Last year was my sixth year of digital nomading — and it was the year I finally accomplished a long-standing goal.
Back when Twitter was a thing, every January I would tweet a year-long goal — something significant that would require time to build up to and accomplish. Cycle a hundred miles in one day. Adopt a dog. Build a personal website.
In 2020, I tweeted that year’s goal: finally visit all fifty states. At that time, I’d been to 47, and I soon made it 48 when I visited West Virginia, my last of the Lower 48. That left only Hawaii and Alaska. I was committed to reaching these far-flung destinations in my first full year as a nomad.
Although the pandemic was terribly disruptive and dramatically changed the course of my life, I’m fortunate that there are some things it didn’t prevent, only delay. I eventually made it to Hawaii in 2023 as part of my sabbatical.
And in 2025, I arrived in my fiftieth and final state of Alaska.
Alaska was as exotic an adventure as Hawaii, filled with wild animals, exciting excursions, and new friends. I was thrilled to spend the entire month of August there, and I look forward to sharing those tales in future blog posts.
But it was just one month of twelve that made up an exciting year. I spent the first four in Denver, Colorado, where I saw countless golden retrievers and was Cracker Barrel’s first customer. I drove across the country to crash a corporate meetup I wasn’t invited to. I flew to Prague, a foreign city I’d not visited since I was in college, where I toured ancient castles and crept through crypts, then flew to Anchorage, ten time zones away. I celebrated my mother’s milestone birthday, attended the inaugural INIT HELLO conference in Maryland, flew to Alaska, then spend a quiet six weeks in bucolic Ithaca, New York. I climbed one mountain in New Hampshire and slid down another mountain in Vermont. I dogsat in my native Boston, walked a chihuahua in North Carolina, and catsat three times in New York City — the first time I’d nomaded in The Big Apple.
And, as I always do, I captured every day of this transformative, global, landmark year — one second at a time.
Six years, and the adventure’s not over — though I find the tenor of my travels changing: not longer or shorter stays, but more familiar ones, giving me the time and space to focus on goals more internal than external. I still want to see what’s over the hill and around the corner. But I want to go there with the right skills — and the right companions.
It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. And there’s plenty more road still ahead.
Ken, wow, look like you had an amazing year!