Was Taking a Break a Good Idea?
This is our once a month newsletter where we round up all the things happening in our lives. We’ve been hanging in Poros, Greece, since November. Why?
We needed a break. After 5 years of full-time travel, Steve and I decided to come off the road for 4 months to regroup. I laugh. While in Poros, I flew back and forth to the US twice, we took a 4-day foodie road trip to Kalamata and Olympia, we cruised the Danube for 10 days at Christmas, and we did another 5-day road trip to Corfu.
So even if we didn’t actually stay put, it was nice to not have to carry our stuff with us everywhere we went. It was reassuring to return to a “home” where our comfort zone stayed put. We also enjoyed buying the large peanut butter, the large shampoo, and the large pack of toilet paper!
Yet after about 90 days, although we adore Poros, we’ve started to get itchy feet. We’re still trying to navigate what 2026 looks like, and we’ve already started working on 2027. I didn’t think we were finished traveling when we took a break last November, and staying put for 90 days has proven to us that we aren’t done yet.
How much longer will we travel full-time? We don’t see the end in sight at the moment.
The Second Editions Are Coming
While sitting still for awhile, I’ve been able to work on the second editions of my four books in the To Travel a Nomad Life series. You’ll start seeing announcements about their availabilities over the spring.
The first book in the series, 50 Hikes. 50 States: Discovering America, 2nd, released in the first week of February. In this second edition, I’ve reworked this passion project to share the tales of how Steve and I needed to re-establish our communication as a couple while hiking through the USA during Covid.
Now looking back five years later at a time when the USA might be at her worst, we saw some of the best of the USA. This project was as important to us then as it is now—we love the USA and want to be ambassadors for what’s good about our country (even if we choose not to be there right now.)
Our Nomad Recommendations
We only recommend things we use and love. We receive a small commission when you click on our affiliate links, including those from Amazon.
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Need to book a flight, hotel, or cruise? We recommend Booking. (Click and Bookmark it!)
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Looking for medical insurance for your full-time travel? We use Genki and claims have been flawless. And we’ve just changed to Mondial for 2026.
Want the best shoes for nomad life? We recommend the Hoka Hopara 2. Read our review!
Getting Better at Youtube???
Steve has been working hard on our youtube channel (have you noticed?) We’ve kinda given up on doing location vidoes—we can’t compete with the National Geographics of the world on sharing the highlights of a place. But we will continue to share what it’s like to live a month in a place, tips on how to launch your nomad life, couple (and occasionally solo) travel tips, and budgets/costs/spends of full-time travel.
Our Itinerary for 2026
We’re a bit of a mess right now in trying to figure out our itinerary. We’re still awaiting our Greek Golden Visa. Whereas we thought we’d have it by the end of February, we don’t see any evidence that we will (or won’t.) Having the visa eases our time in Europe.
So roughly, our year looks like this, but it could change at the drop of a hat.
February, Poros Greece
March, Chris in Jersey (Chanel Islands), Steve in Spain
April, tulips in Amsterdam
April-mid May, cruising from Barcelona to Seattle via Panama
May, San Diego and Hawaii
June, Vancouver, BC
July, New England (Maine and New York)
August (it starts getting sketchy), Iceland and Lichenstein
September, Oktoberfest, Marrakesh, Dolomites
October, Athens and Poros
November and December, Poros
It could all completely change though, so if you’re making plans to meet up with us, let’s talk!
What I’m Reading Now
What do you get when you put a death-identifying cat, a wayward millionaire turned Uncle, two orphans, and a pissed-off daugther together on a roadtrip to Arizona? An entertaining tail about love, family, and place. Read The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett and also see my list of over 100 Travel Writing Books that I Recommend.
Lots of Balls in the Air
We’re juggling the logistics of our life right now. It seems these time periods come in spurts, and frankly, I’m looking forward to everything sorting itself out. Especially our Greek Visa. In the meantime, we live one day at a time on a tiny Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Life is pretty good.
P.S. We’ll be in Seattle at the end of May. If you’d like to host us for a day or two, please email me!
We started full-time travelling in Sept 2024 and are still testing what works best for us. Early on, we did one month in Saint Raphael and one month in Malaga, but found it was too short. So while we were in Bonaire, we changed our initial one month into 2 months. Then we found that the place you stay is ultra important (we had to switch condos for the 2nd month). Now we are finding that 2- 2.5 months is our sweet spot if all conditions (condo, weather, city) make us happy. It’s a fun learning experience! And yes, we like staying long enough in one place to figure out the good markets, make friends with cafe owners and find our favorite places that we can repeat!
This life is all about balancing and rebalancing. So glad you two had some time to catch your breath and find your itchy feet again! Here’s hoping our journeys overlap somewhere or another along the way this year!