I certainly did that in my twenties while in Australia, but we just called it backpacking! I had vague ideas of where I was going and what I was doing, but that could change at the drop of a hat for all sorts of reasons.
We don't exactly nomad with itineraries, although we aren't blindly stumbling around either. We'll often pick a place and then learn a lot more about it -- and what else might be nearby -- once we arrive.
There is a part of me that wishes I had been around for the cultural moment in the 60s/70s when it seems everyone was backpacking after graduating (probably a bit before your time 😁). My aunt and her best friend did it and had an absolute blast. I'm not enough of an iconoclast to do it now!
It was the 80s and things were primitive enough that my poor parents often had no idea where I was at. The upside is that I had amazing adventures. The downside is that there were truly several times I could have died and my parents would’ve had no idea what had happened to me…
I drove overland from Germany to India in an old VW-camping van, with two male friends, 1970. Maps (physical, paper) often were useless because the locals often couldn't read them and we pronounced the names of towns etc. wrong. I traveled around for about 1 1/2 years and learned much more about life and myself than I had in my years of study at the University of Munich. Lots of adventures, for sure!
The great thing about travelling today is that you can choose your level of spontaneity knowing that you have the tools to fall back on if being pleasantly lost turns sour. Mostly we try to plan and research as little as possible beyond booking comfortable places to stay and allow serendipity as free a hand as possible.
This ability to stumble upon a place and decide to stay there, especially if you're then able to work remotely from there, is a hugely liberating thing. I wish I'd realised it was 'a thing' sooner. (Obviously not available to all passports in all places, sadly.)
During my travels, I preferred going to a new country without anything other than whatever I knew about the place “ambiently.” I enjoyed seeing and exploring a place with a fresh perspective.
I was in Prague once, and with a friend, decided to rent a car and drive to Poland, just because. The car was a Wartburg or some such for $12 a day, the rental agency was in the heart of old Prague, but I had a gps we used to record the location so we knew how to get back.
We went everywhere except Poland. There were ripe cherries on old trees alongside country roads. There were lovely farms. Then we saw a grass airfield where small airplanes were gathered, so we stopped and made a little local air show suddenly international. (My friend was Australian and working in Sudan.) We had a great day with the our fellow airmen and we met a new friend, which led to more aerial adventures later in the week at Pilsner.
On the way back, we followed the signs to Praha and late in the evening, delivered the Wartburg safely to the car agency, and paid the well-spent $12. Our trip to Poland had to wait for another time.
Not yet, but I’m still not dead. I deeply admire the Poles for their courage and steadfastness. What a history! The Austrians owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Without the Poles coming to the rescue of Vienna, the Viennese would now be speaking Turkish.
But if it counts, I’ve been to Djibouti a couple of times.
My first trip there was also accidental. I spent two weeks in Hargeysa, Somalia, in a $3 per night hotel. (I reviewed it on Yelp. It’s a solid avoid, especially the room subdivided by a cardboard wall over any weekend when the guest on the other side of the wall is enduring a long, difficult childbirth.)
One morning, I rushed half-packed to the airport(ish) when I heard an aircraft landing. There, next to the wrecked MIG fighters and the crumbling control tower was a lovely CARE International turboprop Cessna flown by an American pilot who was happy for a passenger on the Djibouti leg of his trip.
As we departed, he asked me if I was okay with low level, which duh!, so off we flew at 50’ above the shark infested shore at 160 knots. We buzzed occasional camel riders who didn’t hear our approach, only the instant roar when we past them, and every one of them tried to shoulder their ancient Enfield rifles to take a shot at us, but alas, we were too fast for them.
Once in Djibouti, I refreshed myself with a warm $5 Coke, found a taxi, and asked the driver to take me to a hotel with a) hot running water, b) cold air conditioning, and c) no cardboard partitions.
After three or four no vacancies, because it was apparently prime tourist season in the world’s hottest country, the driver shrugged and suggested the Intercontinental.
