Still loving nomad life after 8 years

 

As we rang in 2026, we celebrated eight years since leaving our home on Grand Cayman to live out of a suitcase and see the world.  Thats 96 months–or 416 weeks–or 2,920 days of life on the road, with no plans to settle down.  In fact, our destination wish list only seems to grow!

2025 was a standout year for us marked by visiting nine new countries and most significantly, our first adventure into Africa.  For years Blair has been trying to convince me to go on a safari to no avail, until we found out that our friends Sophie & Paul were heading to Tanzania for a luxury safari.  I was convinced!!  It turned out to be one of the most spectacular experiences we have ever had, even with me feeling quite unwell the whole time.  I could easily be persuaded to do this again 😁

We were still in Portugal at the beginning of the year and remained there until the middle of February when we departed for Africa.  Our first destination was Tanzania and a 12 day safari, which was without a doubt the highlight of our entire year.  After Tanzania we made our way to Zimbabwe where we spent three days at an amazing lodge near Victoria Falls and six days in the town of Victoria Falls.  From there we flew to Cape Town, South Africa where we spent the next two months exploring Cape Town, the wine region and the southern coast.  We really enjoyed South Africa and definitely plan to return, the areas around Cape Town are gorgeous.

Leaving South Africa we flew to Mauritius where we spent three weeks exploring the island.  This was another place that is not on the way to anywhere so we had to make a specific plan to visit while we were in this part of the world.  After Mauritius, we flew all the way north to Europe to explore Budapest, Vienna and Prague for six weeks, three cities we had never been to before.  Of these three, Budapest was the favorite for both of us.  This took us to the start of summer when it was time for a visit with family and friends in Calgary.

When fall rolled around it was time to make our way down under.  Our first stop along the way was Japan for just over two weeks.  We cut back our time in Japan last year because it was the heat of summer, so arriving in the fall this year was definitely much nicer.  After Japan we visited Taipei for one week, then Bangkok for one week before reaching our end destination of Perth, Australia.  Western Australia is rather remote and not really on the way to anywhere, so just like Mauritius we needed to plan a specific trip here.  We spent almost six weeks exploring a small portion of the southwest region of this vast state.  Leaving Perth, we interrupted our south of the equator itinerary with a side trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia spending Christmas and New Years with a few friends that were here.  And that pretty much wraps up the highlights of our 2025 travels.

If you know me, you know I love numbers so here are some of the most recent details.  Over the past 8 years we have traveled 261,133 km/162,262 miles through 43 countries.

 

For 2025 our travel stats shown below list 18 countries visited during the year but the 9 new ones were Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Mauritius, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.  I am not counting Ethiopia as a place we have visited because all we did was spend 5 hours in the Addis Ababa airport.

How did 2025 compare to the previous 7 years?  Here are a few numbers comparing year on year:

	2025	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Flights taken	13	13	7	5	4	8	9	7
Airlines flown with	11	5	6	3	2	4	6	6
Countries visited	16	11	15	5	3	3	11	12
Cities lived in	37	26	29	23	8	18	38	29
Apartments rented	31	12	23	20	6	18	34	17
Nights in apartments	330	200	302	260	360	363	341	206
Hotels booked	16	19	7	6	5	2	5	12
Nights in hotels	33	143	17	9	5	2	7	30
Cars rented	5	3	2	1	4	11	4	4
Countries we’ve driven in	5	5	8	5	2	3	7	7
Phone numbers we’ve had	3	8	6	6	4	5	6	6
Gyms we’ve joined	13	8	13	6	4	7	25	6

We had our highest annual country count in 2025 visiting 16 countries on 5 of the 7 continents.  We also took a lot of flights this year with five of these flights in the last four months of the year as we made our way from Calgary to Perth.

Of the 37 cities we lived in during 2025, were would we go back to?  Praia de Rocha, for the gorgeous beaches and cliffs***Cape Town, for the low cost of living, good wine and excellent beaches***Budapest, for the history and very walkable city center***And while not a city, we would go back to Tanzania in a heartbeat for another safari.

Our pocketbook took a bit of a hit this year with the expensive African safari, but that was funded by savings from our inexpensive six months in SE Asia in 2024, so excluding the safari we were right on budget for 2025.  Our cost of living is still less than if we lived in Canada, and we have the added bonus of living is some pretty amazing places.  When we started this journey 8 years ago we really had no idea how affordable the nomad lifestyle could be with mindful planning and balancing expensive countries with inexpensive countries.

