🌍 Travel: The Georgian Detour: Escaping the Aegean War Zone with 1 Hour to Spare
Rhodes Old Town, Kolona Gate also known as Akandia Gate
Woman plans, the Goddess laughs, and then the Universe throws a geopolitical grenade 💣 into the mix.
🎲 When "Dumb Men and Their Deadly Toys" Ruin Your Itinerary
While killing citizens for their mere entertainment.
While I was coordinating 85 lbs of dog, 4 massive suitcases, and a teenager in the middle of the Mediterranean, the world decided to catch fire. Between the US-Iran tensions and the "war games" being played across Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, the atmosphere shifted.
I keep my ear to the ground. I started hearing the "secrets"—the false flags, the NATO interceptions that weren't what they seemed, and the reality of the air space being cleared for the Air Force. While the media tells one story, the nomads on the ground see another. We were headed to Kaş, right into the teeth of the tension.
I had to detour from our detour.
🚢 The Athens Exit: Suitcases and Chaos
I woke up to the news that Cyprus had been bombed. Immediately, the second leg of our ferry trip from Rhodes, Greece, to Kaş, Turkey, was canceled due to geopolitical tensions.
It was a stressful morning weighing our options: stay in Athens or continue to Rhodes with no guaranteed way to Turkey. There were no refunds on the first leg to Rhodes, and I couldn't wait to get out of "awful Athens," so I told my son to leave the vet and come back. We need to leave without the damn export certificate.
Note to fellow travelers: If you need a pet export certificate and you’re going to other parts of Greece other than Athens (like the islands), call to find out the fees. It might be free. It’s free in Rhodes island. In Athens, they charge 30 euros and it’s a bureaucratic nightmare not accepting foreign cards online so you have to go to a bank to pay the fee with cash before you can even see the vet.
I wanted to scream!
So, we had our first leg of the trip but no hotel and no exit plan. But I’d rather be floating in the Aegean than staying in Athens. That’s how much I disliked it.
The madness continued:
The Suitcase Sacrifice: We had to leave 1 of our 4 suitcases behind. My son didn’t listen to the plan to merge bags, so as I type this, a 50 lb suitcase is sitting in an Athens Airbnb waiting for the owner to ship it to us.
Taxi Chaos: Three taxi cancellations in a row because the large van drivers prefer airport runs over the port. This is why I always prebook in the booking sites. I’ve been through sudden taxi strikes in Italy and Greece. You will not go anywhere in a taxi when those happen.
The Boarding Sprint: The app kept giving me error messages for our e-tickets. I had to run to the ticket counter with only 15 minutes left to board while people watched me like I was a live entertainment act.
⚓ The Overnight Reroute: Sailing the Aegean
We finally boarded and found our cabin. The fatigue was real 😮💨. Ferry companies had canceled all trips to Fethiye because it traverses through "open waters," but Marmaris was still open since it’s more sheltered.
My son still has two months on his Schengen visa, but I had zero time. I was risking getting stuck on a Greek island on the very day my 90 days expired. I spent the 15-hour sail obsessively rerouting us. Midnight, terrified of the loud ferry noises, shook with anxiety until he finally fell asleep in the cabin. Thank you, Divine Spirit, for no bombs on the Aegean that night.
🛵 The Rhodes "Walk of Shame," a Scooter, a Stranger, and 1950s Bureaucracy
We docked in Rhodes at 7 AM. The hotel manager told me it was a "short walk."
Let me tell you: Walking through a port city at dawn with 4 heavy-a$$ suitcases, a huge dog, and no sleep is not a "walk." It’s a CrossFit session from hell. While the people that were up at that time stared at us like “who the hell are these people with all these suitcases and a giant dog?”
I couldn't leave my son and Midnight behind to rush to the Marmaris ferry, so I chose family over the schedule. That’s when the "Goddess Laugh" turned into a full-blown roar. My phone was picking up Turkish cell towers, showing the time an hour later, so I thought I was late and had to run, and I was losing my mind from sleep deprivation. I couldn’t abandon my son there with his large suitcase (we left his other one back in Athens), Midnight’s carry on and his backpack. All while holding the dog who loves to zig zag all over the place during walks.
