About Nomadic Niko

Welcome to Nomadic Niko! This is a brief introduction to me, my website, and suggestions on how to navigate it. Thanks for visiting — and enjoy!

Overview of Nomadic Niko

no·mad – ˈnōˌmad/ – noun: nomad; plural noun: nomads

1. a member of a people having no permanent abode, and who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.
2. a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer.

After lots of pushing by some friends of mine, I decided to start this site as an online travel journal. It’s since grown into a monster with around 2,000 posts providing travel information for several destinations I’ve visited. The name “Nomadic Niko”, if you’re wondering, was coined by my friend Pete.

Most visitors use my site for these purposes:

1. 1. • Ideas for planning a trip and what to see along the way
      • Extra information about landmarks and attractions they’ve seen while traveling — maybe it wasn’t provided by the guide or listed on-site
      • Help tagging photos they’ve taken on their trips
      • Permission to use my photos for academic purposes or other websites

My Goal for Nomadic Niko

Everyone has their own travel style, whether they like to go with the flow and take their time, hit the ground running and make detailed plans to experience as much as possible, or jump on a guided tour to cover the highlights only. There’s no wrong way to experience your destination (I have different opinions on all-inclusives and cruises, but that’s for another day).

No matter how you travel, with Nomadic Niko, my goal is to inspire you to explore a little more and to dig a little deeper into your travel destination. Everywhere I go, I try to read and learn as much as possible about the destination’s history, culture, food, and more. I also try to talk to the locals and get their perspective on life and the place they call home. This has greatly enhanced my travel experience and I want to encourage you to do the same by passing along this info.

What I Write

On this site, I provide detailed information for the places I’ve visited on my travels. I often chip in with my opinions and tips as well as a few cultural stories, unique personal experiences, and some inspiring and crazy things that have happened along my journey. Some of the places I write about are popular destinations while many others are way off the beaten path.

All of the information I’ve gathered to pass along to you is taken from a variety of different sources. This includes:

• Interpretive panels and brochures directly from the site
• Official (and unofficial) websites from attractions and destinations
• Oral histories and information directly from local guides, books, and other sources.

In each post, I include personally made maps, photos I’ve taken at each destination, and links to provide more information. I do my best to verify everything I’ve written.

Finally, I update several select pages on the website on a monthly basis to provide more timely information. This includes admission costs, public transportation fares, and if anything has closed permanently or changed locations. I try to update this info at least once a year to keep everything as up to date as possible.

What I Don’t Write

• I’m not a professional blogger.
• I’m definitely not trying to win any creative writing awards or sell books on how to travel the world on $50 a day.
• I won’t fill all my posts with poignant anecdotes.
• I don’t write with AI, but I use it to proofread and fact-check.
• And I definitely won’t write top 10 lists just to get a few extra clicks.

About Me

Although I don’t live like a nomad anymore, I still love to travel. A lot. Whenever I have the time and funds to do so.

I’m a Greek-American originally from Northwest Indiana, just outside Chicago. I was an accountant for 8 years and ended up hating it more and more each day — it was miserable. One day, I decided to quit my job and do something different. I had options — get another job, go back to school, etc. — but the most appealing one was to travel the world while teaching English.

Between October 2010 and December 2013, I lived in Istanbul.  How did I end up there? I decided to go to a CELTA course to obtain a certificate to teach English. I applied in Barcelona, Dubai, Buenos Aires, and Istanbul. The Istanbul course was the only one that got back to me in a timely manner, so I signed up, paid the fee, booked my flight, and off I went.

My plan was to stay in Istanbul for the duration of the 6-week course and then go off to some other exotic destination. It didn’t exactly work that way — within a week I was hooked — by the beauty of the Bosphorus, the charms of the East mixing with the West, and Turkish hospitality. Upon finishing my CELTA, I decided to stick around and try life in Istanbul. It is one of the most magical cities in the world and the best place I have ever lived. It was also a great base for my travels. I miss it dearly.

In January 2014, I decided to pack up and leave Istanbul for South America. My adventure took me first to Chile where I lived for three months in Santiago. I had planned on a much longer stay but I won the World Cup ticket lottery, so it was off to Brazil for two months in May.

I ended up getting a volunteer teaching position in a small town in the Coffee Region of Colombia. My six-month adventure ended up being permanent — I met my wife, Marisol, a few days after arriving. I’ve been living in the same town since August 2014, enjoying traveling to different parts of the country and continent.

Together we run Paisadventure, a boutique travel company offering private pre-planned and tailor-made tours. We specialize in Colombia and several other countries such as Greece, Turkey, the United States, Spain, Italy, Armenia, Georgia, and more. This includes tours for members of the Greek diaspora exploring their heritage. In addition, we organize large open-group tours as well as Holy Land pilgrimages.

What else? I’m a Chicago Blackhawks fanatic, first and foremost. I love other sports as well, and am a huge supporter of the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Olympiakos, and Fenerbahçe. I love food (as is evident in my posts), culture, history, archaeology, music, movies, and photography. I’m a map nerd, as you will realize while visiting different pages.

That’s about it! I hope you enjoy my work.

How to Navigate Nomadic Niko

To get started, please select a post from the home page or a country from the menu above. You can also use the search bar if you’re looking for specific content.

• Each country and city page acts as an anchor. They include links to my posts about different areas and attractions to explore as well as some practical info to help plan your trip.
• I’ve tried to make the site as easy as possible to navigate. For example, on almost every post you’ll find a table of contents you can use to jump to content further down the page, and a “back to top” button to return to the menu (you can also use the back button on your browser).
• In most cases, I prefer keeping related content or extensive subjects together rather than breaking things down into several smaller posts. That way, it’s easier for you to find everything you’re looking for in one place instead of having to jump from post to post using several clicks. This might make some posts extremely long, but I’m not expecting you to read everything word for word.

What’s Coming on Nomadic Niko

I’ve got about 10,000 photos to sift through from my trip to Greece and Turkey in October and November 2023 and again in September 2025.

Once I finish those posts, I’ll get back to updating older posts and adding new content for my trip to Israel and the West Bank in November 2022, as well as a few updates and new content for some areas of the US I visited in December and January 2022. I’ll also add new posts from my day in Helsinki and a long weekend in Bogotá.

I’ve still got a decent amount of work to do on Texas to finish up my 3-month 2015 road trip through the western United States. About 90% of the posts from that entire trip are complete, and I hope to finish them by the end of the year. I know – it’s taken me long enough, but hey, I’m only human!

Important Notes

1. • I am not compensated for any work I do on this website and all opinions and reviews are my own. The only revenue generated by this website is from the ads you see on each post as well as a few affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link you’ll receive an offer at no cost to you, unless you decide to make a purchase. And if you make a purchase, I receive a little commission. It’s a win-win for both of us!
   • I do not pay for guest posts and do not promote products or services unless I’ve personally used them. Please don’t waste your energy asking me to include your post on my site.
   • All photos are mine unless otherwise indicated. If you would like to use any of my photos, it’s simple – just ask! All I ask in return is proper credit and a link to my site.
   • If you decide to subscribe via email, I suggest limiting updates to once a week. You can do this by clicking the “manage subscriptions” button in each email.