As an aid worker, I’m more accustomed to $3 a night hotels than $500 a night Intercontinentals, so I asked myself what our CEO would do in that situation. As soon as I reached my room, I immediately turned the a/c on to the lowest setting and took a long shower, a very long shower, to compensate for two weeks of BabyWipes.
The next day, I managed to catch a ride back to Nairobi on a milk run down through Somalia on an Angola-registered, Philippine-crewed C-130 loaded with a well drilling rig and maybe 40 Somali refugees who were being deported. The deer in the headlight look on the faces of my fellow passengers brought out my inner flight attendant, so I did the whole “seat backs locked in the upright position and laptops stowed” as I helped them fasten their seatbelts on the sling seats hung from the aircraft walls. I then settled in and amused myself thinking about the original Star Wars bar room scene on the planet Alderaan, which I felt pretty close to.
I did survive that trip, but I’m not sure how many of my nine lives I spent on it.
This is a wild story. If you’re writing a memoir about these experiences, I will be first in line to buy it.
And in fairness to your hotel in Somalia: literally ALL hotels there would be a solid avoid for me, lol! I’m glad the world has aid workers like you who are willing to do that sort of stuff. You’re a better man than I.
Wild? Wild was when a colleague and I flew into Hargeysa and were supposed to be picked up by our host who didn’t show, so there we stood on the runway, luggage next to us. Under a nearby acacia tree, a bunch of gunmen sat under an acacia tree eyeing us as they chewed qat in the shade next to their technical.
The longer we stood there trying to look purposely nonchalant, the more intensely they eyed us with a predator-prey kind of interest. After an hour or so, as our purposeful nonchalance look a little wilted, the commander or bwana akulu or whatever his rank stood up, walked over and told us we owed them a security fee.
“How much?” I asked.
“$20,” he replied.
It was an odd world I lived in where I feared the accountants back at the office who checked receipts on my expense report more than I feared a bunch of mildly intoxicated Somali gunmen with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted in the back of a battered Toyota pickup. (We called them Klingon Kruisers because there was always a bunch of warriors, “skinnies,” hanging off the back.)
“I’ll need a receipt for the security services before I can pay you,” I said. Without a word, he turned and walk over to the ruined control tower, entered it, and after about 20 minutes, returned with a piece of paper with a Hargeysa Airport date stamp, “for security serves $20,” scrawled under the stamp and an illegible signature. I handed him $20 and he gave me the receipt. He smiled for the first time, shook my hand, and went back to the acacia shade.
Well in 1986 my newly wed husband and I embarked on a 5 week honeymoon traveling all across Europe. We had rented a car and had a general idea of where we were going but usually just stopped for the night when we found a hotel that looked okay. This worked most of the time. Oh yeah we had to buy road maps too. Phones? In Italy you would go to the post office to make a phone call. Sigh. Those were the good old days. I wrote about some of this adventure in Get in the Car: A Food and Travel Memoir ( available on Amazon.) ps we are still married 38 years later.
I loved the interviews with 7 women. I’ve lived in Germany and now Finland but come from Australia. (Also in Canada when I was little, with my parents). My most recent move to Finland 7 years ago was for love. In my mid-40s it was a brave move, leaving all my friends & family behind, so it’s interesting to also hear other’s experiences of moving culture & language. I live in a Swedish speaking area and had lived here in exchange as a 17 year old so the language has come back but it’s been challenging at times.
Being a tourist is also a tricky one. I love travelling and exploring and live in a place that gets upwards of a million tourists a year (pop. 30k). But we need the income.
We’ve recently joined Home Exchange where you swap houses so that’s our next adventure–a month in the UK based on where we could get home exchange places. Not the touristy places or time of year.
Weren’t those interviews so lovely? And Home Exchange is such a cool idea! It’s sadly not an option for me right now for various reasons, but I’d love to try it one day when we’re more settled. I hope your month in the UK is full of yummy scones.
