The "Bittersweet" Last Week of Leaving a Place Where You Have been for a While
Not everyone will "get this," but most of you will...
For many of you, the idea of “leaving” a place you’ve stayed, for possibly a short while, is foreign to you. But many of our group are nomads—or wish to be more nomadic—so this may offer an advance preview.
Kat and I recently left Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia after 90 days. Overall we loved it and stayed in three different rooms over that period.
Not necessarily planned
Our 90 day reservation was cut short due to—get ready—bed bugs, first time ever in all our travels. I’ll have a separate letter on that one, but since our host had other units in the same building we moved to one of those, for free, and she reimbursed us the unused portion of our rent. That room was nice for a week, but we ended up going to a room we stayed the last time we were in KL, in March. It was a large “family room” with three beds, private bath, but no private kitchen, only a shared one, which only really had a sink and fridge. But the location was ideal, which is why we returned, and as much as we TALK about looking at different areas in the town, we are definitely spoiled by this area (Bukit Bintang by name) which we know so well.
Even so, we did leave Kuala Lumpur, and I started having those familiar bittersweet thoughts, torn between looking forward to moving on, and leaving what has become “comfortable.” Since we have no real home, car, TV, power bills, etc… it’s a mix of emotions.
Kind of like a New Year.
As we crest into 2025, it marks the one quarter mark into this not so new 21st century, and once again, we reflect back, with possibly similar bittersweet thoughts.
Some of you had a great year and hate to see it go, and others maybe can’t wait to tear that page off the calendar! (Remember those??) Whether it was good, bad, or in-between, we cannot go back. It’s over. Similar to my thoughts about leaving recent lodgings, but in this case, we can go back again, and many times we do, probably will again.
I have a list of all the places we’ve stayed since Feb 2019, in over 43 countries, and discovered that we have stayed for 30 days or more at 19 of them. The longest by far, was Puerto Morelos, Mexico, for 15 months, due to COVID; Antalya, Turkey and Saranda, Albania were both 8-9 month stays. When we left all three of those places we were definitely torn since we really did (actually Kat did…) make them like a home.
Now we’re in Bali, Indonesia until Feb 17, with plans to stay in two different places, followed by Siem Reap, Cambodia, where we will be in one place for a month, but seek out different areas. After that we will truly be gypsies as we spend five or so months on a BMW bike from April 10 until September. What happens next is still undecided, but both of us will probably want SOME stability for a few months. But the “where” is unknown.
As I said, many of you have never or have rarely gone through these emotions. In 2013 I left a 27 year marriage, most of it living in one house, which we bought new. Over the years we created a home as well as a house. Leaving that was beyond bittersweet, and quite sad. That was a different life, and the time came to move on—whether I wanted to or not.
Being on the road since 2019 has been beyond amazing, and we have a lot more gas in our tanks. Over the next few years Kat and I both agree that we will travel less often, and spend more time in each place. We’ve identified two “footprints” to call our own: Southeast Asia, and the Balkan countries of Europe.
It’s weird to think that next year we’ll be 25% through the 21st century! And I wish you many more years to enjoy as much of it as you can!
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