How interesting! I started writing this post and suddenly I was curious about when I last posted, how much time had passed since then. I quickly calculated it with Excel. 33 days. My last post was published 33 days ago. The phrase “Christian era” immediately jumped out at me from that number. And – here’s the interesting thing – the featured image of the last post is Christ.
Well, several people have indicated that the posts have disappeared. I think there will be an explanation for why, let’s just say that I had much, much better things to do than write. I missed writing too, but now wasn’t the time for that either. I will write a few “missed stories” posts in the next period to keep the picture complete.
But now I have to write about leaving!
So the day has come… The counter has disappeared from the page. Oh, sorry! That’s not the most important thing! The day of departure has come. I start writing this post at the airport in Istanbul. Like a seasoned digital nomad. I plan to end it here.
I’ve felt like I could say I’m a digital nomad several times before, but from today on, I’m definitely calling myself one.
Preparing the travel package
I didn’t rush packing. I started around 10pm last night. Not only to pack my things, but also to tidy up the apartment. For the past – almost exactly to the day – 9 months, the upper floor of my younger brothers’ family house has been my home. I would like to express my gratitude to them again!
But that apartment will soon be taken over by someone else, but even if it weren’t, I should still pack up my things. A hallway, a kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. Normally, an hour or two wouldn’t be enough to move out of a home, but since I “live a minimalist life” I wasn’t worried that the 4 hours I had at my disposal wouldn’t be enough to get the job done.
The things I had accumulated in my home (again, the accumulation!…) had three destinations. Some of them would go to the trash, some would stay in a closet in Hungary, and the rest would come with me to see the world.
By the way!
There was no question that I would have a laptop backpack. I “bought my plane ticket” in mid-June. Since then, I haven’t even considered the possibility of carrying a second package, meaning that the purchased ticket would have to be supplemented. I was waiting for the right time for this task to come, but the time just wouldn’t come. Before that, the thought came to me that I might not even buy such an additional option. Buying this additional ticket for 3 flights would have been quite expensive, I guessed that without even starting to look at the websites of airline companies. It occurred to me that I would set off towards my new home with a laptop bag – as we usually go on vacation – because I would be able to buy the stuff in Asia for cheaper than the additional ticket. A couple of T-shirts and pants…
So for a while, there was such a cool version that I would go 6,600 km away with a laptop as the crow flies.
Then when I brought myself to look up how much it was, I found out that my ticket included a second carry-on bag option. So I started packing it into my nice new backpack that I bought this year.
These were the options I had:
I finally managed to organize all my things that were left at home in one place. This is the end result:
Just for the record, about half of my remaining stuff is hiking stuff. Tent, foam, waist pack, second and third backpacks, etc.
My chosen possessions for my new life were:
I thought it would all fit in half a backpack. Well, I was wrong, I could barely fit all this shit in. I ended up leaving out the jeans and the belt that came with them. On the one hand, they didn’t really fit, and on the other hand, I realized that I would probably never wear them where I was going. The feather that had settled on my underpants didn’t come out with me either. However, next to the only thin sweatshirt, there is a hair cutting kit hidden there. I’m just saying that if everything goes according to plan, the first thing I’ll do in Asia tomorrow is to free myself from the hassle of washing my hair.
I have only one book, so that if everything else fails, I’ll still have something to read. The Rubik’s Cube and two decks of cards can be fun in my boring times. And I’ll also say that I didn’t take the bed with me.
On the way to the airport
My brother and I left for the airport at 2 am. Before that, there was still time for a quick shower and a last coffee together. Since this sentence is a bit ambiguous, I would like to emphasize that the shower was not shared! I will write about the last ones… I am full of emotions again, many people gave me a few kind words, hugs, and good wishes for the trip.
It rained during the first half of the trip. In a serious way that I don’t like to experience while driving. But, I wasn’t driving. My brother said that the country was mourning my departure. I dare to hope that this was half a joke, half a serious statement. Although it feels good to think back that at least three people reacted after learning about my decision, saying “it’s a shame that you’re leaving, because the country needs more people like you…” In my article “The decision”, I wrote about how I think about Hungary. Well, my not-so-bright opinion has only received more and more slaps in the face in recent months. For example, my brother could only tell me stories about the past few days on the way to the airport that made me shiver.
So, whoever sent that rain, I didn’t take it as a sign and got on the plane.
The flight
Since I didn’t even try to sleep (sleeping is usually not possible before such trips), I slept the entire flight. It turned out that I was the first to board the plane and the last to get off. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that I was the captain.
However, when we took off in Budapest and flew first through the fog, then through the first layer of clouds, the view I chose as the featured image of this post awaited me.
Before I leaned my head against the window, I took out my inflatable neck pillow that I had received in Malta during Nomad Cruise 14. I thought, I’ll inaugurate it and let’s sleep together. Well… I couldn’t stand it for long. Apparently, I like to rest my head against the wall or the back of the chair and sleep like that.
We arrived in Istanbul on schedule. I’m still in the half of the city west of the Bosphorus, so I’m in Europe. I would have loved to cross the river to take my first steps outside of Europe.
