Here Comes That Melancholy Again...
As we leave Albania after 7 months, and head to Asia for a year (or more) so many memories come up...
The truth is, as a nomad you have just two choices. You either:
1) stay where you are, and create a home, or
2) you move on to a new frontier—or possibly an “old frontier.” There’s no in between.
For people who think about nomadic travel, but have never done it, these options probably seem CRAZY! I mean, for me, living the life I used to in California, I would have thought that anyone living with no sense of “permanence” was daft.
And I probably am, along with the hundreds of thousands of people like us who move around the globe, country to country, continent to continent, never knowing with a lot of certainty when/ where it will end. Or IF it will end!
Happy 2026 to ALL of you, no matter where you are, and regardless of which country you call “home.”
As for Kathleen and myself, 2025 was pretty interesting, and actually, a pivotal year. Last New Year’s Eve we were watching what little festivities there were, from a small Indonesian island called Ceningan. It is only accessible via a bridge which almost adjoins a larger island, Nusa Lembongan, but only via foot, bicycle, or motorcycle. The small “Golden Bridge” which connects one with the other, is only six feet wide and cannot accommodate motor vehicles. What few there are got there via a ferry around the far side of the island, and they are mostly used as taxis (if that’s what you can call them since they’re really only open bed pickup trucks with bench seating!), or as delivery vehicles for supplies. But Ceningan has almost all the things you need to live there, though it does not have complete medical services, ie, no hospital. There are doctors and clinics in case of emergency, as well as food stores, but they’re kind of small, and they have most of what you need. The really cool thing is that you can motor scooter around the entire island in no time at all, since it is only 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers), which is bigger that it might seem! The connector island, Lembongan, is not much larger, at 3.35 square miles, eight square kilometers, and it DOES have vehicles, but traffic is a non-issue. Both these islands are a quick “fast boat” ride of just over 30 minutes, from the main island of Bali.
So that’s how the year STARTED, and after three weeks there we returned to the mainland Bali town of Sanur, which is one of our favorite locations in the world. Since we were limited to 60 days on our visitor visa, we left Indonesia mid-February, stayed in Asia, and moved on to Siem Reap, Cambodia. (By the way, we are returning to Bali Jan 17 for another 60 day stay and will do the same thing).
After almost 60 days there we returned to Europe. WHY? Because Norm wanted “one more long motorcycle trip in Europe,” so we made plans for a five-month ride through Greece, Italy, Sardinia, and several Balkan countries. The plan started well but lasted only 42 days, as our BMW GS750 (Hermes) was stolen in Sicily. For anyone who’s been following us for a while, you know that I had a really HARD TIME dealing with that. But it is what it is, and it worked out well, keeping us in Tirana, Albania, for seven months instead of the planned 30 days.
If you are interested in learning more about Albania, and Tirana in particular, many of my newsletters since summer have shared a lot, so please look back on my library.
So, back to the melancholy, which is something I’ve spoken on before. Living in a new city is a double-edged sword since, when you start, everything is new, exciting, and maybe a little scary, and you ask yourself, “will I ever fit in, or be comfortable?” During our stay here I did both, and met a wonderful assortment of friends that I think we will have forever. Albania, and Tirana specifically, is a very popular expat site, and even though I took two, five-day motorcycle trips to explore pretty much any city in the country worth visiting, trying to see if there is “something better,” I never found a single candidate. Even though Tirana is inland, it’s only a 45-minute bus ride to the beach, and there are two major bus terminals in town. One will take you to almost any regional city in Albania, and the other is only for out of country buses, which go to half a dozen different places.
I’m a writer and I noticed that there was a writer’s WhatsApp group, so I joined that and helped it grow as I took over the reins for a few months. But what really made me feel at home, and helped develop a TRUE sense of community, was the Tirana Hikers & Walkers group. During the hot summer there’s really no substantial hiking in town, but when I became an Admin in September and helped it grew, we went from a few dozen people to over 100 now, and some of these folks have become true friends.
But now it’s time to move on, although Tirana, like a few other noteworthy cities in the world, is a true Nomadic Footprint for the Balkans, and many people rotate just among the almost dozen or so countries that make them up.
I know we will return, and Kathleen and I bought three large suitcases, and will leave two behind with some cold weather gear and “kitchen things,” so there’s a big incentive to come back. The third suitcase will carry summer items that we bought here, and go with us to Asia, and the end game is to have items stored in Tirana, and others in Da Nang, Vietnam, where we will be mid-March. That should lessen the load of these long cross-global trips.
For a year, or at least, that’s the plan.
As much as we love and have loved so many things here, the cold temps have been tough to deal with. New Year’s Eve dipped into the low 20s, and made our transition to warmer temperatures even more inviting.
Life is full of compromises and choices, whether you live nomadically, or have lived in the same house for decades. For the next 15 months we plan to be in Southeast Asia, and to possibly find our “forever stop,” if such a thing exists
If you have travel questions and want to know more about places we’ve been, tips on packing or choosing locations, or maybe even taking an extended leave from your country, let us know. You know where to find us!
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Questions? Comments?
How/where did you store your stuff in Tirana?
The owners of our unit have kindly offered to keep them for us. We intend to do the same in Vietnam. That will make traveling easier since we won't need to carry so much.