Reid & Robie

Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

– Hal Borland

2025 marks the end of our first full year as roving retirees, and Robie and I learned a lot in the past twelve months.

We learned that seven months is too long for us to stay in one place but that nesting in an inexpensive place like Albania allowed us to fund adventures in North Africa, Scotland, Italy and Spain and still stay on budget for the year. During our stay in Sarandё, Albania we discovered where old Mercedes go to die, the best places to eat and essential tips for traveling the Balkans by bus to explore Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia. Most importantly, we learned that when it rains in Lecce, hopping between ristorantes eating pasta and cheese is the most enjoyable way to stay dry.

Despite our best efforts to avoid high season travel and overcrowded destinations, we learned that we’re still part of the problem and after friends bought a sailboat, we discovered we aren’t immune to the lure of the ocean. Reid gathered life lessons on the Camino de Santiago while Robie learned what it means to juggle travel planning as he wandered across Italy and northern Portugal with his brother-in-law.

In Andalucía we fell in love with Granada’s culture of free tapas and the storied history of Seville, and once the weather turned cool, we discovered Morocco’s Atlantic coast where the warm, sun-filled days are a good place to spend the winter.

With so much to learn we held off committing to any new adventures until the end of 2025. Then in November we sat down with a calendar and a map looking to fill the months with new places to explore. But the only things we agreed on were to remain in Europe a while longer and that we desperately wanted to be more mobile. Shedding clothes and downsizing our luggage, we bought new, smaller bags and researched our top destinations by season, slowly filling in the weeks with exciting new travels and long-term stays that span the continent. Now we’re pleased to share our plans with you.

We begin the new year in Essaouira, Morocco where we’ve been since November 4.

In mid-January we’ll head to Marrakech for a week before flying to London to give us a few days’ cushion between our 90-day limit in Morocco and our return to the Schengen zone.

Arriving in Sicily on February 3 we’ll celebrate Carnival in Catania and make a trip to Malta. On St. Patrick’s Day we’ll move across the island to Sicily’s northwest coast and stay in Palermo over Easter.

Toward the end of April, we’ll depart Sicily traveling north along the Amalfi Coast to Naples and eventually Rome. On May 1^st we’ll board a flight to Istanbul staying in Türkiye for the first half of the summer. But as July begins to swelter, we’ll swap the Mediterranean for the North Sea and spend cool summer nights among rolling, green hills in Aberdeen, Scotland.

In late September, we’re looking to return to the States to eat Mexican food and see friends and family. But we’ll be back across the Atlantic come October and hope to spend the holidays in southern France. Because by New Year’s Day 2027, we’ll be eyeing a move to sub-Saharan Africa before continuing eastward on this journey around the planet.

So there’s a snapshot of where we’ve been in 2025 and a preview of where we’re going next. If you have plans to be anywhere near us, we’d love to hook up for a mint tea, limoncello or Turkish coffee so please reach out and let us know.

Thanks for tagging along on our travels. We wish you health, joy and lots of wonderful new opportunities and adventures in the coming year.

Cheers!

-Reid & Robie

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity, and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.

– Edith Lovejoy Pierce