In October 2022, Tom Threinen suggested to his wife, Terry Williams, that they spend their annual New Year\u2019s anniversary trip somewhere neither had ever been \u2014 the Azores islands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds great, and by the way where are these islands?\u201d Williams asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are nine of them,\u201d said Threinen, a lifelong surfer. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of surfing everywhere!\u201d<\/p>\n
They landed on S\u00e3o Miguel Island \u2014 about 900 miles west of mainland Portugal \u2014 on Dec. 29, 2022.\u00a0 A few days later, they made an offer on a house.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really was love at first sight. We just knew,\u201d said Williams, as I talked with the couple on Zoom. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to describe the attraction this island has for us.\u00a0 I\u2019m aways ranting on about the magic here, the lovely sights, the lovelier people, the cows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Williams, 78, and Threinen, 76, live in a roughly 200-year-old village house in Ribeira Grande, a town on S\u00e3o Miguel\u2019s north coast, a four-minute walk from one of Europe\u2019s most famous surfing beaches.\u00a0 It is the dream next chapter for this couple.\u00a0 They live in the parish of Matriz, home to about 4,000 residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have afforded this lifestyle in San Diego,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n
Williams moved to San Diego at the age of 2 when the Navy transferred her father. After graduating from San Diego State with a degree in Spanish, she called San Diego Magazine every week for nearly a year until they hired her \u2014 the start of a decade in the business side of publishing.\u00a0 She then spent 20 years as vice president, producer and writer for a San Diego video and film production house, working for dozens of local businesses, including every major museum in Balboa Park, and collecting four Emmy Awards along the way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 55, she \u201cretired\u201d into what she thought would be an easygoing part-time job managing the San Diego Press Club \u2014 and stayed 20 years as executive director, growing membership to about 400 and building the Excellence in Journalism Awards.\u00a0 She retired in October 2023, the club\u2019s 50th anniversary year.<\/p>\n
Threinen, a 1974 San Diego State fine arts graduate, was advertising art director and staff artist at Surfing Magazine. The two met in 1980 through the magazine world and drifted apart when Threinen left to pursue an MBA at New York University\u2019s Stern School of Business and a career in commercial real estate development with his father in Las Vegas.\u00a0 They reconnected by email in 2000 after 20 years, and they got married in January 2006 \u2014 a third marriage for each.<\/p>\n
Every November since, they have held a two-person retreat to review the past year and set goals for the year ahead. The year before Williams\u2019 retirement, the question on the table was: What next? \u201cAt the conclusion of a huge discussion that took a couple of days, we knew we would have one last adventure,\u201d she says.\u00a0 That adventure, even though they didn\u2019t know it then, turned out to be moving to the Azores.<\/p>\n
The adventure came with bureaucracy. Their D7 residency visa required proof of passive income, private health insurance and an FBI background report.\u00a0 Their residency cards arrived in July 2024. The house renovation, which might have taken a year in San Diego, took 2 1\/2.\u00a0 In early 2025, they sold their City Heights house.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their mornings begin with coffee and toast on the deck, gazing over the village rooftops to the ocean.\u00a0 Threinen surfs and paints \u2014 seascapes, narrow streets, old buildings, festivals.\u00a0 Williams swims and, characteristically, has taken on a project \u2014 converting a circa-1780 building on the plaza by the village church into a gallery for Tom\u2019s work.\u00a0 The effort is currently mired in Portuguese permitting. \u201cIt actually looks like I\u2019ll turn 80 before we get the gallery open,\u201d she jokes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the town\u2019s art museum director liked Threinen\u2019s paintings \u2014 her village seen through a newcomer\u2019s eyes \u2014 and she offered him a show that opens Oct. 9.<\/p>\n
Their social calendar is busy, and they are not bored.\u00a0 They go to festivals and concerts, have dinner with friends, and Williams is a member of an international women\u2019s group that sponsors a monthly lunch to benefit a local cause.<\/p>\n
Challenges exist. The local dialect, Terry says, is \u201cas Portuguese as Cajun is English.\u201d\u00a0 The electrician doesn\u2019t arrive and doesn\u2019t call.\u00a0 A cultural-and-language gap at the new hospital led them to hire a medical concierge service to book appointments and translate options.\u00a0 The hardest part is distance: three grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and the roughly 18-hour journey to San Diego.<\/p>\n
Do they miss San Diego?\u00a0 \u201cYes, lots of it,\u201d Williams admits \u2014 \u201cour friends especially, the La Jolla Playhouse, the Rady Shell, every square inch of Balboa Park.\u201d\u00a0 Her advice to would-be Azores retirees: don\u2019t take it lightly.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s like getting yet another master\u2019s degree. Gather the facts, seek help, listen to your heart and your guts.\u201d (She recommends a private Facebook group called Americans and Friends in Portugal that provides information about the process of getting a resident permit and moving.\u00a0 You have to answer why you want to join to be accepted.)<\/p>\n
She continues, \u201cWe made this move almost accidentally, but it has turned out to be incredibly magical. The community here has embraced us in the most heartwarming way. Our neighbors bring us food, encourage our language skills (very difficult), invite us to events, and make sure we don\u2019t miss any festivals or feasts. We cannot get used to it. We travel around marveling that we actually do live here.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked what she likes the most, she says, \u201cThat it is entirely up to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thank you to the readers who emailed me about my 50th reunion Harvard Business School column.\u00a0 Many asked what happened to my Karmann Ghia.\u00a0 A classmate drove it to my aunt\u2019s house in Los Angeles while I went to South America for the summer.\u00a0 In August 1976, I drove it to Sacramento to start my job at the Sacramento Bee.\u00a0 I sold it 18 months later when I got a job with the Los Angeles Times and decided that I needed a car with air conditioning if I was going to drive on the L.A. freeways.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to still have it.<\/p>\n