In 2022, I had recently switched from a full-time in-person job to a remote job, and was looking to take advantage of the opportunity that this opened up. At the same time, my lease was ending at my apartment in Union City, NJ, and my parents had plenty of room in their home to store all my stuff while I was gone. My roommate was in a similar situation, and we both agreed that it would be nice to try the “digital nomad” thing. We had previously both been very tied to our homes, and had rarely been away for long stretches of time, so wanted to avail the opportunity that our situation offered us.

After a very little amount of time spent ideating and planning (likely just a few texts and stray conversations, and a lot of idling in-between), we agreed to spend three months in Europe, starting with Amsterdam and figuring everything else out after we arrived.

Since both of our parents lived in NJ, we were able to drop all of our stuff at our respective parents’ homes before travelling, and not having to pay rent back home was an amazing enabler for an open budget and wider possibilities for our experience.

Often times, when I read about such tours or trips online, it seems like folks put weeks or months of planning into it all, and it gave me the impression that I should be doing the same, or I’d be “doing it wrong” if I didn’t plan for months and map out several destinations. In the end, we ended up just deciding to buy a one-way ticket to the first destination, and agreeing to figure out the next steps from there.

I owe a lot of the success of this trip to my travel buddy / roommate / best friend, because he remained enthusiastic, flexible, low-stress, and level-headed throughout all the planning and execution at every stage. Additionally, much thanks and appreciation goes to my parents for taking care of my cat the whole time, and allowing me to drop all of my stuff in their basement before we took off. Lastly, much love to my partner, for bearing with me leaving for three months, and keeping our connection strong with frequent video and phone calls.

Though its been almost two years since we returned from this experience, I’m finally finding the time to reflect and sift through old photos, and I’m hoping to be able to document and share just a little bit about each place we visited, as this was one of the more exciting and transformative experiences I’ve had. The primary objective is to just defend against the decay of my long-term memory, but I hope that other folks stumbling upon it all find it useful or entertaining!

The Timeline

I plan on making individual posts about each destination I visited, but have been having difficulty starting on that plan. So to help motivate each one of those posts, I’m compiling a high level timeline with what I remember and what I can yield from my Google Maps Timeline. From here, I’ll be able to break off each of these into posts and link them back in here when they’re done!

An index, if you will.

September 8, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II dies.

September 11, 2022

Flight out to AMS, via LGW. The journey begins!

September 12, 2022

An eight-hour layover at LGW! Just long enough to escape the airport and catch some sights in London in the aftermath of QE2’s death. Arrive in AMS in the afternoon, and grab a flatbread at TAP Zuid in the Rivierenbuurt neighborhood, where we’d make our home for the next three weeks.

September 30, 2022

A quick flight to Dublin, which was planned to be a week-long excursion for us, before I decided to stop back home for a few days to celebrate my mother’s birthday! I was able to go for some walks and grab some coffee in downtown Dublin before heading out the next day. I abandoned my roommate/travel-partner for 3-4 days so we could throw my mom a proper party, but thankfully, his company at the time was based in Dublin, so he was able to meet up with some coworkers and have a great time!

October 5, 2022

We reconvened at the Dublin airport so we could head to our next destination, Lago di Como. We arrived at Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP) later that day, rented a little FIAT 500e compact electric vehicle, and made it out to the lake by evening.

October 10, 2022

A day trip from Lago di Como to the nearby Swiss city, Lugano!

October 11, 2022

My travel buddy and I part ways again! This time, I meet my partner in London, as she had a trip there planned with her mom. In the meantime, he stays in Italy to meet with his family, who had planned trips to Rome and Florence.

October 16, 2022

I fly from London to Denver, CO via Toronto, for a company offsite! Many thanks to my team at the time, who had made all the accommodations to enable me to make it out for this experience, though the travel was definitely starting to get a bit chaotic 😅.

October 20, 2022

I fly back to Europe to reconvene with my travel buddy, who has now made it to Vienna, Austria. I fly from Denver to Munich (MUC) via Vancouver, taking my layover in Vancouver to do some quick shopping at McArthurGlen Outlets. I arrive in Munich the next day, and take a Deutsche Bahn train to Vienna.

October 30, 2022

We take the Deutsche Bahn together back to Munich, where I got the opportunity to meet with several more coworkers! We ended up calling this excursion the “satellite offsite,” for all those in Europe that couldn’t make it out to Denver. In Munich, we stayed at the home of a famous pilot YouTuber, Captain Joe.

November 6, 2022

A wild last day in Munich where I scrambled to travel from Munich to the Zugspitze and back before our evening flight, we arrived late evening at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS).

December 6, 2022

After an amazing month in Lisbon, we could not find affordable flights back to NYC from Lisbon, but we COULD find one from Madrid. So we took a 7-8 hour overnight FlixBus from Lisbon to Madrid.

December 7, 2022

Spent a day and night in Madrid! Once we arrived at 5am, our Airbnb would not be ready until mid-afternoon, but I thankfully had a WeWork All-Access Black card at the time! So we sheltered in the WeWork until our Airbnb opened up, and rested for a bit before catching an authentic flamenco show in the evening!

December 8, 2022

Did some last second souvenir shopping in Madrid at LACAMBRA before taking our final flight home to our respectve parents, and starting the task of finding out where to live next.