The plan (2/2)
If nothing gets in the way, I’ll be leaving my home country in about a month and the real process of turning into a ghost will begin.
In the last post I covered the creative side of the plan. This one is the practical roadmap for the immediate future. The big decisions are already made; what’s left are minor details.
My original idea was to vanish completely—move to some part of the world that has nothing to do with anything I’ve ever known and spend the rest of my life drifting from place to place. Reality, however, put two hard limits on that goal: money and visas.
I have a remote job and I can live on almost nothing, so as long as I don’t lose it and end up having to cancel everything, I can keep going until retirement age. But my income isn’t enough for constant travel, which means I need a cheap base I can actually stay in most of the time, save money, and take occasional trips. It’s not the pure nomadic disappearance I wanted, but it’s the closest realistic version I can pull off.
The catch is that a “base” requires legal long-term residency, and that’s where visas become the bottleneck. I’m European. My first cultural target was Asia, but (to make a long story short) there’s no viable long-term option for someone with my profile—except marriage, which is not an option. So what’s left?
End of January or early February 2026, I’m moving to Malta. It’s in the EU, I can get temporary residence permits that automatically turn permanent after five years, I can afford it on my current salary, and it’s the farthest I can realistically go under my constraints. I don’t know a single person there and no one’s likely to visit, so at least the “becoming a ghost” part will be satisfied.
I probably won’t be able to do any proper photo trips abroad during the first year, but that’s fine because November 2026 brings the last remaining social obligation I have left. Years ago I introduced two friends who are now getting married; since they met through me, they’ve asked me to officiate the wedding. I’ll fly back from Malta for that, stay a few extra days to say goodbye to my closest family, and—if everything works out the way I want it to—that will be the moment I leave my home country for good.
Malta, December 2026. If life doesn’t derail me before then, the day I land back on the island will be the day I’ve finally left everything behind. That’s when the next phase of the plan begins.