One number that is not shown above is the time we have spent ‘at home’ in Canada…..40 months or 42% of the past 8 years!!!  It is this number that makes me anxious that we are not traveling enough, however all this time at home was due to events beyond our control, ie covid and family emergencies.  What we came to realize during these unplanned interruptions of our travels is how much we love the nomadic lifestyle and we are not ready to quit.

Looking back over the past eight years we have been to some truly unforgettable places and had some unforgettable experiences.  Here are a few of our favorite memories:

The Matterhorn in Switzerland***Mont Saint Michel in France***Petra, Jordan***Dubai, UAE***Italy….anywhere😊***Istanbul, Turkey***The Caminito del Ray walk in Spain***Cappadocia, Turkey and our balloon ride***The Algarve Coast, Portugal***The Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand***The Great Ocean Road in Australia***Scuba diving near Adelaide and finding a Leafy Sea Dragon***The Sunshine Coast of Australia***The Dolomites, Italy***The Vatican in Rome, Italy***Bryce Canyon, USA***Cliffs of Moher, Ireland***The history in Derry/Londonderry, Ireland***The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur***Angkor Archeological Park, Cambodia***Ninh Binh, Vietnam***Safari in Tanzania***Stellenbosch wine region, South Africa***

And now its time for a few words from Blair and what he thought of 2025:

At the end of my 2024 post I mentioned that I was really looking forward to Africa. Well, that turned out to be well founded.

We did a 12-day safari in Tanzania which was tough and fantastic. By tough I mean you spend 10 or more hours a day bouncing around in a Toyota Land Cruiser on what are loosely called roads. And dust, there’s a lot of dust. It was fantastic in the abundance and variety of wildlife, the comfortable and sometimes spectacular accommodations, and the genuine warmth and friendliness of the people.

Victoria falls were spectacular if a bit different than I imagined. You view the falls from across a large vertical drop, and you are at the height of the top of the falls. It was rainy season, so the falls were very full and the water dropping makes for a lot of mist which then makes the falls hard to see. Our short flight over the falls in a helicopter was by far the best way to see them.

Then we moved on to Cape town and the garden route in South Africa. I enjoyed this whole area immensely and will just say I could live there 6 months a year.

Mauritius was nice but I don’t need to do that again. After that we flew to Europe for some culture and history in Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. My favorite was Budapest.

Summer in Calgary is always a favorite with me for the easy relaxing surroundings, our sports toys, friends and family.

In the fall we revisited Japan which I now feel we have explored enough and do not need to revisit, there are a lot of people there 😊

Taiwan was an interesting place, and like so many places it has a dark history.  Perth, Western Australia is a very remote, beautiful place and while we only saw a small part of it, I feel we have seen the best parts and will probably not go again.

We finished out the year in Kuala Lumpur with a few friends, just relaxing and getting in a little pickleball.

Obviously Africa was the highlight of 2025 for me but overall it was a very good year and I enjoyed all of it.

 

Beyond the logistics and milestones, how are we actually doing?  Eight years into our planned ten-year nomadic journey, we remain genuinely happy we chose this path.  We occasionally miss the comfort of a permanent home, yet those feelings are often overshadowed by the magic of discovering new places, making us want to travel forever.  The constant effort of planning can feel tedious and staying fit on the road remains a challenge, so we sometimes see the appeal of a slower pace.  For a variety of reasons it may not be such a bad thing to have a home base at some point, the problem is deciding where 😊 Our health was good this past year with no major events, just the normal ageing process as we creep towards the end of our 60’s.

Until recently we have been unable to find health insurance, as Canadians, which will cover us for full time travel once we reach 70 years of age.  We can get short term insurance in our 70’s but the caveat with all these policies is that we must live in Canada for 5 to 6 months every year and qualify for provincial health care.  I have heard about a company out of Europe that offers insurance to full time nomads over 69 so we will be doing our due diligence during the next year to see if that is a viable option for us.  Our current policy with Genki will expire in September 2026, and they only offer coverage for 2 years, so we will be on the hunt for a new insurer.

Where are we headed in 2026?  Well, if you look a the map of our travels over the past 8 years, you will see one glaring omission…South America!  Prior to being nomadic we vacationed in Peru and Ecuador but we have yet to travel there as nomads.

We will spend the first half of 2026 completing our travels down under before returning to Calgary for the summer.  When we head off again in the fall, Norway is first on our wish list followed by Brazil, Argentina, Chile and beyond, maybe even Antarctica.  As we get busy with our 2026 plans we wish you a year of joyful adventures discovering new places.  Off we go into Year 9 as nomads  👣👣

Thanks for joining us on our travels, we appreciate having you along!!
Susan and Blair