And yes, Home Exchange isn’t for everyone. We had the possibility of staying elsewhere (a tent at my mother-in-law’s property) when people were at ours. We didn’t do a direct swap, only points.
When we sold our Mexican bookstore a while ago, we decided to take an extended trip w/ part of the profits and head to the EU. MartinAir had a direct flight from Cancun to Amsterdam (where we have friends) with a 90-day return date required. Nothing more. So we knew the countries we wanted to see and some cities--we'd travel by train, car, Ryan Air, and then just book our lodging along the way. It worked out great. We also did that in India for a month (the longest we could get a visa for at the time) with landing in Delhi, and knowing the main areas we wanted to go to. We had a hotel reservation on arriving and that was it. That also worked out well.But this was before 'over tourism' -- think I hate that word. We had a blast.Not sure would do it now w/ so much traveler competition out there, but at the time, it worked swell.
The majority of my travels have been done without an itinerary— more of an idea and a general direction. This is for sure why my long explorations of various areas, the US East Coast, Ecuador, Alaska, and other places, have been utterly meandering. While I have no regrets— and so many fond adventures to look back at— I think more of an itinerary here and there could have served me well. Only I just would’ve had different adventures I suppose.
Love Narina Exelby’s travel writing.
I wholeheartedly support your winging it, and look forward to hearing the stories.
Great that you have no regrets about wandering! I hear you, though—I think having some sort of rough itinerary can at least make sure you don’t waste a bunch of time or miss cool stuff. So I think that’s what we’re leaning towards.
In 1970 when I was 16, I travelled for nearly a month with my 18 year brother, around Europe. Our only plan was to eventually reach Sweden, which we managed, and to not miss our booked return by ferry back to the UK. We did the same again when we visited Iceland the following year, with only the return flight planned and booked. We hitchhiked while in Europe, whereas in Iceland we also travelled on buses and reached the north of the country (no guided tours back then)They were wonderful holidays. The sense of freedom in making on the spot decisions and grasping opportunities is unique.
We both retired in COVID Year 0, and then loaded up all our "stuff" into storage and took off from Florida for two years. We had two fixed destinations in 2021: a B&B in Maine, the first week of August; and a place we'd been steered to in Sedona, the first week of December. We had a sort of vague-ish idea of the routes we wanted to take, and I used an online trip-planning tool to imagine those routes more firmly...
...but of course, traveling like that doesn't allow for Things Happening: one of us was out of commission for weeks with COVID; an accident totaled our car; we got chased up the East Coast by a hurricane...
You'd think we learned the folly of advance reservations -- despite the "comfort" of knowing what the next couple days would bring. After a winter stay with family outside Las Vegas, we kind of forgot that, though: our month in California was studded with places we "had" to visit, and visit by a certain date. By the time we headed back east, there was nothing I wanted more than to just stay put for a few years.
I'm not sure then if this constitutes "advice," exactly, unless it boils down to: choose your destinations carefully; don't set everything in stone; but do have a handful of must-visits, in between which you can zig and zag where the wind takes you.
Yes, I like this approach! I think it would be nice to have the broad strokes planned and be flexible about what happens in between. It's nice to leave some unscheduled time to spend on things you couldn't have known about until you got to your destination.
The year I was a syndicated travel writer, I navigated using a Best Western brochure map. Sure, the only towns listed were those with BW properties and yes, I was lost a few times, but man did I have some adventure and come across the most amazing stories! I say go for it! (But keep your GPS handy lol)
Haha, keep the GPS handy indeed! I kind of like the idea of navigating by physical map with GPS as a backup...that way Google Maps isn't dictating what you might stumble upon!
I've traveled (mostly abroad) almost every year since 1968 (including two one-year trips, one two-and-a-half-year trip, and one eight-year trip). Since that first trip to Europe, when the plane made an unscheduled stop in Portugal and I got off, I've followed the motto: "Don't take a trip -- let the trip take you."
