About Me

I like to travel. A lot. Whenever I have the time and funds to do so. 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 well over 2,000 posts. The name “Nomadic Niko”, if you’re wondering, was coined by my friend Pete.

I am 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 – 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 Bosporus, 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. It was going to be 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. I’ve been living there since August 2014, enjoying traveling to different parts of the country and continent with my wife, Marisol.

Together we run Paisadventure, a boutique travel company offering private pre-planned and customized tours all over Colombia and day trips in the Coffee Region. We also run tours to several other countries. This includes Greece and Turkey, where I have led tours for members of the Greek diaspora exploring their heritage.

What else? I am 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 many posts), culture, history, archaeology, music, movies, and photography. I am a map nerd, as you will realize while visiting different pages.

So…that’s about it! I hope you enjoy my work.