In 2009, when my daughter Layla was two, I felt increasingly trapped in the work-grind of the U.S. and ended up bailing and moving our family to Patagonia. I was working two jobs, 12-plus hour days, my time split between writing and editing and doing local remodels around Seattle. And while it鈥檚 untrue to say we never did anything as a family鈥攚e did get out on little camping trips to the Olympic Peninsula and day trips to the Snoqualmie鈥攊t was never enough. It wasn鈥檛 even close.听

Miller and Layla walking through the snow

Lau hiking with Layla

Layla at Lago Puelo

Layla with Paulo, Noel, Brisa

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Layla had been born en casa, as they say, right in the bed of the 8th floor apartment we鈥檇 rented on Calle Defensa in my wife Lau鈥檚 native Buenos Aires. It was the same bed she and I would hang out in on Sunday mornings, drinking coffee and reading El Clar铆n, the same bed we鈥檇 make love in, the bed she鈥檇 labored in. When Layla was born we just stayed in that bed drinking champagne and singing.

At some point in the days following, in one of those primal moments where you look at your first child and realize holy shit this is for real, I became aware that Layla鈥檚 birth could be traced back through the same onda of exploring places that had been with me ever since childhood, drawing me out the back door to the Chattahoochee forest growing up in Georgia.

That had led me to the after college, and later, to travels through Latin America, eventually meeting Lau and falling in love. That was, in many ways, at the center of our marriage. It was the bridge between our two different cultures and languages and geographies: We were travelers. There鈥檚 no real rationale to this kind of thinking, but I reasoned that if now, as parents, we needed some kind of compass, we just had to stay true to this same onda of exploring, of travel.

I wasn鈥檛 so naive to think moving to Patagonia would suddenly make everything perfect for our family. But, remembering back to our last time in Argentina, and spring days lying on blankets with baby Layla and other families in Parque Lezama, I knew it could help where it counted.

In those first few months after arriving in the small Patagonian town of , it felt less like 鈥渂ringing鈥� Layla down there and more like following her. She was now two years old, fully formed into her own personage and identity, a strong-willed, mischievous-eyed, curly-blond little toddler girl who wanted to engage in absolutely everything. Our limitations鈥攚e had no car, no furniture, no appliances, nothing but a roof, Wi-Fi, camping, and snowboarding gear鈥攂ecame our daily lessons and liberation.

Layla wanted to do it all. Washing clothes by hand. Digging a garden plot. Walking to town through the mud. Making small purchases in the market, the lumber yard, the hardware store. A radio. A shovel. A bike. A table. A cutting board. A doll. A drill. A blanket. Light-bulbs. Shelf-boards. Seeds. Rope for a clothesline. Each thing we did together was a kind of ceremony. If you wanted to get it done faster and tried to exclude her, she would ferociously protest, wailing as if you were literally cutting something out of her.

Although I鈥檇 come down with visions of camping and paddle trips on the Rio Azul, family ski missions in the Andean side-country, road trips down the Ruta 40 (which ran right through town), it was actually this first muddy year, these months of having to constantly walk to town, to rebuild our lives from scratch, which was the biggest adventure, the biggest gift to our family.

From the time I was a boy, I鈥檝e been troubled by what seems like a mass forfeiture of place. It鈥檚 as if where we live鈥攖he actual land itself鈥攊s an afterthought for almost everyone. As kids we are immersed in wherever we play, wherever we hide, wherever we watch it rain. There is no separation between the terrain and our imagination. But as we become adults we end up 鈥渂ased out鈥� of a place. Our work, our 鈥渞ecreation,鈥� our religion, almost everything else is peripheral to the ground upon which we walk.

But in Patagonia, everything began right on our dirt road Avenida Perito Moreno. Each trip to town. Each hike up to Cerro Amigo. Layla wanted to touch everything, to feel it for herself. We鈥檇 see the paisanos鈥� horses grazing in the pasturelands, and she鈥檇 say 鈥�Layla toca caballo.鈥� This would lead to a thirty-minute stop in the fields, feeding the horses, touching their noses. We explored the steppe-lands, which formed in the dry parts of the valley near the airstrip, and then down to the wetter Valdivian forest by the river.

Layla set the pace. She stopped anywhere and everywhere, finding 鈥渃asas鈥� for her 鈥渂eb茅s鈥� in blackberry thickets or patches of thistle and wild rose. Without trying to, or even being conscious of it, we were traveling in the way that鈥檚 always felt realest to me, which is less a sense of visiting a place than forming a kind of language from it.听

By late winter, all of this activity was turning Layla into a mini powerhouse. She was starting to walk the full mile to town by herself, and she鈥檇 gotten used to being out in the cold and rain. 听On sunny days, snow from the high peaks of would glow along the horizon, and I鈥檇 crouch down and point upwards, explaining how it was all nieve and we鈥檇 go up there, soon.