My wife and I have both travelled extensively throughout our lives, both for work as for pleasure. We have had the opportunity to visit over 70 countries around the world, but often through the windows of taxis in between meetings, or overlooking the city from our hotel room.
With more time on our hands, we decided to travel differently and spend periods of 4 to 8 weeks in a single place, renting short term.
All starts from the house that we can rent. We always look for uncommon places that exude beauty and authenticity. A uniquely designed home that blends into the desert brought us to Joshua Tree long before it became fashionable. An huge 1920s apartment, perfectly maintained, made us spend 5 weeks in Buenos Aires. An art-filled 1950's film maker's flat was the reason we lived 6 weeks in Rome.
We have chronicled our experiences in 'Aesthetic Nomads', our book that has just been released globally.
From every one of our 'home bases' we discover the greater area, living as temporary locals and working remotely. We do very little preparation what the destination is concerned. We hardly ever consult social media but we ask local people for advice. And because we always travel with our dog, we very easily make contact with locals.
Every destination is a challenge, but we have the time to adapt. And it always works out.
We'll be in Athens this fall. We have found the house and we leave everything else to the inspiration of the moment.
Slowly is the only way that we still want to travel.
This sounds like a neat way to travel! As a visually driven person myself, I can totally understand starting with a space I feel attracted to--I think it can make a huge difference to how much you end up enjoying a destination.
In 2015 when I decided to "embrace uncertainty" and retire at 40, my planning -or over-planning- of life and travel stopped and morphed into something I wouldn't change for anything. With all of our travel now, I do a lot of reading about a place... Different areas, great beaches/hikes and most importantly food! (For instance, we're in Crete for 3 weeks currently celebrating our 20 year anniversary.) Then, I book a flight there and a place to stay once we land for a couple of nights to get grounded, then we just feel it out and see where our days take us. I've found the local people we meet are some of the best guides. I'm so grateful for the experiences we've had by just embracing uncertainty.
I never travel with a plan, and honestly the few times I’ve had to plan because I’m attending events or, more recently, overtourism (sorry, but that is actually why) I’ve absolutely hated it. Like I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that I can’t fathom why anyone would want to book ahead, when they’ve no idea if they’ll like a place or what they’ll feel like eating on the day, based off the recommendations of randos. Particularly if you’re hiring a car and so can stay wherever.
Like neither you nor I will ever see all the amazing things in the world, so wouldn’t it be more enjoyable to go discover stuff than to pre-book some greatest hits itinerary you might not even like? Although honestly, people who overplan do tend to make my life easier, as I just stay where they aren’t 🙂
This past winter, my husband and I spent three months wandering around Southeast Asia carrying mid-size backpacks--that sweet spot right between a book bag and a behemoth. The only plans we had were to fly into Singapore and fly out of Ho Chi Minh City, and to attend a wedding in Kuala Lumpur. Because we were about to launch a new chapter of our lives as full-time nomads, we wanted to experiment. Could we comfortably travel long term without researching, without plans and reservations and spreadsheets? The answer was a resounding yes. We relied on info gathered from fellow travelers, hoteliers, and folks we met in cafés and on trains. Yes, we were very occasionally led astray, and yes, some of the info we received was outdated, which left us in a puzzle momentarily, but what an amazing adventure. I'll never again put in all the work I used to do to prepare for travel.
I certainly did that in my twenties while in Australia, but we just called it backpacking! I had vague ideas of where I was going and what I was doing, but that could change at the drop of a hat for all sorts of reasons.
We don't exactly nomad with itineraries, although we aren't blindly stumbling around either. We'll often pick a place and then learn a lot more about it -- and what else might be nearby -- once we arrive.
There is a part of me that wishes I had been around for the cultural moment in the 60s/70s when it seems everyone was backpacking after graduating (probably a bit before your time 😁). My aunt and her best friend did it and had an absolute blast. I'm not enough of an iconoclast to do it now!