We made it to the hotel after the cross fit session. Once we were greeted by an annoyed blonde woman, we settled in. While my son finally slept, I went to the police department to beg for a visa extension. I was standing there, lost, when a random man on a scooter asked if I needed help. Next thing I know, I’m riding on the back of a stranger's scooter in Rhodes. The islands feel stuck in 1955. They would not extend my visa for even one day. They wanted bank statements and documents and a bunch of other things. The office felt like you were in 1910. Not in a charming historical way. In a crumbling-building, government-doesn’t-care kind of way. I looked at the officer like she was insane. In a world of AI and digital nomads, this level of bureaucracy is a depression-trap.
✈️ The 3-Plane Marathon & The 59th Minute
I could not get to Turkey by ferry or flight by midnight. I found my exit: a grueling three-flight relay from Rhodes ➡️ Heraklion ➡️ Athens ➡️ Tbilisi.
That seems impulsive, doesn’t it? Actually, Georgia has been an option since we got to Athens. I’ve been deep in research and considered Georgia instead of Turkey because it’s the only place in this continent and the rest of the world that Americans can stay 1 year visa-free. No 90-day countdowns there! My son and I looked into Batumi. A coastal city. Tbilisi was too cold and too “city” for our taste. But there were no flights to Batumi.
I was the only brown person on a plane packed with people fleeing toward Georgia. I made it through Greek Customs exactly ONE HOUR before my 90-day visa expired. The customs agent saw the clock, looked at my passport, and burst out laughing. I told him, "You won't make a money off me today!" Phew! Right before that, I had to school a security guard for throwing my electronics around. Respect the gear, buddy!
💳 The "You Guys" Surveillance
Even as I escaped a war zone, I had to deal with the banks. My cards get frozen constantly for "suspicious activity" because I move so fast. I called PayPal about my Mastercard today. When I told the rep they just want to track us, she said: "We just want to tell the system where you're going to be, because when 'you guys' are traveling around like this, the card freezes." It’s hilarious that PayPal staff refer to nomads as a specific group they need to monitor. "You guys." We’re a whole different species to them.
🇬🇪 Gamarjoba, Tbilisi: The 39-Hour Survival Prize
I landed in Tbilisi at 4:45 AM. After 39 hours of travel and only 4 hours of sleep, I was a ghost. My taxi driver drove like a maniac up the hills to the hotel.
I finally had my first cup of coffee at 3 PM. My first 24 hours in Georgia:
The Food: Mushroom soup and eggplant with walnut rolls at Khinkali House. I needed warmth—I arrived in 20-degree colder weather!
The Kindness: A pharmacist gave me free hair products and a postcard. After the last 48 hours, that small gesture meant everything.
The Vibe: A smoothie and rich chocolates at Stamba and a bottle of Georgian wine waiting for me at the hotel.
Keeping in Touch: I spoke to my two other kids between 1am and 4am. I was happy to hear their voices even though I was so sleep deprived. Once again, I went to sleep around 5am to wake up at 11ish again and guide my son through getting to the government vet in Rhodes to get the dog export certificate. That was another Greek nightmare of the most inefficient, outdated, archaic systems in the world I’ve ever come across. I might as well be in the Congo, Africa with this infrastructure.
And they say they invented democracy, philosophy, and what else???? Yeah. Right. 🧐
🕵️♂️ The "Secret" War
Now isn’t there a war going on with Turkey’s neighbor? Yes. But after panicking over the Cyprus bombing and ferry cancellation something was telling me it’s not Turkey I need to worry about. I felt such a sense of urgency to get out of Greece. Isn’t it funny how I found out in Athens how deeply embedded the US is there? Today I got a post from my son on Instagram with the overlay text: “A friend of mine in Paris right now says that over in Europe, they’re reporting over 1K US soldiers dead. They say we’re being lied to about it.”
🎒 The Takeaway: Intuition is the Only Itinerary
Being a nomad isn't always luxury. It can also be about survival intuition. It’s about knowing when a "plan" becomes a "trap." I felt trapped the entire time in Athens. My intuition told me not to go to Athens. I let my son choose, and we realized we only liked it for 3 days as tourists. Italy and Greece are strange places—not built for digital nomads at all! One of my digital nomad clients said Italy’s wifi was a nightmare and so archaic. I experienced it. These countries didn’t innovate nor grow past what they stole. I miss you South Korea!
I lost some money (not too bad thanks to my loyalty to certain booking sites), missed ferries, and flew for 8 hours straight to stay legal. But I’m here. My son is safe. Our dog is safe. We’ll meet up in Turkey- him from Rhodes and me from Tbilisi- on March 8th.
Now I just have to figure out how to get to my son in Kaş from Tbilisi!
Don’t you work? I’m communicating with my team through all of this. They have no idea of the chaos.
