On the evening of August 15, 2017 we boarded a flight from Los Angeles to London, from there we would catch our connecting flight to Stockholm, Sweden. Depending on how you want to count things, this was the official start of our overseas nomadic adventure. It is now one year later and we are still going strong. Continue reading “One year on the road”
Advanced problem solving
Despite what it may look like on our Facebook feed, life on the road is not all selfies, food pics, and #bobwithtinycups. There is a lot of real life that happens between these moments and little of it is glamorous. We still have to keep up with the family finances, go shopping when we run out of groceries, and fix things when they break along the way. It is interesting to find how often these ordinary everyday tasks end up being not so ordinary when tackled in a foreign country. In the last few weeks, we have run into three such situations, each bordering on becoming a mini-crisis, taxing our patience and problem solving skills on their way to resolution. Continue reading “Advanced problem solving”
House-sitting for fun and “profit”
Fara and I completed our latest house-sitting assignment a couple of weeks ago, located in one of the small villages surrounding beautiful Lake Balaton in the western part of Hungary. The menagerie of pets we were charged with the care of consisted of three dogs, three cats, three chickens and a rooster, by far the largest number of animals we’ve taken care of to date. Our daily dog walks took us through rolling hills, forests, and vineyards with some spectacular views of the lake. We enjoyed daily eggs provided by the hens and are now considering a flock of our own whenever our travels take us to a more permanent location. Our next house-sit, in the Transylvania region of western Romania, starts in mid-May. Since starting our adventure in August 2017, we have completed four house-sits in four different countries. By the end of 2018, we will have added at least three more to that total and we’re constantly on the lookout for more. It had always been our intention to incorporate house-sitting into our travel plans, we just had no idea how integral it would become. Continue reading “House-sitting for fun and “profit””
Doing the Schengen Shuffle
On the morning we were scheduled to arrive in Zagreb, Croatia our train stopped at the small town of Dobova, Slovenia near the border. Two guards boarded the train and systematically checked each passenger’s identification. When they reached us, the Slovenian guard leafed back and forth over the stamped pages in each of our passports and eventually asked me how long we have been in the Schengen. I told him that we’d been in France and Belgium for the last month and a half and added that I’ve been keeping track of our time in Europe and I’m certain we have not overstayed our visa. He looked back through our passports and started counting on his fingers and even had a short conversation in Slovene with someone over the radio. I asked him if everything is okay and he pulled out his exit stamp, stamped both of our passports and handed them over to the Croatian guard. He assured usthere was no problem, but warned that isn’t just our most recent trip that counts against us. The other guard stamped our passports with his entry stamp, returned them to us and added that Croatia is also in the European Union. I told him I understand, but verified that our Croatian visa is different than the Schengen visa. Satisfied, the border guards moved on to the next passengers and eventually we continued our journey to Zagreb. Continue reading “Doing the Schengen Shuffle”
Why we travel slow
I’m trying something new in my latest post. I’m calling it CanDoLatitude101, where I will take some time to go into the how’s and why’s of the way Fara and I are traveling. In earlier posts, I occasionally used the phrase “slow travel” to describe how we’ve been traveling since we left home last August. However, I’ve failed to take the time to define what I mean by it. This omission is something I will do my best to rectify, hopefully without getting too boring or preachy. Continue reading “Why we travel slow”