It was the 80s and things were primitive enough that my poor parents often had no idea where I was at. The upside is that I had amazing adventures. The downside is that there were truly several times I could have died and my parents would’ve had no idea what had happened to me…
I drove overland from Germany to India in an old VW-camping van, with two male friends, 1970. Maps (physical, paper) often were useless because the locals often couldn't read them and we pronounced the names of towns etc. wrong. I traveled around for about 1 1/2 years and learned much more about life and myself than I had in my years of study at the University of Munich. Lots of adventures, for sure!
Travel pre-digital was indeed wondrous, Michael.
The great thing about travelling today is that you can choose your level of spontaneity knowing that you have the tools to fall back on if being pleasantly lost turns sour. Mostly we try to plan and research as little as possible beyond booking comfortable places to stay and allow serendipity as free a hand as possible.
'Nomad' as a verb – I'm all for that 😁
This ability to stumble upon a place and decide to stay there, especially if you're then able to work remotely from there, is a hugely liberating thing. I wish I'd realised it was 'a thing' sooner. (Obviously not available to all passports in all places, sadly.)
During my travels, I preferred going to a new country without anything other than whatever I knew about the place “ambiently.” I enjoyed seeing and exploring a place with a fresh perspective.
I was in Prague once, and with a friend, decided to rent a car and drive to Poland, just because. The car was a Wartburg or some such for $12 a day, the rental agency was in the heart of old Prague, but I had a gps we used to record the location so we knew how to get back.
We went everywhere except Poland. There were ripe cherries on old trees alongside country roads. There were lovely farms. Then we saw a grass airfield where small airplanes were gathered, so we stopped and made a little local air show suddenly international. (My friend was Australian and working in Sudan.) We had a great day with the our fellow airmen and we met a new friend, which led to more aerial adventures later in the week at Pilsner.
On the way back, we followed the signs to Praha and late in the evening, delivered the Wartburg safely to the car agency, and paid the well-spent $12. Our trip to Poland had to wait for another time.
But did you ever make it to Poland?! (I love Poland and think it's one of the most underrated countries in Europe.)
Not yet, but I’m still not dead. I deeply admire the Poles for their courage and steadfastness. What a history! The Austrians owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Without the Poles coming to the rescue of Vienna, the Viennese would now be speaking Turkish.
But if it counts, I’ve been to Djibouti a couple of times.
Haha, having been to Djibouti is a distinction few can claim! I say it counts.
My first trip there was also accidental. I spent two weeks in Hargeysa, Somalia, in a $3 per night hotel. (I reviewed it on Yelp. It’s a solid avoid, especially the room subdivided by a cardboard wall over any weekend when the guest on the other side of the wall is enduring a long, difficult childbirth.)
One morning, I rushed half-packed to the airport(ish) when I heard an aircraft landing. There, next to the wrecked MIG fighters and the crumbling control tower was a lovely CARE International turboprop Cessna flown by an American pilot who was happy for a passenger on the Djibouti leg of his trip.
As we departed, he asked me if I was okay with low level, which duh!, so off we flew at 50’ above the shark infested shore at 160 knots. We buzzed occasional camel riders who didn’t hear our approach, only the instant roar when we past them, and every one of them tried to shoulder their ancient Enfield rifles to take a shot at us, but alas, we were too fast for them.
Once in Djibouti, I refreshed myself with a warm $5 Coke, found a taxi, and asked the driver to take me to a hotel with a) hot running water, b) cold air conditioning, and c) no cardboard partitions.
After three or four no vacancies, because it was apparently prime tourist season in the world’s hottest country, the driver shrugged and suggested the Intercontinental.
As an aid worker, I’m more accustomed to $3 a night hotels than $500 a night Intercontinentals, so I asked myself what our CEO would do in that situation. As soon as I reached my room, I immediately turned the a/c on to the lowest setting and took a long shower, a very long shower, to compensate for two weeks of BabyWipes.
