4inworld – Quitting Suburban Life for the Unknown

Our Lives Wide Open…

For our sons—now grown—this is a look back at how and why we walked away.
As children, you may not have fully understood why we left behind suburban comfort, stable jobs, and a carefully built life to step into the unknown. And as teenagers, you may have even resented it.

We’ll never know what our lives might have looked like if we had stayed in North Carolina. But we didn’t.

This blog is for both of you—to share the reasons behind our decision, the emotions that came with it, and to gather the memories of our journey.

Before “digital nomad” was a hashtag, before Airbnb became a verb, and before remote work made globe-hopping feel easy—we sold everything, packed up our lives, and took a leap.
What began as a single flight to Italy turned into something far bigger: a messy, beautiful, unpredictable, and transformative journey across Europe as a family of four.

This is the story of that leap—why we took it, how it stretched and shaped us, and why, even in the hardest moments, we never once wished we’d stayed behind.