My wife, 2 year old daughter and I spent November staying in Rome. It was our first “one month away”: an attempt to satisfy some wanderlust whilst accepting the benefits of being in one place when you have a toddler.
Below is an overview of how it went: how we planned it, how it actually played out, and things we’d do next time.
On the whole, it was a great experience. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to try something like this too, then I hope it helps – feel free to write me if you’d like.
Why we did this
My wife and I met abroad (when we were both living in Kenya) and get a lot of enjoyment from visiting new places and seeing/ experiencing different ways of living. We moved to Copenhagen in 2019 and whilst life in Denmark is great (especially with a small child), the day-to-day can still feel a bit ‘small’ when there’s a big, wide world out there.
The idea of “one month away” seemed to be a nice middle ground of experiencing somewhere new without fully committing to a nomadic family lifestyle.
We’re fortunate enough to have flexible work and enough disposable income to try out living somewhere else for a month, and so decided to prioritise making it happen in 2023. We’d never really been to Rome and banked on the weather being an upgrade from the notoriously grey Danish Novembers.
How we planned the month
We wanted to “get to know” Rome, but also experience what it would be like to live there.
Not necessarily because we wanted to move there, but more because you get different perspectives when not just somewhere for a holiday. We also both needed to work(!).
Roughly speaking it was:
- 2 weeks holiday
- 2 weeks working remotely
The first two weeks would be spent exploring the city and doing some on-the-ground research for the next two weeks.
Accommodation
Initially we started looking on various house swap websites for people also looking to travel for a month, but that didn’t come to fruition so we took the “traditional” route of online research + Airbnb.
We opted to stay in a family-friendly neighbourhood and, after reading some articles went for Monteverde.
Staying for a month in low season gave us some buying power and so we made a shortlist on Airbnb and asked what the best offer was, ending up with a decent discount.
Where we stayed was good enough and met the criteria we wanted: decent kitchen + living space in a quiet neighborhood close to amenities.
We didn’t want to spend that much, as we weren’t able to Airbnb our own apartment and psychologically it felt tough paying double rent, but in the future we may opt for an additional room to give us more space.
Childcare
This was the main new piece of the puzzle to try and figure out.
Online research was fairly tricky for finding local childcare. There were clunky babysitter websites, not much on Facebook, and the occasional blog post directing you to someone’s phone number.
What worked well was asking our Airbnb host for recommendations. She put is in touch with a couple of people she knew who I spoke with via email/ WhatsApp before agreeing dates/ times for one of them to come over and look after our daughter.
The plan was to do a trial run for a few hours in week 2 (whilst we were still “on holiday”), and then do a morning + Saturday evening in weeks 3 & 4.
Our back up plan was to just work less and cover each other in weeks 3 & 4 if things fell through with the babysitter.
Other things
Beyond this we didn’t really plan much. A few days before departing we booked a guided tour of the Colosseum and transferred various recommendations we received onto Google Maps to give some direction to our meandering.
After a relatively painless trip we touched down, got to the apartment, and went from there…
How it played out
We received our first “culture shock” on the first evening when trying to find a local restaurant.
We went out at 6pm and could only find a place that wasn’t really open, but was happy for us to come in whilst the staff were on a break.
After finishing our meal (in the still empty restaurant) we felt it was better to shift our rhythm. Whilst we’re all for recalibrating to a local culture, putting our daughter to bed around 7pm trumped going to a restaurant in the evening.
Our days (more or less) became:
- Morning: explore the city
- Lunchtime: daughter naps whilst we eat lunch out
- Afternoon: activity
- Evening: at home
When it came to socialising, people in Rome seemed to typically finish work around 6.30pm meaning that the only way we could see friends of friends who we’d been connected with (on weekdays) was to invite them over for dinner at our place.
This was a bit more limited to what we’re used to (in Denmark, most people finish at 4pm, meaning it’s possible to do the socialising “out”) and even then, our 7.30-9.30pm dinner was early for most of the locals who are used to eating later in the evening.
In any case, we were usually pretty tired at the end of the day and so the prospect of a 9pm dinner wasn’t too appealing, however much we wanted to acclimatise…
Kid activities
There was a decent selection of playgrounds around the city that served as focal points to do things during the first fortnight.
A local kids theatre unfortunately didn’t have any shows for 2 year olds, but did point us in the direction of a website loosely translated as “kids activities in Rome dot com”.
This was a good source of finding events happening around the city, though in the end we just did one (which I found out about via a poster).
We also found a local indoor playground (essentially soft padding on a converted underground car park – fascinating) which was a solid bet for late afternoons.
Otherwise, our daughter seemed quite happy trundling through parks, jumping off pavements and practicing how to say “gnocchi” at local cafes.
Adult activities
During the first couple of weeks we essentially had a city break holiday, and did some on-the-ground research for the working fortnight.