The next day, I managed to catch a ride back to Nairobi on a milk run down through Somalia on an Angola-registered, Philippine-crewed C-130 loaded with a well drilling rig and maybe 40 Somali refugees who were being deported. The deer in the headlight look on the faces of my fellow passengers brought out my inner flight attendant, so I did the whole “seat backs locked in the upright position and laptops stowed” as I helped them fasten their seatbelts on the sling seats hung from the aircraft walls. I then settled in and amused myself thinking about the original Star Wars bar room scene on the planet Alderaan, which I felt pretty close to.
I did survive that trip, but I’m not sure how many of my nine lives I spent on it.
This is a wild story. If you’re writing a memoir about these experiences, I will be first in line to buy it.
And in fairness to your hotel in Somalia: literally ALL hotels there would be a solid avoid for me, lol! I’m glad the world has aid workers like you who are willing to do that sort of stuff. You’re a better man than I.
Wild? Wild was when a colleague and I flew into Hargeysa and were supposed to be picked up by our host who didn’t show, so there we stood on the runway, luggage next to us. Under a nearby acacia tree, a bunch of gunmen sat under an acacia tree eyeing us as they chewed qat in the shade next to their technical.
The longer we stood there trying to look purposely nonchalant, the more intensely they eyed us with a predator-prey kind of interest. After an hour or so, as our purposeful nonchalance look a little wilted, the commander or bwana akulu or whatever his rank stood up, walked over and told us we owed them a security fee.
“How much?” I asked.
“$20,” he replied.
It was an odd world I lived in where I feared the accountants back at the office who checked receipts on my expense report more than I feared a bunch of mildly intoxicated Somali gunmen with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted in the back of a battered Toyota pickup. (We called them Klingon Kruisers because there was always a bunch of warriors, “skinnies,” hanging off the back.)
“I’ll need a receipt for the security services before I can pay you,” I said. Without a word, he turned and walk over to the ruined control tower, entered it, and after about 20 minutes, returned with a piece of paper with a Hargeysa Airport date stamp, “for security serves $20,” scrawled under the stamp and an illegible signature. I handed him $20 and he gave me the receipt. He smiled for the first time, shook my hand, and went back to the acacia shade.
(laughing at the "We went everywhere except Poland" line... there's the title of your memoir of the time!)
Life has a funny way of not getting you to where you thought you were going, doesn’t it?
My very favorite activity while traveling is walking. Walking all over a city or town. Taking it in, seeing how people live.
I love that! I'm extremely pro-walking as well (and talked a bit about it in this post: https://samanthachildress.substack.com/p/how-to-travel).
Walking leaves room for random discoveries and fun side quests. There is no better way to see a place.
Same here!
I agree!
Well in 1986 my newly wed husband and I embarked on a 5 week honeymoon traveling all across Europe. We had rented a car and had a general idea of where we were going but usually just stopped for the night when we found a hotel that looked okay. This worked most of the time. Oh yeah we had to buy road maps too. Phones? In Italy you would go to the post office to make a phone call. Sigh. Those were the good old days. I wrote about some of this adventure in Get in the Car: A Food and Travel Memoir ( available on Amazon.) ps we are still married 38 years later.
This is so cool, Julie! Sounds like quite an adventure.
I loved the interviews with 7 women. I’ve lived in Germany and now Finland but come from Australia. (Also in Canada when I was little, with my parents). My most recent move to Finland 7 years ago was for love. In my mid-40s it was a brave move, leaving all my friends & family behind, so it’s interesting to also hear other’s experiences of moving culture & language. I live in a Swedish speaking area and had lived here in exchange as a 17 year old so the language has come back but it’s been challenging at times.
Being a tourist is also a tricky one. I love travelling and exploring and live in a place that gets upwards of a million tourists a year (pop. 30k). But we need the income.
We’ve recently joined Home Exchange where you swap houses so that’s our next adventure–a month in the UK based on where we could get home exchange places. Not the touristy places or time of year.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting read!
