About

Some Great Place is a slow-travel journal about living local in a global world.

This site follows the long season of living abroad that began in 2026, staying slowly in each place rather than moving through a string of short visits. Most of our stays last at least 28 days. A week can give you a useful impression. A month gives you something different: a grocery routine, a preferred café, a bus route, a walking pattern, a sense of which streets change after dark, and the ordinary details that never make it into a three-day itinerary.

That is the heart of this site: not collecting destinations, but learning what daily life feels like once the first impressions settle and routine begins.

Some Great Place is the record of that approach: where we stayed, what we ate, what things cost, what gave each place its shape, and what it took to make somewhere unfamiliar feel, for a time, like home.

What we cover

We write about slow travel, daily life, local culture, history, food, faith, work, costs, and the practical realities of living in a place for weeks at a time.

That includes neighborhoods, markets, churches, museums, architecture, public spaces, restaurants, groceries, transit, apartment realities, walkability, safety, and the small decisions that shape an ordinary week somewhere new.

The famous sites matter, too. A cathedral, fortress, museum, national park, ruin, or monument can tell you something essential about a place. We try to place those cultural anchors back into the daily life, landscape, and history around them rather than treat them as isolated stops on a checklist.

We also share the numbers when they are useful: rent, groceries, cafés, restaurants, local transportation, utilities, entrance fees, and the tradeoffs behind each stay. Long-term travel is easier to romanticize when the receipts are hidden.

How we travel

Our route follows a practical rhythm: climate, visa limits, cost, safety, walkability, seasonality, and the need to keep working while moving. Some stops are chosen for beauty, some for affordability, some for history, some for timing, and some because they make the larger journey more sustainable.

The style sits between backpacking and luxury travel: small, comfortable apartments, longer-stay discounts, walkable neighborhoods, local groceries, public transit where possible, and enough structure to make travel durable rather than frantic.

The goal is not to pass through as many places as possible. It is to stay long enough to notice what changes when a place becomes part of ordinary life.

What you’ll find here

The site includes travel essays, long-stay reflections, cost breakdowns, photo stories, cultural reporting, and practical observations from the places where we spend time.

Destination pages bring the full stay together. They identify the neighborhood, cost level, walkability, transportation, workability, cultural depth, principal strengths, and limitations of each base. The accompanying dispatches preserve the individual experiences, traditions, landscapes, and encounters that gave the stay its shape.

Field Notes cover the broader journey: the American places that preceded it, the process of leaving Reno, the practical work behind long-term travel, and the experiences that continue to influence how we move through the world.

Start with the destinations for a concise assessment of each place, then explore the related dispatches for the fuller story.

Places covered so far

The international chapter began with a route through the Atlantic, North Africa, Southern Europe, the Balkans, and the Adriatic.

The first year includes Tenerife, Marrakesh, Lagos, Lisbon, Istanbul, Ohrid, Split, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Bar, Shkodër, Tirana, Sarandë, and Thessaloniki.

The earlier Field Notes archive includes selected pieces from Reno, the American West, national parks, backpacking trips, and the practical preparation that made the longer journey possible.