Later on we learned that there was an actual term for the parenting approach Lau and I had taken: Free movement. Instinctively we鈥檇 let Layla crawl and move in a self-directed way, not 鈥渟itting her up鈥� or pushing her to walk by holding her up and forcing her to take steps, but allowing her do everything at her own pace. We鈥檇 also eschewed strollers, walkers, bouncy seats鈥攁nything that restrained or in some way governed her motion.

In many ways, simply living in our barrio was the ultimate extension of this logic. It wasn鈥檛 just free movement, but free childhood. Our house was next door to the barrio鈥檚 original matriarch, Do帽a Adela Colque, who鈥檇 arrived in Bols贸n with her husband from Tucuman province forty years earlier, when there was no highway to the town and nearly all the land was either virgin forest or chacra, large tracts of farmland.

Over the decades, Adela worked the local chacra, built her own house, planted all the apple and cherry trees than now lined the roads, and raised a huge family (11 children and some 80 grandchildren). The day of our arrival, we were surrounded by half a dozen of Adela鈥檚 grandkids, their muddy faces encircling Layla, asking her name, telling her how beautiful her pelo was, asking if she wanted to play. Several of these children, Brisa, Noel, Fatima, Paulo, Abril, Agustina鈥攚ould become her first friends.听

There was something almost heartbreaking about the simple and generous way they played together; I couldn鈥檛 help superimposing images of meticulously planned playdates back in the U.S., after school programs and daycare, arrangements being made so that kids would be 鈥渟upervised鈥� while parents worked.

Even the notion of 鈥渇ree movement鈥濃�攐f having the privilege to raise kids as 鈥渇ree鈥濃�攕eemed ludicrous when watching Adela鈥檚 grandkids. They were raised with 鈥渇ree movement鈥� because there was no money or use for strollers. There was no babysitter; they were responsible for one another because they had to be. They were amazingly inventive at creating games, building forts, building things out of junk in the yard, because there wasn鈥檛 anything else to play with.

Deep into that first winter, heading towards Layla鈥檚 third birthday, we found out Lau was pregnant again.听 After weeks of rain and snow, they plowed the road up to the local ski area, Perito Moreno, and we bundled Layla in her snowsuit, put my board through the back window of a taxi, and rode up there.

Once on the mountain I remembered a side trail that Lau and I had hiked years before when we first visited Bols贸n. It was went away from the main run, switchbacking through a forest of huge Cohiue trees. The snow was knee deep, lending a strange look to the understory of canebrake, as if two feet of powder had been dropped in the jungle. Lau moved slowly with her growing panza, but was happy to be up at elevation finally, in the colder, drier air. Meanwhile Layla was stomping around, licking the snow, inhabiting the place.听

At some moment I realized this was actually something I鈥檇 always dreamed about, the idea of taking a son or daughter 鈥渟nowboarding.鈥� It wasn鈥檛 exactly as I鈥檇 imagined it, but then鈥攁s we kept stopping and watching Layla plunge her mittens in the snow鈥擨 never quite could鈥檝e imagined this scene.听

Once, while living in Colorado, I put on at Boulder Creek right above Elephant Buttress rapid with a guy who told me he鈥檇 just taken his three year old daughter down Westwater Canyon, a class III-IV multi-day float on the Colorado River. I admire people like this, people who take their kids deep into the realm from the very beginning. These are the kids who grow up to be total rippers and Red Bull athletes. They鈥檙e on some next level trajectory. But I just wanted Layla to feel what it was like playing on the snow, to negotiate the terrain on her own terms, to get her first taste of flowing down it on a board with me.

After several switchbacks we all stopped and looked around. Clouds were still lingering from the storm. It hadn鈥檛 blown out yet, and everything was very calm, the tangles of lichen hanging perfectly still.听 鈥淟ook at how all the snow is blown against one side of the trees,鈥� I said. 鈥淭he storm came from the south.鈥�

We kept looking around, our eyes instinctively drawn back down the valley. The northern section where we lived was slightly obstructed by a broad plateau. But Layla understood perfectly: That鈥檚 where home was, where Brisa and Abril and the other nenas were; that鈥檚 where our casa and her cama and all of our stories came from, right down there.

The board gave that beautiful snuffing sound as I dropped it into the snow. Layla was looking at me with so much intensity it was as if she were looking into a fire.听 I had this strange thought that for once I might actually be 鈥渒eeping up with her.鈥澨�

鈥淲hatcha think baby?鈥� I asked, motioning toward the board. 鈥淪hould we go for it?鈥�

David S. Miller is Senior Editor of winner of two Lowell Thomas awards for excellence in travel journalism.

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