Weren’t those interviews so lovely? And Home Exchange is such a cool idea! It’s sadly not an option for me right now for various reasons, but I’d love to try it one day when we’re more settled. I hope your month in the UK is full of yummy scones.
They were awesome interviews!
And yes, Home Exchange isn’t for everyone. We had the possibility of staying elsewhere (a tent at my mother-in-law’s property) when people were at ours. We didn’t do a direct swap, only points.
And scones, and pubs, and proper fish n chips! 😂
When we sold our Mexican bookstore a while ago, we decided to take an extended trip w/ part of the profits and head to the EU. MartinAir had a direct flight from Cancun to Amsterdam (where we have friends) with a 90-day return date required. Nothing more. So we knew the countries we wanted to see and some cities--we'd travel by train, car, Ryan Air, and then just book our lodging along the way. It worked out great. We also did that in India for a month (the longest we could get a visa for at the time) with landing in Delhi, and knowing the main areas we wanted to go to. We had a hotel reservation on arriving and that was it. That also worked out well.But this was before 'over tourism' -- think I hate that word. We had a blast.Not sure would do it now w/ so much traveler competition out there, but at the time, it worked swell.
The majority of my travels have been done without an itinerary— more of an idea and a general direction. This is for sure why my long explorations of various areas, the US East Coast, Ecuador, Alaska, and other places, have been utterly meandering. While I have no regrets— and so many fond adventures to look back at— I think more of an itinerary here and there could have served me well. Only I just would’ve had different adventures I suppose.
Love Narina Exelby’s travel writing.
I wholeheartedly support your winging it, and look forward to hearing the stories.
Great that you have no regrets about wandering! I hear you, though—I think having some sort of rough itinerary can at least make sure you don’t waste a bunch of time or miss cool stuff. So I think that’s what we’re leaning towards.
In 1970 when I was 16, I travelled for nearly a month with my 18 year brother, around Europe. Our only plan was to eventually reach Sweden, which we managed, and to not miss our booked return by ferry back to the UK. We did the same again when we visited Iceland the following year, with only the return flight planned and booked. We hitchhiked while in Europe, whereas in Iceland we also travelled on buses and reached the north of the country (no guided tours back then)They were wonderful holidays. The sense of freedom in making on the spot decisions and grasping opportunities is unique.
That does sound wonderful! Especially in places like Iceland where there is so much natural beauty to meander through.
We both retired in COVID Year 0, and then loaded up all our "stuff" into storage and took off from Florida for two years. We had two fixed destinations in 2021: a B&B in Maine, the first week of August; and a place we'd been steered to in Sedona, the first week of December. We had a sort of vague-ish idea of the routes we wanted to take, and I used an online trip-planning tool to imagine those routes more firmly...
...but of course, traveling like that doesn't allow for Things Happening: one of us was out of commission for weeks with COVID; an accident totaled our car; we got chased up the East Coast by a hurricane...
You'd think we learned the folly of advance reservations -- despite the "comfort" of knowing what the next couple days would bring. After a winter stay with family outside Las Vegas, we kind of forgot that, though: our month in California was studded with places we "had" to visit, and visit by a certain date. By the time we headed back east, there was nothing I wanted more than to just stay put for a few years.
I'm not sure then if this constitutes "advice," exactly, unless it boils down to: choose your destinations carefully; don't set everything in stone; but do have a handful of must-visits, in between which you can zig and zag where the wind takes you.
Yes, I like this approach! I think it would be nice to have the broad strokes planned and be flexible about what happens in between. It's nice to leave some unscheduled time to spend on things you couldn't have known about until you got to your destination.
The year I was a syndicated travel writer, I navigated using a Best Western brochure map. Sure, the only towns listed were those with BW properties and yes, I was lost a few times, but man did I have some adventure and come across the most amazing stories! I say go for it! (But keep your GPS handy lol)
Haha, keep the GPS handy indeed! I kind of like the idea of navigating by physical map with GPS as a backup...that way Google Maps isn't dictating what you might stumble upon!
