About Us

We're Jeff & Zachary — a married LGBTQ+ couple from the United States who sold everything to travel the world full-time. We've been based in Europe since January 2022.

We're not on vacation. We're not retired. We work remotely, pay taxes, count Schengen days, and hunt for apartments on Booking.com, HousingAnywhere, Flatio, SpotAHome, local platforms, and even local realtors. We move every 1–6 months, bouncing between Schengen and non-Schengen countries to stay legal. It's less glamorous than Instagram makes it look — and honestly, that's what makes it interesting.

Our Story

It started with a road trip. In 2014 we drove from California across the southern US and back, then boarded a transatlantic cruise to Europe — our first time overseas together. Something clicked. We came home, looked at each other, and said "what if we went back for a year?"

In 2015, we did exactly that. A full year traveling through Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, and Germany. We lived out of suitcases, worked remotely when we could, and figured out the basics of long-term travel in real time.

We came home, got married in 2016, and settled into a house in Temecula, California. We built careers, turned our place into a vacation rental on the side, and did the normal American thing for a few years. Then COVID hit. Like a lot of people, the pandemic forced us to rethink what we actually wanted. Working from home full-time proved that our jobs didn't require a zip code. The vacation rental taught us we could generate income from anywhere. The walls started feeling like a choice rather than a necessity.

On New Year's Eve 2021, we closed on the sale of our house, shipped what we couldn't carry, and flew to Madrid. We immediately caught COVID — spent our first week in Europe quarantined in a hotel room. Not the cinematic start we'd imagined, but a fitting introduction to the reality of this life: unglamorous, unpredictable, and still better than the alternative.

From Madrid we made our way to Porto, and the nomad chapter officially began. Since January 2022, we've lived in Portugal, Cyprus, Albania, Greece, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, and more. We've signed leases through Booking.com, HousingAnywhere, Flatio, SpotAHome, Airbnb, Blueground, local platforms, and directly with local realtors.

What We Do

Jeff works in technology. Zachary manages operations. Together, we run withJZ LLC. TravelwithJZ is our personal project — a place to share what we've learned about living abroad as a same-sex couple, managing visas, finding housing, and building a life without a home base.

Why This Site

Most travel content is written by people who visited a place for a weekend. We write about places we've lived in — for weeks or months at a time. We share real costs, real challenges, and real opinions. If a city was disappointing, we'll say so.

We especially focus on LGBTQ+ safety because it's something we have to think about every time we move. Not every European country is the same, and we want other queer travelers and nomads to have honest information.

Get in Touch

Want to chat about nomad life, ask us a question, or work together?