The main takeaway was to take things at our 2 year old’s pace.
We did a guided tour of the Colosseum which was good, but we weren’t able to fully concentrate as everyone (understandably) was going at adult speed.
Our way around this was to seek out podcasts of other sites (e.g. here) and then listen to them in the preceding days around the apartment to get familiar with what we’re about to see. When we went to e.g. the Pantheon, we knew the main things and could read the signs intermittently between sitting down on the floor looking at the tiles for 10 minutes…
Otherwise we “settled” for doing one main activity per day (e.g. Sistine Chapel/ day hike/ new neighbourhood), and then factoring in something for her (e.g. playground/ zoo/ playground), walking slowly around the city with the stroller in between.
It was actually really nice.
Childcare
Interestingly, when we got to our neighbourhood we found a newly opened childcare centre that offered babysitting by the hour, as well as workshops at the weekend.
We went along, and it was great!
We took (and stayed with) our daughter for 1.5 hours on Week 2 Saturday, then an hour on Week 3 Monday coming and going from the room so that she felt safe there (and knew we’d come back!) and then we had that as an option too.
Our planned babysitter ended up getting sick, and so we used this local daycare centre most mornings which made weeks 3 & 4 actually really workable.
Because the centre was so new, our daughter was the only one there and basically got free reign of the place. We definitely lucked out here.
Working
The initial plan was that I’d look after our daughter in the mornings and my wife would take afternoons (with a couple of babysitter sessions) however with the daycare centre nearby we shifted it to something like:
- 8.30-11.30: daughter in daycare
- 11.30-14: I looked after her
- 14-17: wife looked after her
Workwise, this meant my wife worked 8.30-14, and I had two ~3 hour “shifts” during the day.
My wife has fewer meetings and so worked from the apartment, however I found a local coworking space where I bought some day passes.
Working for 4-6 hours/ day was definitely doable, though with all of the other things going on, work definitely took a back seat for the month.
Family time
Spending time as a three, especially during the first fortnight was really lovely.
We got to spend whole days with our daughter (who is usually in daycare in Denmark 5 days/ week) and take things at a slow pace, not feeling the need to rush around and see a whole city in a long weekend.
It was fun seeing our daughter pick up new words, interact with strangers and generally enjoy being in a new place.
Couple time
The flipside of all this lovely family time was that it was pretty exhausting.
Being on childcare duty/ working during the days meant that in the evenings we barely had energy to get up off the sofa.
We were able to have a bit of time together when our daughter napped/ slept, but not a proper break.
Our babysitter was ill both Saturdays we’d booked her for, but we didn’t fancy introducing another new person to our daughter and so instead got takeout food on those nights..
Individual time
During the first fortnight we were able to give each other some breaks, but even then, solo time was mainly spent “running the house” (e.g. shopping; food prep) or catching up with friends at the end of a long day.
When we started “going to work” in weeks 3 & 4 we got more solo time which was welcome.
I found a local gym to go to on my way to the co-working space and could carve out a bit of individual time during lulls at work. Again though, not a priority for this type of trip.
“New perspectives”
The initial overarching reason for doing this was to break out of our ordinary day-to-day routine and do something interesting. Learning to adapt in a new city, and the experiences that came from it, definitely hit this, even if we did settle on a new day-to-day routine during the working fortnight.
There were certainly small things that we picked up from staying in Rome (the coffee culture; the relationship to architecture; the joy of seeing Italian’s communicate so expressively) however we had limited actual interactions with local people, and so it was a bit more observational.
In the end, the desire for “new perspectives” ended up being secondary to just enjoying the time there.
Getting back to reality
We flew back on the Friday and spent the weekend getting back into life at home. We went from crisp (yet sunny) weather in Rome to snow on the ground in Copenhagen. With 3 weeks until Christmas, and needing to wrap up warm when stepping outside, the month away was certainly over..
We were slightly worried our daughter would forget her friends at nursery (and vice versa) but thankfully that wasn’t the case.
The month felt long, but in a good way. It felt like a living example of how doing new things “stretches” time (perception).
Would we do it again?
I think so?
Though we’re also open to doing something else that’s different from apartment living in Copenhagen for a month, e.g. living in an Ecovillage (that doesn’t need to be abroad).
We’d most likely stick with the 2+2 format, though also consider the following things:
- Grandparents: timings didn’t work this time, but we’d plan around having them for at least a week
- Take our own duvets: the month made us realise how much we miss our (separate) duvets (context) – probably worth bringing to avoid the worse sleep
- Novelty in working weeks: the final week dragged a bit because we were essentially doing a harder version of our home life. It’d be good to plan/ factor in ways to get more variety (perhaps from staying with/ near friends?), or just do one week work before going home
Hope this is helpful to anyone considering doing something similar! Though I’m at a loss as to how you’d do this with 2+ kids….