Now it’s springtime (in the northern hemisphere) and I’m back in Washington DC. Retrospectively, I found cycles of travel around March-April covering three continents: Asia, North America, and Europe. Let’s see the timeline in reverse order.
- 2024: Washington DC.
- 2023: wrapping up 400 days of being a digital nomad. From Tbilisi (emotionally, it wasn’t easy to leave) to Baku, Azerbaijan (in fact, the Novruz holiday seeded the thought of this post), back to Tbilisi in Marjanishvili and Amsterdam as the final destination before flying back to Bangkok.
- 2022: Istanbul, Türkiye as the first city in an experiment of digital nomad life.
- 2021: Bangkok for the whole year as the Delta wave hit the country.
- 2020: Montego Bay, Jamaica as a visa run from DC. Then the pandemic hit.
- 2019: Mexico City, Mexico as a visa run from DC.
- 2018: Murmansk and Moscow, Russia as a visa run from DC. I travelled with friends for a change.
- 2017: London, the UK as a visa run from DC and for a friend’s wedding.
- 2016: back in Bangkok for Songkran after eight months in DC.
No wonder my Facebook memory feeds during early spring each year show different countries. The visa run cycles started in 2016 and broke down by COVID-19. Since 2022, the spring equinox period has signified changes through travels: embarking on a digital nomad adventure, the crazy itinerary on the way back, and this one—returning to DC.
The way we work has shifted and I took advantage of that. Nonetheless, an inner call persuaded me to finish the year’s contract at the headquarters. I yearned for reconnecting with colleagues IRL for the first time in four years. All these years, my name is still on the cubicle.
“It’s about time!” The landlady’s grandson responded to her regarding my return to the house in Mount Pleasant. I left DC in 2020 with a sombre mood. It was delightful to see the patch and its neighbourhoods get lively again. And spring in DC is always remarkable.
Of course, I was anxious about this move that I would fall back into the 2016-2020 cycles. But the world has changed, I have changed. So I asked myself how I’d do it differently this time. That’s a challenge.
However, there was a synchronicity boost when a new song from a Thai rapper, with a collaboration with a Japanese kawaii metal and a Thai rock band, was released about a week before I left Bangkok. (Just like when I was leaving Tbilisi two years prior). Leaving Bangkok has never been easy, especially letting go of my beloved neighbourhood—Phra Khanong. The track calibrated my emotion and courage to move on.
And oh as a side note, it was also in spring when his blog was launched. No, it was actually autumn (in the southern hemisphere). That was 20 years ago! Considering this is an anniversary post.
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