A few years ago, Jay and I realised our retirement calendar had a distinct blind spot. Our long winter getaways reliably carried us toward equatorial heat, yet vast stretches of Europe and beyond remained stubbornly locked behind winter chills during those months. The northern calendar had more to offer. Setting aside the entire month of June provided the logical bridge to explore temperate regions under comfortable conditions.
Our inaugural venture in 2023 proved the value of using the northern Mediterranean coast as a launchpad for low-friction exploration. We leased an apartment on Avenue Durante in Nice for thirty days, relying on the clean tram network and coastal SNCF rails to stitch the shoreline together. Having the tracks right on the water turned regional travel into effortless day trips, letting one pop over to Monaco for the afternoon, browse Friday street markets in Ventimiglia, or hike the steep trails above Èze without ever hauling luggage between hotel rooms. Moving alongside that turquoise sea confirmed that a fixed coastal base beats frantic packing every single time.
Nice, France
The 2024 journey shifted our focus to an overland traverse across the Baltic states. Landing in Berlin, we used regional rail to bridge northern Poland and Lithuania before catching our homeward flight out of Riga. We tracked stations with precision. Connecting those capitals by land provided a grounded sense of northern European geography that air travel entirely skips.
Warsaw, Poland
By June of 2025, we tackled a wider regional arc across the Balkans. Flying into the north of Italy, we pieced together trains and long-distance buses to thread through Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, eventually reaching Bucharest. Moving overland from the Adriatic to the Black Sea corridor revealed how distinct each neighbouring border remains. The complex ground transit proved far easier than the guidebooks made it sound.
Belgrade, Serbia
The 2026 circuit carried our late-spring travels across the Mediterranean into Morocco. Arriving in Casablanca, we travelled by train to Tangier, hired a car through Chefchaouen to Fes, and joined an overland route out to the Sahara dunes at Merzouga before swinging back through Marrakech and down the Atlantic coast to Agadir. Camels proved predictably stubborn. Circling from arid desert passes back to coastal breezes showed the full, varied scale of the country.
Tinghir, Morocco
For 2027, the initial clues are already surfacing on the ledger well ahead of time. Early whispers point toward a Dutch staging ground, an extended maritime loop around the British Isles, a quick dash across France, and an eventual return to familiar North African shores in Tunisia