Today Marks 1 Year of Global Nomadism

January 17, 2019

WASHINGTON – Today marks one year of being a global nomad! I moved out of my apartment here in the nation’s capital Jan. 17, 2018, put my belongings in a storage unit, and set off to see more of the world. In this first year, I made it to seven new countries – Belarus, Cape Verde, Kiribati, Moldova, Nauru, Solomon Islands, and Ukraine – bringing my total to 127.

I also visited one de-facto country, Transnistria (a breakaway state in eastern Moldova), bringing my de-facto count to three. Add the 15 inhabited territories I’ve previously been to, and 2018 brought my total number of distinct places to 145 – so I’m 62% of the way on my Quest for 234.

Defining a “trip” is tricky when you’re a nomad. I count eight completed trips last year – three domestic and five international. I log one trip as departing home base (either here in Washington or from my mother’s house in The Villages, Florida) and then returning. Within each trip, there are often “subtrips,” where I wrap up visiting one region and move on to another without returning to base camp. (I don’t count when I shuttle between Florida and the District of Columbia.)

One surprise as I totaled up my 2018 travel stats: I flew 78,335 miles on 56 flights. This is not even close to my record. The year before (2017), interestingly, I also took 56 flights but the distance added up to 105,015 miles. My record flight distance in a calendar year is 145,128 in 2010, when I took 75 flights. (My lifetime flight stats are 1,478,659 miles on 1,072 flights on 612 routes aboard 91 airlines through 253 airports on 69 aircraft types. Yes, I am a true Aviation Geek!)

One would think I would have set my flight record during Nomad Year #1. But I did several cruises last year; didn’t make it to Asia, Africa, or the Middle East; and did several extended regional trips where I took short flight hops or used ground transportation.

Let’s tally it up – 25 countries visited in ’18: Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, Honduras, Mexico, Antigua & Barbuda, New Zealand, Australia, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Barbados, Portugal, Germany, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, Cape Verde, and Brazil. Plus the de-facto nation of Transnistria and the territory of Cayman Islands.

Here’s a look back at my first year of nomading:

• Trip 1A: After moving out of the apartment I resided in for 11 years, I first set off on a Norwegian Breakaway Caribbean cruise Jan. 19 to Feb. 2 from New York. The ship called at Port Canaveral, Florida; Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; George Town, Cayman Islands; Harvest Caye, Belize; Roatan Island, Honduras; and Cozumel, Mexico.

• 1B: MSC Seaside Caribbean cruise Feb. 3-10 from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; and St. John’s, Antigua.

• 2A: Holland America Noordam cruise in mid-February to early March with my friends Mike and Matt (Atlantis gay charter voyage) from Auckland, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia. Then in Sydney, we participated in Gay Mardi Gras.

• 2B: After another week in Sydney, I took off island hopping across the Pacific Ocean the rest of March and into early April from Brisbane, Australia, to the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Hawaii.

• 3A: Mom and I flew April 12 to Barbados, where we spent a couple days before sailing across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the luxury liner Seabourn Odyssey to Lisbon, Portugal, stopping at Madeira Island and Porto Santo Island (both part of Portugal).

• 3B: After our cruise, Mom and I spent a week and half exploring Lisbon and driving around central and northern Portugal, ending up in Porto.

• 3C: We continued to Göttingen, Germany, to visit my brother, Justin, and sister-in-law, Silvia.

• 3D: On our longest trip ever together (six weeks), Mom and I went on to spend 10 days exploring our ancestral homeland of Lithuania, returning to Florida on May 26.

• After spending June 6-12 in Washington to see the Capitals win their first Stanley Cup championship and attend Capital Pride with friends, I flew to Houston to take a ride on United Airlines’ brand-new Boeing 737-MAX9.

• 4: I spent a wonderful month in Hawaii from June 23 to July 23, hiking near the lava eruption on Hawaii Island (the “Big Island”), venturing around Molokai Island for the first time, and visiting Maui Island – my first time there since 1991.

• 5A-B-C: I took a six-week respite in Florida and Washington, then set off in early September for three weeks to see three of the last five nations I haven’t been to in Eastern Europe: Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova (also Transnistria, one of the oddest yet fascinating places I’ve ever seen). All that’s left now is Bulgaria and Romania.

• 6: My second domestic trip of 2018 took me to southern Arizona for a week in late September and early October, then I met my brother and his wife in Flagstaff. We saw three national monuments near Flagstaff, then spent several days in Grand Canyon National Park, including a two-day hike down to the Colorado River and back up to the South Rim. We continued on to Farmington, New Mexico, to visit my father.

• 7: After a 12-day break (much of which I was sick), Mom and I blasted off Nov. 1 for our second long trip of the year together. We flew to Genoa, Italy, to board the cruiseship MSC Fantasia for a 19-night trans-Atlantic cruise to Rio de Janeiro via France, Spain, Morocco, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and the northeastern Brazilian cities of Salvador and Ilehus. We then spent nine days in Rio, one of my favorite cities in the world. It was Mom’s first time in Brazil, and I really enjoyed showing her around the Marvelous City.

• 8: My final trip of 2018 the last week of December took me back to Washington then onward to Denver, where I caught an unscheduled flight Dec. 28 on United’s first Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner to Los Angeles (10 days before the Jan. 7 launch of scheduled service).