I used to think people who flew south for January were spoiled. I grew up in a place where winter meant gray skies, salted roads, and a collective agreement that everyone would be miserable until April. You did not escape it. You endured it. You bought a happy lamp, took vitamin D pills, and told […]
I found Berat by accident. I was supposed to be in Saranda, on the Albanian Riviera, drinking iced coffee and staring at the Ionian Sea like a basic travel brochure. But the bus broke down. Not in a dramatic, movie way. Just a sad, hot, Albanian way, on a mountain road where the driver shrugged,
I thought I was prepared. I had watched the YouTube videos. I had read the Instagram captions. I had even bought a light pink scarf because some algorithm convinced me it would photograph well against a backdrop of soft white petals. I arrived in Tokyo on a Thursday in late March, checked into my hotel
I used to think the phrase “digital nomad” meant someone who lived in a van and posted inspirational sunrise photos while their laptop balanced on a cooler. That was before my neighbor, a perfectly normal accountant named Dave who wears khakis and owns a leaf blower, told me he was moving to Portugal for a
