Apparently, I have a problem. I have been told by multiple people, including my spouse, that I am booking our travel plans way too far into the future. We are losing spontaneity and somewhat confining us; possibly resulting in missed adventures and lost meetups with friends and family. I understand those criticisms and do feel…
We tried HomeExchange.com
One of the biggest decisions that new retirees make when they decide to live nomadically is if they want to keep their home. There are many factors that go with that decision. Selling will probably bring the least stress to retirement, but we wanted a place to return to Seattle in the summer. We actually…
Biking the Oregon Coast- Part 2
In May of 2022, we were newly retired and waiting for our new house to be finished. We were eager to start our nomad traveling life but couldn’t leave the country because of the delays going on with our house build. So, we decided to do something I have wanted to do for a long…
Just Like Bath Water??
We have all heard the water temperature of tropical beaches described as “Just Like Bath Water”. But I don’t really know what that means. How hot is bath water? How hot are the beaches? How hot does the water have to be before I will swim? What places in the world have the best water…
Corfu, Greece- Last Stop before Seattle
M likes to spend our last week before returning home at a lazy beach location. It doesn’t always work out but it was perfect for this trip. This trip through Eastern Europe did not have many beaches but the last couple of weeks has made up for that. Our week in Sarande, Albania was great…
The Albanian Riviera
I am not sure why so many countries get to have their own “Riviera”, but Albania has one too. The beaches are mostly as good as many of those that we have seen in other Rivieras. We stayed for a week on the beach in the center of the town of Saranda, Albania, and didn’t…
Albania’s Hill Towns- Berat and Gjirokaster
We just spent some time in a couple of very scenic Albanian hill towns. Berat is the “City of Windows” and Gjirokaster is the “City of Stone”. They both had a lot of windows, a lot of stone and a very sweaty hike to the fortress in the middle of town. Both of them are…
Tirana, Albania
This is the 4th new country for us in the past 2 months and we really like being able to compare countries and their capital cities. Albania was one of the most isolated Eastern Bloc countries during the Soviet era. They really kept a tight locked border that included not allowing tourists as well as…
Ohrid, North Macedonia
Ohrid is a beautiful lakeside tourist town in Macedonia that I took a lot of pictures in even though we only stayed here for 4 nights. It is on Lake Ohrid, which is a lake that is on the border between Macedonia and Albania. One third of the lake is actually in Albania. The beach…
Skopje, Macedonia is just strange…
We really enjoyed our 5 nights in the capital of North Macedonia, but Skopje is bit weird. The history of this town really is interesting. We have been accustomed in our Eastern Europe trip to seeing ancient cities with a mix of old ruins and architectural styles from each era. Skopje is an old city…
Sofia, Bulgaria
We spent our last week in Bulgaria in the capital of Sofia and it was hard not to think about how our weeks in Romania compared with our weeks in Bulgaria. The countries are very similar. Both are struggling with high prices and low wages, high emigration, and trying to overcome the troubles of authoritarian…
Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second largest city (population ~ 500,000) after the capital city of Sofia. We often enjoy seeing the second cities of Europe because they are many times less touristy but still have enough attractions that give us a sense of the “identity” of a country. Plovdiv had a walkable downtown surrounded by 7…
Free Miles, Stacking, and Capital One Offers
Years ago, before I knew much about travel hacking, I attached my Alaska Airlines account to my Safeway account. I got free miles for years just by grocery shopping and didn’t think much about it. They don’t do that anymore; however I’ve been on a journey of learning way more about earning points and miles…
Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Trains in this part of the world aren’t quite the same as Western Europe. Romania and Bulgaria still have trains but the infrastructure is still “in work” so they often have to go very slow. We don’t like long transportation days so we put in some shorter stops to break up the long train days….
Brasov and Transylvania Castles
On our 3rd week in Romania, we moved to Brasov which is another town in Transylvania, with a very beautiful old town with some fantastic architecture. If we hadn’t spent a week in Sibiu we would have been blown away by the atmosphere of the pedestrian-only downtown. On the first day we took a “free”…