Jo’s three-month experiment in Greece with her partner Darrel in 2018 turned into a new, nomadic way of living. Since then, the couple have been moving between countries every few months, using South Africa and Greece as bases. Jo has taken around 25 VoiceMaps in several countries, from Georgia to Japan.
This interview is part of our new How We Travel series, in which we speak to VoiceMap’s community of curious explorers about how they travel.
What do you always pack that other people find strange?
Wherever we go, we take two little glasses for ‘walking wine.’ We bought them from a pharmacy in Slovenia before a walking holiday.
I love that! So you never have to drink out of plastic cups…
Or out of the bottle!
I suppose they’re also handy when you’re staying somewhere without any glasses.
Exactly. It feels like taking home with you to different places. We also have a few ‘rituals’ for when we arrive somewhere new.
What kind of rituals?
We take a candle to burn, a portable speaker, and one of those 1980s travel alarm clocks that we bought at a flea market. You set up the alarm clock, light a candle, have a glass of wine, and play some music – we make ‘playlists of the year’ – and even if you’re staying somewhere that’s a bit grotty or grim, once you do that, you’re home.
We always make tomato pasta on the first night – it’s easy, and you can get the ingredients wherever you are.
How did this nomadic, remote-working life start?
I moved from South Africa to England several years ago, and I’d always wanted to live in other places – but I didn’t want to commit to moving somewhere else. Darrel and I were in a long distance-ish relationship. I was in England. He was in South Africa. Neither of us wanted to move. We thought: “Why don’t we just go somewhere and try it out for three months?”
In March 2018, I bought this rubbishy 20-year-old car in London. He flew over, and we took a winding trip down to Greece, through Germany, Austria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and northern Macedonia. We packed the car full-full-full: with duvets, two plates, cups, spices… I think we had about 150 books!
The plan was to go to an island called Ikaria. Once we arrived and found a place to stay, we unpacked everything – and it was like a proper little home. Then, about a month before we had to leave, I thought, “This is going well… Should we just keep going?” And we both agreed.
Tell us about one of your most memorable trips.
Ikaria was foundational. It was a unique trip because, before driving down to Greece, there were no memories of doing this sort of thing. Everything was new: my relationship, a new island, this new way of life. After 13 or so years of living in the UK, it felt like the colour came into the world.
Ikaria is different from other Greek islands. It used to be raided by pirates, so the villages are all up high. People would build their houses into the rocks so they were disguised, and they would do everything at night rather than in the daytime. They have a very weird sense of time, so it’s also got this eccentric character. You can go to the bakery at two in the morning – and, if no one’s there, you can leave some money and take your bread.
Someone said to me, “When you come to Ikaria, you’re not a tourist. You’re here, so you’re one of us now.” It sounds silly, but it actually felt like that.
What do you like about taking VoiceMap tours when you travel?
I adore VoiceMap, and I wish I’d discovered it earlier! My first tour was in Tbilisi, Georgia. Darrel was ill that day so I was wandering by myself and thought I’d try this VoiceMap down Rustaveli Avenue. Tbilisi was quite tricky to access. We’d arrived to hot and stormy weather and stray dogs, and I didn’t quite know how to get ‘in’. The VoiceMap tour was like a pathway into the city that suddenly opened it all up.
In Western Europe, you’ve read things, watched movies, and you know people who’ve lived there. But with the more off-the-beaten-track places, taking VoiceMaps helps to make them feel ‘human’. It’s like travelling with a friend who lives there and can give you insight. Even in Bordeaux, we did a VoiceMap and got a real sense of how people live, and it gets you to walk to places you might not go otherwise.
Between trips you tend to spend time in South Africa, or at a house-in-progress in Greece that recently became another ‘base’ for you. How did that happen?
We were walking down a street in LA when lockdown was announced in March 2020. We managed to get a flight back to Cape Town via Turkey. Luckily, we could borrow my parents’ flat. And then we were stuck until May 2021 – so about 14 months in Cape Town.
Darrel found it particularly hard because he didn’t like being told not to leave this small one-bedroom apartment. He kept saying, ‘I need land, I need somewhere to walk around, I need space.’
That’s when we started looking on the internet. We bought a plot of land in Greece online, which we’d never seen – insane! But it was cheap, looked beautiful, and I had a FaceTime with the builder-slash-estate agent who walked around showing us, ‘This is the top of the plot, this is the bottom…’ There was no water or electricity connected yet.
It’s on the mainland, close to Poros, and we’d never been there, but we knew the basic area and decided, ‘Let’s do it!’ We weren’t able to see it until a year later…
Everybody said, ‘Oh, well, now you’re building a house, you’re going to stop this travelling and live in Greece full time, right?’ And it would frustrate both of us. This is just something that we’re adding into this nomadic life that we’re living.
Has the way you pack changed since that overstuffed car on your first road trip?
Completely! We now only travel with cabin baggage, no matter how long we’re going for. One stretch ran five months with one bag each, from an English winter, to Argentina, to Greece. It’s a delight to get off the plane and not have to wait for your bags – but it’s mostly about feeling lighter. You’re a bit more nimble in the world.
Why do you travel?
To ‘try on’ other people’s lives – or my own life – in other places. I don’t get excited by my job. I get excited by seeing new places, walking through them, reading about them when I’m there, and learning as much as I can. All of them feel like home to me.
I never would have thought I’d live in Greece, but since living here on and off, I see myself as being not from Greece, but part of it – like it’s mine, somehow. I feel like I get to know it better and better, and I love it more and more – and I like myself in Greece.
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Look out for our next interview in the How We Travel series, which features a retired couple who met on a cruise ship, and have since made travel a central part of their lives. If you have an interesting perspective on travel to share, send a message to claire at voicemap.me.