Now I’m not worried about missing these first steps in Asia. In just over half a day, I’ll be on another continent with my feet…
Finally, about time
In Wales, I experienced that more emphasis should be placed on time zones and moving around. I was there during the week and I entered a weekend program there in my calendar. But Wales and Hungary are not in the same time zone. So, when I came home, the Google calendar that was operating in the Welsh time zone until then switched to the Hungarian time zone. And the four o’clock in the afternoon entered there automatically translated to five in the afternoon, since we are one time zone away. I was late for the program because they called at 16:12 to say that I wouldn’t go? To my incomprehensible question, they said that the program wouldn’t be at five, they could only say that it wasn’t.
So, that lesson came just in time for me to pay attention to this now. I’m traveling through 5 time zones today and tomorrow. I have to pay attention to when and where what time it is.
One of the goals of this blog is digital nomad education. I think the issue of time zones is a very interesting, exciting and important aspect around the world. That’s why I’m copying here some ChatGPT questions and answers on the topic, showing a recent experience from Turkey and a calendar entry misery.
Let’s start with the flight information:
Budapest BUD – Istanbul IST
2025.08.22 5:15 8:30
2:15 flight
Istanbul IST – Bangkok BKK
2025.08.22 16:30 – 2025.08.23 5:40
9:10 flight
Bangkok BKK – Ko Samui USM
2025.08.23 7:30 – 8:35
1:05 flight
- I’m going with this flight. This actually means how much flight time on 2025.08.22: Istanbul IST – Bangkok BKK 2025.08.22 16:30 – 2025.08.23 05:40
- The actual flight time of the aircraft on this route (Istanbul IST → Bangkok BKK) is usually between about 9 hours 10 and 9 hours 45 minutes, according to various sources.
- What is the name of the time zone in Istanbul?
- The name of the time zone in Istanbul is Turkey Time (TRT). Time offset: UTC+3 Since 2016, Turkey has not changed its clocks (it has remained on daylight saving time), so it is in
- UTC+3 all year round. The technical name of the time zone in databases (e.g. IANA time zone database): Europe/Istanbul
- What is the name of the Bangkok time zone?
- Official name: Indochina Time (ICT), Offset: UTC+7, No daylight saving time (same offset all year round), The zone name in the IANA database is Asia/Bangkok.
- How are UTC and GMT related?
- UTC and GMT are very close to each other, but there are some important differences:
- GMT (Greenwich Mean Time):
- Historically, the time measured at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.
- It is also used as a name for a time zone (e.g. “GMT+1”).
- It is not tied to atomic time, but is based on the rotation of the Earth.
- UTC (Coordinated Universal Time):
- The internationally accepted standard time.
- The extremely precise time measured by atomic clocks is combined with the rotation of the Earth (corrected with leap seconds if necessary).
- This is the base time to which time zones are related (e.g. UTC+3).
- In practice, in everyday use, UTC and GMT mean the same time (without deviation), but:
- UTC is the standard and official form, especially in IT, aviation, and telecommunications.
- GMT is more of a traditional, geographical, and colloquial term.
These questions prepared me to enter my flights in the correct way in my Google calendar.
Google provides the ability to specify a time zone for an event.
Moreover, it also allows the start and end dates to be in different time zones:
If you know at this point that Thailand is in GMT+7, you can choose from the many GMT+7 options if you notice it lurking there:
And this will result in the corresponding calendar entry:
Based on these, I had a 10-minute job to make the 3 entries in the calendar.
Today’s experience is as follows:
After the plane landed in Istanbul, I turned on my phone. That is, I turned off the airplane mode. This gave the phone access to the internet within seconds. I saw that the time on the phone immediately changed, and then quickly on my watch. Hungary is in GMT+2, Istanbul is in GMT+3, so we jumped from 7 am to 8 am. So, the phone synchronized based on the internet, and from there the watch.
Then suddenly I see that it is 11:52 on my watch, which is the time here (Istanbul). But on my laptop it is 10:52. And the reason for this is that based on the VPN, the machine perceives that I am in Hungary. So it shows 10:52. It is interesting that the VPN is also running on the phone, but it still knows that I am in Turkey. Because – I think – it does not synchronize based on the net, but on the GSM cell info.
Once again: Hungary GMT+2, Turkey GMT+3, Thailand GMT+7. By the way, the difference between +7 and +2 shows that Thailand is 5 hours further away than Hungary, i.e. when it is noon in Hungary, it is 5 pm in Thailand.
Let’s draw the conclusion: Different time zones, compounded by the fact that in some countries (e.g. Hungary) we change the time to summer, in others (e.g. Turkey) we do not. Phones synchronizing based on the net, watches synchronizing based on phones, with different behavior behind VPN… They make it quite easy to find your way around the time. I don’t even dare to think about what it would be like if we could travel at 99.99% of the speed of light. Who can calculate the dilation of time…
I’ll move on
I was a little nervous about what I would do with the 8 hours I had in Istanbul. But they were slowly running out. Soon I could go to the security gate.
I continued my journey, in 3 hours I would be sitting on a plane to Bangkok. For 9 hours. Whatever! Thailand was getting closer and closer.
I set off and soon arrived.
