January 2020

We have been talking about whether it would be possible to live full-time as Airbnb guests for a few years.  The idea has always been very fluid with many questions that we were not entirely sure of the answers to.

Do we go for a few months or a few years?  Do we stay in one place or move around?  How long do we stay in each place?  Do we stay in the UK or travel abroad?  Do we store our belongings or sell everything?

Every time we had the conversation the plan changed, how much it changed usually depended on how much five quid ALDI wine we were drinking at the time.  The bigger the consumption, the more we were prepared to go outside our comfort zone.  What never changed though, was the thought that it was time to move on, we had loved our time in Manchester but knew it was time to turn the page and start a brand new chapter in our lives.

There was always the sticking point of Karyo’s work.   He likes his job and it’s only a short walk from our apartment so really convenient for him.  He was already working from home twice a week so we figured as long as we could find places to stay that were not far from a train station then we could make it work for us by sticking to the UK.  When we looked at a  map there were lots of places within an hour’s train ride that we would be happy to live.  All we now needed to decide was when to make the move.  Giving up the home that we had loved for so long was such a big step, so much so that even though we discussed it on numerous occasions, we never seemed to ever get around to making the final decision.

March 2020

The Covid 19 lockdown happened and Karyo, along with half the country went from working from home two days a week to working from home full time.  It seemed our travel plans had been thwarted yet again.

July 2020

We were now used to Karyo being at home full time, He used our kitchen table as his office and I used my knee as the kitchen table – it was the ‘new normal.  His working from home really suited us and we both benefitted in different ways. I really enjoyed having him around during the day, and he really enjoyed the extra ten minutes in bed in the morning!   One afternoon, he received his weekly office-related Covid update e-mail.  It said that due to the coronavirus situation it was unlikely that he would have to go back into the office to work this year, and it may not even be until mid-2021.  This news did get us thinking.  As it had proved to be no problem for Karyo to be working from home full time then, as the singing sensation, Paul Young once so tunefully informed us –

🎜🎜 wherever we lay our hat, ( as long as it has a good internet connection ) can be our home 🎝🎝.

It seemed that we had been given the opportunity to move forward with our idea, we now had the chance to dip our toes into the water with no disruption to his work.

Things moved really quickly from here, we knew that every month we spent thinking about it was a month less we could be experiencing our new adventure so we immediately advertised our apartment to let.  We decided if we were going to do it then we should go for it properly, no half measures.  We immediately started looking at what we wanted to take with us and what we didn’t really need to keep.

The following week we accepted a tenancy agreement for our apartment, the new tenants wanted to move in on September 6th so we really needed to get a move on and ‘operation major clearout’ was put into action with military precision.  We decided that as we intended to move often then we had to be really ruthless when deciding what to keep and what to let go.  We were quite methodical, going through our belongings item by item –  coats, shoes, clothes, record collection, CDs, Knick Knacks it all had to go!  We made a list of the clothes we were going to take in terms of quantity, 2 pairs of jeans, 8 t-shirts etc then set to making the decision which we kept and which we took to Oxfam.  Anything we thought we could sell went on E-bay.  It was not an easy task, T-shirts we found in the back of the wardrobe that we had not set eyes on for years suddenly became our favourite item of clothing and items we dragged from under the bed covered in an inch of dust suddenly became a prized possession that we could not bear to part with!  Strangely though, the whole process of minimalising our possessions was quite therapeutic.  For two guys that prided themselves on being extremely non-materialistic, we didn’t half have a load of old tat to get rid of!

Eventually, after countless visits to Oxfam and the Post Office, we managed to whittle our possessions down to two boxes that my brother had agreed to store for us that contained some paperwork we thought was too important to throw away, an album of 240 photographs ( whittled down from about 1500 ) plus two shirts, suits and pairs of shoes for any future weddings,  christenings, funerals or bar mitzvahs and one large suitcase, one small suitcase and a rucksack, for us to take with us on our travels.

Our life in two suitcases and a rucksack

The post, we thought might be an issue but when we sat down to make a list we realised that we hardly ever got any.  Other than menus for the local takeaways – we had gone paperless without even realising it!  We redirected any Bank post to my brother’s house and that was about it.

Now for the big question – where to go?

Karyo is Greek and we have not visited there for two years so thought it made sense to make Greece a starting point.  We did some research and we finally agreed on the seaside town of Nea Peramos, just outside The Port City of Kavala as our first stop.  This is about an hours drive from his family home, Serres, so ideal for our September accommodation choice as it would make visiting them easy for us during our stay.

Lastly, The flight,  A cheap midweek Easy Jet one way £50 each flight to Thessaloniki to depart at 6 am on Wednesday 2nd September 2020 sealed the deal.  All was sorted, there was no going back now, all that we had to do now was to wait for the big day to arrive.

More on that next month.  Until then, thanks for reading.

Hugs, Colin & Karyo xx

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