In our previous blog, everything revolved around preparation. We wrote about selling our house, closing the chapter on our life in Spain, selling our car, organizing documents, and taking care of all the practical details required to make a life without a permanent home possible. For ten months, we worked towards one moment: the moment we would finally leave.
Now that we have been traveling full-time for a month, we have realized that the reality feels different than we expected. Not better or worse, just different. Perhaps that should not come as a surprise. You can spend years dreaming about a certain lifestyle, but only when you start living it do you discover what it actually feels like.
Before we could begin our full-time travel journey, however, one final surprise was waiting for us.
Moving Abroad: Our Last Challenge Before Leaving Spain
More than six months before leaving, we applied for our Spanish driving licenses. Nancy received hers within two months. Kevin’s application seemed to disappear into a bureaucratic black hole. Nobody could tell us exactly what had gone wrong, why it had happened, or how long it would take to resolve.
Over the following months, we scheduled new appointments, submitted documents again and repeatedly tried to get answers. Without success. Slowly, we began to accept that the license would probably not arrive before departure.
Until we were already in Madrid.
Literally one day before our flight to Indonesia, we received a message saying that Kevin’s driving license was finally ready for collection in Málaga. The timing felt almost absurd. For six months nothing seemed to happen, and just when we had stopped expecting it, everything was suddenly resolved.
The only catch was that it required a six-hour round trip by train. Three hours to Málaga, collect the license, and three hours back to Madrid.
Looking back, we can laugh about it. At the time, however, it felt like the perfect summary of the previous ten months. Every time we thought everything had been arranged, another task appeared. Once returned to Madrid that evening, everything that could be organized had finally been organized. Everything that needed to be finished was finished.
The only thing left to do was leave.
Traveling to Bali and Lombok: A 32-Hour Journey
The first flights went surprisingly smoothly. Perhaps because after months of planning, organizing and preparing, there was suddenly nothing left to manage. All we had to do was travel. That changed when we arrived in Bali.
Before leaving Europe, we had researched flights between Bali and Lombok and found plenty of information suggesting that tickets could easily be purchased upon arrival. Based on that information, we decided not to book in advance. A decision we would probably make differently today.
When we tried to buy tickets, every flight was fully booked.
Instead of continuing directly to our final destination, we found ourselves on a waiting list, unsure whether we would be able to fly to Lombok that day. Surprisingly, neither of us felt particularly stressed about it.
Nancy was convinced everything would work out. Kevin was convinced we would end up spending the night in Bali. Neither outcome felt like a problem. For the first time in a very long time, we had nowhere we needed to be. Nobody was waiting for us. No schedule would fall apart if things did not go according to plan.
Eventually, two seats became available and we were able to board.
By the time we arrived in Lombok, we had been traveling for 32 hours. On paper, that sounds exhausting. In reality, it felt like the bridge between two completely different lives.
The Reality of Starting a Full-Time Travel Lifestyle
One of the questions we get asked most often is how it felt when we finally arrived. The honest answer is that it did not feel the way we expected at all.
We had talked about this journey for some time. The previous ten months had revolved entirely around preparing for it. Yet stepping off the plane did not instantly feel like the beginning of a new life.
The first few days were mostly about recovering from the journey, adjusting to the climate, finding a rhythm and simply taking a breath after months of selling, organizing, planning and saying goodbye.
That is exactly why we deliberately chose to start slowly. We did not want to immediately move on to the next destination. We wanted time to arrive.
Only after a few days did we have the mental space to process what had actually happened. The realization slowly started to sink in that we were not going back to our house. This was not a three-week vacation after which everything would return to “normal”. This is our life now. Sometimes we suddenly become aware of what we are doing. Other times it feels surprisingly normal.
What Does Full-Time Travel Really Feels Like?
Perhaps that has been the biggest surprise of our first month.
Full-time travel feels far more normal than we expected. For years, we had imagined what this lifestyle would feel like. We assumed every day would feel extraordinary. We expected to constantly be aware of the freedom we had created.
The reality is less dramatic, but perhaps more beautiful. Human beings adapt quickly. What once felt like a dream slowly becomes everyday life. We wake up, have breakfast, work, make plans, buy groceries and discuss what we want to do next. The only difference is that we now do those things in different places around the world.
What surprises us most is how little we actually miss. We expected to miss having a home. We expected to miss our routines. We thought letting go of everything we had built would be harder. Instead, we mostly miss small things.
A proper desk to work from. A comfortable couch. A hot shower with decent water pressure. And tap water that you can drink without thinking twice.
Ironically, it is the small everyday conveniences that we miss most, while the big things we spent years working towards turned out to be surprisingly easy to let go of.
Digital Nomad Life: Working While Traveling
Another question we often receive is what it is like to work while traveling. Many people see photos and videos from beautiful places and assume we are permanently on holiday. We understand why. From the outside, it probably looks like a life filled entirely with freedom and adventure. The reality is slightly more nuanced.
We are not only traveling. At the same time, we are building Two Wild Nomads. That means filming, photographing, writing, editing, publishing and planning almost every day. It also means thinking about budgets, future destinations and how to make this lifestyle sustainable in the long run.
What surprises us is how quickly this has become normal. Work no longer feels like something separate from travel. It has become part of our daily life on the road. At the same time, it requires balance. There are moments when we become so focused on capturing an experience that we forget to fully experience it ourselves. Those are the moments when we consciously take a step back and remind ourselves why we started this journey in the first place.
We did not leave to create content. We create content because we left.
What This First Month Has Taught Us
If there is one lesson that keeps returning, it is the importance of following our own pace.
When we first started, we thought we wanted to see everything. Every waterfall, every viewpoint, every famous attraction. It did not take long to realize that this approach simply does not fit the way we want to travel.
We work while traveling. We want time to relax. We want to discover new places, but we also want the time to genuinely experience them. That means making choices.
We do not have to see everything. We do not have to visit every attraction. The places we skip are usually replaced by completely different experiences somewhere else. The longer we travel, the more peace that realization brings.
What We Would Tell Ourselves One Year Ago
If we could sit down with ourselves one year ago, we would probably both say the same thing > Stop worrying so much.
The house will sell. The car will sell. The paperwork will get sorted. The problems that seem enormous today will eventually become small stories you barely think about anymore.
Enjoy the process of building your dreams, because looking back, that is something we did not do enough. And perhaps we would also tell ourselves not to wait quite so long.
Preparation matters. Thinking things through matters. Financial planning and practical arrangements matter too. But eventually there comes a moment when you simply have to begin.
Tomorrow is never guaranteed. There will always be more time to work harder, play it safer or avoid risks. The memories we are creating today could never have been bought, planned or postponed.
After one month of full-time travel, we know one thing for certain. We are incredibly glad that we finally went.
While this blog focused on how full-time travel feels, we have barely touched on the places themselves. The reality is that this first month has been filled with experiences, people, cultures and moments that deserve a story of their own.
In our next blog, we’ll share what our first destination taught us, how we experienced Lombok beyond the highlights, and why this island turned out to be the perfect place to begin this new chapter.
Two Wild Nomads. Stories about freedom, growth and choosing the life that feels right.
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