In honor of my youngest graduating from high school, my family and I traveled to Nice, France earlier this month. While admiring the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, the architecture, the delicious French cuisine, and my adult children in real time, I found myself thinking about what living trusts and travel have in common — both are intentional investments that keep giving long after the moment has passed.

The Peace That Stays With You

Living trusts and travel both offer peace of mind that outlasts the experience itself. The rest offered by a meaningful trip stays with you for months — you draw on it. A living trust works the same way. Knowing that your loved ones are protected if you become incapacitated or die is a peace you carry with you every single day, long after the documents are signed.

Don't Wait for the Border to Get Your Passport

A trust is to probate what a passport is to a closed border. Both are documents you must obtain before you need them — and both grant you passage across a threshold that would otherwise stop your family cold. A living trust holds your assets and ensures your family bypasses complicated court proceedings upon your death. A passport gives you access to countries beyond your own. Neither works if you wait until the moment of crisis to get one.

Plan the Trip. Plan the Legacy.

The intentionality required by both trusts and travel is something I’ve come to deeply appreciate. A poorly planned trip leads to chaos — missed connections, wrong hotels, lost time. A poorly planned estate leaves the same kind of chaos behind for the people you love most. A living trust lets you make deliberate choices in advance: how your assets are organized, how probate is avoided, and exactly when and how your loved ones inherit. Travel lets you choose where in the world you spend your precious time. I chose Nice, and I have no regrets.

You Don't Have to Navigate This Alone

Neither trusts nor travel are best navigated alone. In Nice, I leaned on local knowledge — recommendations, guides, people who knew the terrain. Estate planning is no different. As your Personal Family Lawyer, I know this territory and can help you make choices that are right for your specific family — not just a generic map, but a plan designed for you.

Schedule a discovery call with me to discuss trusts, what lies ahead, and maybe even where in the world you’d like to go next.

Father's Day is a time to celebrate the dads, stepdads, grandfathers, and father figures who show up - the ones who work hard, stay present, and quietly carry the weight of keeping everyone else okay.

And if that sounds like you, here's something worth sitting with for a moment.

The people who depend on you - who count on you to figure things out - would they be taken care of if something happened to you tomorrow? Not eventually. Not after months of court delays and family confusion. Right away, by the people you'd choose, in exactly the way you'd want?

Most dads assume the answer is yes. But without the right plan in place, the answer is often more complicated.