Our Two Year Anniversary of Being Vagabonds

It is hard to believe that April 15th was our 2nd anniversary of being vagabonds and having no fixed address.

A very good question I keep thinking is, "Where does time go?"

When we left home we had no idea how long we'd be doing this, where we'd be going or how long we'd stay.

Now 2 years later, we still aren't sure where we're going or how much longer we'll be doing it.

But we have learned some new things and we're now trying out some new strategies.

For one thing, we are trying to slow things down and stay longer in an area before moving on. This is in part to save transportation costs and time, but, also to feel more immersed and integrated in the areas we go to. 

In our second year, we've spent 3 months in Australia, 2 months in The Hague, a month in the south of France, a month in North Africa, over 2 months in London and then 3 months in Asia. Slowing things down seems to work well for us.

Another new strategy is to include some tours in our travels. 

We felt that in some areas, North Africa and Southeast Asia, we didn't want to make all the arrangements by ourselves. We wanted to give ourselves a break and let someone else take care of the logistics of our route, hotels, transportation, language and important sites to see. 

Plus they could arrange experiences we would have never thought of or known how to put together without a lot of time and effort on our part. 

But equally significant, when I felt anxious thinking about being with other people, I knew it was time to reintegrate back into society. It meant we needed to have some social interaction before we became totally socially awkward and completely lost all our social skills. 

Plus, as much as my dear husband is a great guy, we enjoy each other's company, and I am easy to get along with (self-rated), we do have times when we get on each other's last nerve and need a break from each other. (I think I expressed that very tactfully.)

We also met some "old" friends and made some lovely new friends through the tours.

We did find sometimes a challenge to the tours was their pace. Tours are designed for people with a couple weeks vacation that want to pack in as much as they can. I have severe FOMO (fear of missing out), but, there were times when the tours went too fast and were exhausting for me. Especially if the tours were back-to-back. 

We found having a bigger break between tours works better for us to be able to absorb what we saw and experienced. 

Plus having breaks gave me time to write the time-consuming, but the love-hate relationship with, the blog. 

Another lesson we have learned is that when we are on a busy and hectic tour schedule, diet and consistent exercise take a back seat. When we are settled in one spot for a while it is much easier to develop a routine and have better and healthier habits. 

Over the last year, we have had some unexpected hiccups along the way. 

We had plans to have an intensive North African experience with 2 1/2 weeks in Tunisia, followed by 2 1/2 weeks in Morocco followed by another 3 weeks in Jordan and Egypt. However, the timing of incidents on October 7th in Isreal made us rethink continuing to Jordan and Egypt. 

We were doing mental gymnastics over our decision until we decided we could go to Egypt and Jordan some other time and cancelled our scheduled tours. 

Then we had to scramble to figure out what to do with our 3-week window. Our quick solution was to go to Albania. 

Which brings me to another unexpected hiccup. Health. 

We were sick and perhaps contracted COVID at the end of our Moroccan tour. So 3 weeks of quiet time in Albania turned out to be perfect.

As always, Facebook, Instagram and video calls are a great way for us to keep in touch with friends to share what we are doing and to see what they are up to. I like taking pictures to share on social media and the dreaded blog entries, because it keeps me more alert and attentive to interesting things around me. 

As an added bonus, through Facebook and Instagram, we have been able to spontaneously meet up with friends whose travels have synergy with our travels, which is always a joy. 

Moving forward, we're still not really sure what we're doing and when or where we'd like to start being responsible adults again. 

Thanks for following our journey and making the world seem a little smaller.