Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:05 am
This post is the sixth in a series that I will be doing on preparing to move abroad. If you have been dreaming of long-term travel or moving abroad, this will be a great resource in your planning. I plan to cover the stages of planning and what you need to consider before taking a big trip like this as well as all the emotions leading up to it. I will be posting weekly. Hope you will join me on this journey before the journey!
We officially have plans for long-term travel through the end of 2023, including these destinations in Europe we finally decided on. We have 44 days until we leave for our trip around the world.
Destinations in Europe
When we originally planned this trip, we wanted to spend all of it in Europe. Our plans have changed, but we are still really excited to be spending four months in Europe during our long-term travel. Here are the additional destinations in Europe that we have decided on!
Spain
At the end of September, after spending four months in Southeast Asia, we will be heading to Granada, Spain to stay for about a month. We will be returning almost five years to the day since we were there last. If you need a refresher on Granada, check out my blog post. I loved Granada when we first visited so I am very excited to go back. I remember thinking at the time that I could live there, so I guess we will see if that was accurate. This is also the first place that we will be staying long-term that we have actually visited before.
Originally we were hoping to stay in Barcelona, but we were having trouble finding an affordable Airbnb in a good area. The one that we liked wanted us to stay for three months minimum. We considered for several weeks whether we wanted to stay in Barcelona for three months, which would be almost all our time in Europe, or if we wanted to do multiple locations.
Ultimately, we decided against staying in Barcelona for three months. I am still not sure if we made the right decision, honestly. Barcelona is supposed to be great for digital nomads and expats. Luke and I also loved it there when we visited. Plus it is easier to get to other places in Europe from Barcelona. Ultimately though we decided it would be good to try some “medium” sized cities.
I think Granada will be nice because there is less to do there, so maybe I won’t feel like we have to squeeze everything into one month. I realize how privileged that sounds because most people (myself included for the last seven years) in the US can’t visit one place for a whole month and you can obviously accomplish way more in one month than one week. I am so grateful to have a month or more to spend in these places. But I also know myself and I know that if I am not careful I will end up feeling like we didn’t do enough no matter how long we stay. So maybe visiting a smaller city is a good way for me to combat that.
Georgia
Our next stop will be Tbisili, Georgia. It is supposed to be a great place for digital nomads and expats, it is supposed to be really beautiful, and the food is supposed to be very good too. The weather should be lovely in October in Georgia and that is their wine harvesting season. What else could we possibly want? Most importantly for us though, it is outside of the Schengen visa area. You can only spend 90 days out of a 180-day period in the Schengen area, which includes much of Europe.
Georgia is right next to Russia, which is unfortunate in this current climate, and we have seen some concerning news this week about Georgia and its pro-Russian government. This is the location that people have questioned most when we talk about our plans. But nowhere is perfect and we don’t want to only go to the usual places. We will obviously continue to monitor the situation as we get closer.
Update: our Airbnb in Georgia canceled on us because of damage from an earthquake (although I found no evidence of an earthquake in Georgia). We are still planning to stay in Georgia, at the moment, but we are considering other places too because of the situation with Russia. We haven’t made any set plans for that time yet.
Norway
Over Thanksgiving, Luke and I will be spending a week-and-a-half in Tromsø, Norway. We decided to visit Norway in November because it is a great time to see the northern lights and spot orcas in the wild, which are two huge bucket list items for me! Luke is also excited to experience the polar night, where the sun doesn’t come up during the day. The polar night begins on November 27th and lasts through mid-January. We will be staying for a shorter period of time because Norway is notoriously expensive and I’m not sure I want to spend a month in complete darkness.
Italy
Finally, after our visit to Tromsø, Norway, we will be headed to Florence for Christmas! Our main goal for December in Europe was to be somewhere with easy access to Christmas markets. Originally we were thinking of France or Germany, but they tend to be pretty expensive and Luke has always wanted to go to Italy. Florence has a large Christmas market and other cities nearby will have Christmas markets as well. I think it will be lovely. We also rented a really nice place for that stay, with a gorgeous balcony. Hopefully, it isn’t too cold to use it in December!
A Big Life Update
Finally, the last big update I have is regarding my job. I am planning to put my notice in NEXT MONDAY if you can believe that (I can’t). It’s hard to comprehend it. In so many ways, I feel so ready. In many other ways, I feel incredibly guilty. I’ve been there for eight years and there have been times when I hated it and times when I enjoyed it, but I know that they rely on me and I take that seriously. It has basically been my entire career since I started working there before I graduated college. I have never really felt like I was in the right place though.
Some people have stayed for their entire careers at this company but that seems crazy to me. It is a generational difference to stay at one company for so long, and as a millennial, my generation doesn’t tend to do that. I think if I stay any longer, I could easily stay forever. That scares me more than I am scared of dropping everything to travel the world for a year. It might be easier to stop fighting these things inside of me that are screaming for change and adventure. It might be easier to just stay in the same city that I was born in and work my whole life at the same company. But at the end of the day, it is just a job to me. It is not a job that I am willing to sacrifice much for, if anything. I see my boss working nights and weekends. I don’t want that unless I love it. So while it is scary to quit and I don’t know where my career is headed after this, it is less scary than the alternative.
Read more: WHY WE DECIDED TO TRAVEL LONG-TERM
Getting Ready for a Trip Around the World
This journey before the journey, as Jason on the Zero to Travel podcast calls it, has been a rollercoaster. One minute I’m feeling elated checking out the best pasta restaurants in Florence and the next I’m counting the number of hugs I have with my friends before we leave. Every time I say goodbye to someone, a friend or a family member, it feels so extreme. I spend so much of my day trying to wrap my brain around it. Wondering if something in me is broken because I want something different. I have a happy, full life. But I want more, I want something other than the status quo. I wonder if something is broken in everyone else because they’re content going to the same building every day from nine to five and staying in the same job for 20 years. I don’t judge them for this, but I also don’t really understand it. I never have. Sometimes I envy them because it sounds easier. I am second-guessing everything right now, pondering humans and their motives and how we can be so similar but so different. These are some of the things I hope to contemplate on this trip and hopefully discover what I need in my life going forward.
Have you visited any of these destinations in Europe? Would you? Let me know in the comments!
There is only one more post in this series on moving abroad to travel long-term. Next, I will cover my raw, unfiltered thoughts on the plane from Denver to Seattle, the first leg of our trip.
Originally written March 13, 2023.
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