I like a rough idea of where I’m going, but happy to leave some room for ‘accidental’ discoveries!
I've traveled (mostly abroad) almost every year since 1968 (including two one-year trips, one two-and-a-half-year trip, and one eight-year trip). Since that first trip to Europe, when the plane made an unscheduled stop in Portugal and I got off, I've followed the motto: "Don't take a trip -- let the trip take you."
Love that motto, Joe!
My wife and I have both travelled extensively throughout our lives, both for work as for pleasure. We have had the opportunity to visit over 70 countries around the world, but often through the windows of taxis in between meetings, or overlooking the city from our hotel room.
With more time on our hands, we decided to travel differently and spend periods of 4 to 8 weeks in a single place, renting short term.
All starts from the house that we can rent. We always look for uncommon places that exude beauty and authenticity. A uniquely designed home that blends into the desert brought us to Joshua Tree long before it became fashionable. An huge 1920s apartment, perfectly maintained, made us spend 5 weeks in Buenos Aires. An art-filled 1950's film maker's flat was the reason we lived 6 weeks in Rome.
We have chronicled our experiences in 'Aesthetic Nomads', our book that has just been released globally.
From every one of our 'home bases' we discover the greater area, living as temporary locals and working remotely. We do very little preparation what the destination is concerned. We hardly ever consult social media but we ask local people for advice. And because we always travel with our dog, we very easily make contact with locals.
Every destination is a challenge, but we have the time to adapt. And it always works out.
We'll be in Athens this fall. We have found the house and we leave everything else to the inspiration of the moment.
Slowly is the only way that we still want to travel.
This sounds like a neat way to travel! As a visually driven person myself, I can totally understand starting with a space I feel attracted to--I think it can make a huge difference to how much you end up enjoying a destination.
Not only that, but if you are staying at a place for 6 to 8 weeks, you want to make sure that it meets your standards to feel at home.
In 2015 when I decided to "embrace uncertainty" and retire at 40, my planning -or over-planning- of life and travel stopped and morphed into something I wouldn't change for anything. With all of our travel now, I do a lot of reading about a place... Different areas, great beaches/hikes and most importantly food! (For instance, we're in Crete for 3 weeks currently celebrating our 20 year anniversary.) Then, I book a flight there and a place to stay once we land for a couple of nights to get grounded, then we just feel it out and see where our days take us. I've found the local people we meet are some of the best guides. I'm so grateful for the experiences we've had by just embracing uncertainty.
This sounds like the dream, Heather!
I never travel with a plan, and honestly the few times I’ve had to plan because I’m attending events or, more recently, overtourism (sorry, but that is actually why) I’ve absolutely hated it. Like I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that I can’t fathom why anyone would want to book ahead, when they’ve no idea if they’ll like a place or what they’ll feel like eating on the day, based off the recommendations of randos. Particularly if you’re hiring a car and so can stay wherever.
Like neither you nor I will ever see all the amazing things in the world, so wouldn’t it be more enjoyable to go discover stuff than to pre-book some greatest hits itinerary you might not even like? Although honestly, people who overplan do tend to make my life easier, as I just stay where they aren’t 🙂
This past winter, my husband and I spent three months wandering around Southeast Asia carrying mid-size backpacks--that sweet spot right between a book bag and a behemoth. The only plans we had were to fly into Singapore and fly out of Ho Chi Minh City, and to attend a wedding in Kuala Lumpur. Because we were about to launch a new chapter of our lives as full-time nomads, we wanted to experiment. Could we comfortably travel long term without researching, without plans and reservations and spreadsheets? The answer was a resounding yes. We relied on info gathered from fellow travelers, hoteliers, and folks we met in cafés and on trains. Yes, we were very occasionally led astray, and yes, some of the info we received was outdated, which left us in a puzzle momentarily, but what an amazing adventure. I'll never again put in all the work I used to do to prepare for travel.
Love that, Sherry, and it’s encouraging to hear—what a cool time in your lives!