, living in different states. Our baby was born a little before our first year of marriage and had his first year of his life in Brazil.
We love our nomadic lifestyle, it's very fun to move to a new country and make great memories together as a family. It's not always easy or plesant but it definitely helps us to grow and make fun memories.

 

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What are the challenges of traveling with a baby?

To be honest, we have raised our boy to be a traveler, to adapt to our lifestyle, so he is very easy to please. He sleeps anywhere, eats anything, talks to anyone, plays with whatever is given to him and never gets sick. He is completely fine being in a bus ride for 3 to 4 hours, airplane ride for 6-10 hours; he is a baby traveler :) Of course he has his moments, like all kids do, but because he has learned to be easily adaptible to new situations – it makes our life as nomads much easier. If it wasn't for all of that, I'm sure we would have a much harder time.
But the main things we struggle with currently is not having friends that he can play with, and not being able to go out on dates alone or do any kind of adventure sport like kayaking or things that are difficult to do with a 2 year old with you.

How many countries have you visited so far?

We have been to over 30 countries, and 20 of these countries we actually spent at least one month visiting there. We have visited for at least a month the countries of Turkey, Morroco, Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Montenegro and more!

How does your little boy like travel? What are the benefits for him?

He is still too young to verbaly complain about it but I think Orion seems to really enjoy it. He loves being on the airplane, trains and road trips by car. He loves to see the new home every month, he likes to get to know new parks and playgrounds in different areas and he enjoys watching cartoons in different languages.
I see my boy growing up as a very social person - he is surely different than any other kid we see around in public places. He goes and talks to anyone, tries to make new friends and approaches people without being shy or embarrassed.
He is not affraid of things or people, which I think is the best thing we are teaching him, to be social, to develop his ''people skills''. As I mentioned before, traveling with him since he was born has made him a very easy going child, he is easy to please and not very picky, also because we are minimalists that makes him a minimalist too, he doesn't feel the need to have tons of toys, he seems to be happy with just a few.

 

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What is your impression of Dubrovnik?

We absolutelly love Dubrovnik, it's one of the most beautiful and photogenic cities we have ever visited. It has so much to offer in terms of the beatiful water and beaches, the history, the small streets and endless stairs, etc. We loved it because it's very beautiful from afar being a walled city, but then it has has so much to explore and experience in the old town as well. It was a little challenging to walk around the old town with a stroller, but there are so many cute little streets and areas that we have yet to explore.

Is Dubrovnik child-friendly? What are the best things to do with a child in our city?

Sure! Well, to start, there are plenty of beaches around the city that can keep kids busy all day long. Also, in the old town, since there is so much activity, we found a lot for our boy to do. Just walking around the city streets, letting him chase birds, watch people, check out the boats, try and catch fish, etc. Like any city, kids don't need a lot to keep themselves entertained.

What is your favourite part of Dubrovnik?

Dubrovnik has many wonderful aspects, but what really sets it apart is how unique it is as a walled city. We loved walking on the wall as we didn't really know that Europe had something similar to the Wall of China to experience!

 

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How do you like Croatia in general?

Our favorite thing about Croatia is all of the natural beauty. There are some amazing national parks, with beautiful water, waterfalls, landscape, and just amazing scenery. While on the bus from Split to Dubrovnik, we were completely taken aback by just how amazingly beautiful that drive is. There are so many beautiful beaches and towns to explore.

What will be your next destination?

We are currently in Tivat, Montenegro, and we'll soon be headed to Skopje, Macedonia. After that, we'll spend a few days in Berlin, Germany before flying off to Singapore and spending the next few months or years in Asia!

Are you planning to stop traveling or you don't have that in mind yet?

We don't really have a long-term plan for whether we'll stop traveling or whether this lifestyle we currently live will become sustainable. We think we'll keep traveling like this for another year or two and then try to establish ourselves somewhere and use that as a home base from which to travel. However, since we typically don't plan our lives more than a few weeks in advance, we'll have to just wait and see how things go!

 

 

The Voice of Dubrovnik

THE VOICE OF DUBROVNIK


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