Reflections on our Nomad Life to Date – Seven Years!

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May, 2026

After disposing of most of our possessions, including our house and one of the cars, we boarded a plane to Montenegro on May 1, 2019.  Our expectation was that we would roam the world, returning to our “homebase” in Kansas quarterly to see family, friends, doctors, and to get our meds refilled.  This plan worked until March, 2020 when COVID caused an early return from New Zealand and a revamped strategy.  Once the “stay-at home” restrictions were lifted we switched to a mostly car based approach, exploring natural wonders, backroads and byways in many U.S. states and several Canadian provinces.  COVID caution actually suited us in many ways, as spending lots of time outdoors and avoiding crowds is our preference anyway.  We ventured outside of North America again for our first post-COVID trip October, 2024.

We started the blog as a way for our family and friends to keep track of us, but the two of us rely upon it as well.  The fact that we are writing the blog sometimes influences how we structure our time and activities. The blog has been useful for us to go back and remember what we’ve done and when.  After seven years, some things become a blur.

Some things that have turned out differently than we had expected.

1. We anticipated spending more time outside of North American we have have – COVID played a large role in that.
2. We thought we would spend time staying at the homes of friends and relatives. We quickly realized that even when visiting our loved ones and friends we are much more comfortable having our own space.
3. We hadn’t envisioned long driving trips through the U.S. and Canada. This started due to COVID, and quickly became one of our favorite things.
4. Travel-related costs have increased post-COVID much faster than general inflation. We have successfully stayed within our budget, balancing inexpensive trips with pricier ones which average out to where we need to be.
5. We have spent far more (absolutely delightful!!!) time with our enchanting grandchild and her family than we expected.

We’ve said from the beginning that we’ll continue as long as enjoy it and our health holds up.  We have no answer to the question of where we will eventually settle down.  The other most commonly asked question is whether there is anything we dislike about being nomads or feel that we miss by not having a home – the answer is that we miss having a dog.  We sincerely appreciate Airbnb properties that come with dog petting privileges!

Liz spends vast quantities of time planning our adventures, transportation and lodging. Neil handles packing and storage logistics and does most of the cooking. Liz writes and researches the blog entries.  Neil takes the pictures and edits the text.

We are definitely creakier than we were when we started, and give more thought than we had before to ease of transporting luggage.  We eschew some properties where the toilet is on a different floor from the master bedroom, and we are more mindful of how many stairs we need to negotiate.  We can’t hike the distance and level of difficulty that we could before.

We feel extraordinarily lucky to have been able to do and see what we have in the last seven years.  Looking over the archived titles of our blog we see that we have posted entries from fourteen foreign countries, six Canadian provinces and thirty-one states.  It is hard to pick favorites but we loved the beauty and seafood in Croatia, the fascinating and tragic history of Bosnia Herzegovina, watching humpback whale bubble fishing and glacier calving in Alaska, the beaches in Maui and Aruba, the friendliness of Canadians and the variety of Canadian landscapes, so many awe-inspiring national parks and monuments, the polar bears and beluga whales in Manitoba, fascinating birds in New Zealand and the food in Crete.  We’ve talked to wonderful people, learned about Jewish heritage in unlikely places, searched out albino donkeys on a small island off the coast of Sardinia and gotten up at 4:30 in the morning to watch the courting rituals of greater prairie chickens in Nebraska.

We have been very lucky indeed.