Can you be a digital grandpa or is that just plain stupid?
Our life on the road as a digital grandpa nomad have sparked very different reactions: All from hell yeah to the opposite. Are we wrong to take off like that? Spoiler alert: we are still on the road.
- Is that a lemon tree or an apple tree over there? I can’t see it from here.
- It’s a peach or nectarine tree, my wife says without looking up from her iPhone.
Her mouth twitches ever so slightly. Oh well, what does a guy born in Greenland know about plants, anyway?
Ask me about snow, rocks and ice, then we’ll talk.



We’re in the shadows of the trees but within four strides from the pool. It’s the best spot for enduring the heat of the last days. And to melt away on the light beige lounge chairs is like being on holiday, my wife points out.
The pool is part of the grounds surrounding our neighboring house that our landlord also rents out. And he has graciously let us use the pool, when the big house is unoccupied. And in the last couple of days, it has been a godsend, the temperatures well above 30 degrees Celsius.
Is it okay to leave?
And in that heat my sorry excuse for a brain starts to turn to mush. So, I try to get the most work done on the terrasse from 05:30 until about noon, where I must retreat indoors.
Anyway, that wasn’t the topic of today. Here on the lounge chair, where everything is dreamy carefree, I again start to think about something that has been on my mind on and off, since we started our adventure into a new life:
Is it actually okay to leave everything behind for a life as a digital nomad, when you’re close to sixty? What about the kids and grandkids? And our parents? And friends?
The reactions to our life change have been at both ends at the spectrum. A close friend’s reaction was a hell yeah. A good customer was also as supportive. He said something along the lines that he couldn’t wait to hear more. Even graciously threw in some good ideas about what to see around Venice. Another expressed sincere doubts that it was okay to take off now that we have grandchildren. The latest newcomer to the family can be seen here with dad and granddad.


No easy answer here
I know I am almost grown up, sort of, and I should be able to take responsibility for my own decisions. But I am also not infallible and as far as I know, I am mortal with one life to live, before the darkness sneaks up on me. So yeah, it does give me pause that people that I love, respect or both have so different takes on this. Maybe I am wrong to do this? Perhaps these doubts are just the lingering remnants of a Protestant upbringing, where everything nice and easy is somehow sinful.
And there isn’t any easy answer here.
If we say that I am right in believing that there is only one shot at this beautiful and scary life, you can argue that should be a point in favor of what we are doing. If we stay at home near the kids and grandkids, we will probably not have the chance to live out this dream. And if we live that long, we will someday be sitting in a retirement home with beige walls and professionally patient nurses regretting that we didn’t do it, when we could.
Of course, you can use that exact same argument in the opposite direction. If there is only one shot at this life, then there are no do-overs, and if you miss the time with the grandkids, you won’t get that time back. Tough luck.
So, following that line even if we live in a digital age, some things are distinctly not. Just like a Zoom-meeting can’t supplant all physical meetings, some human interactions must be done up close and personal. Just holding my grandkid in my arms, trying to make him smile (or at least not scream in terror at my Shrek-like apparition) is something I must forego. At least as often as I would.
Time to just be here
A more middle of the road solution would be to stay at home and take extended trips to all the places that we want to see. That would have been a little of both worlds. But it wouldn’t really work for us. Our dream is to live there, meet people and get the feel for the area and culture. It’s not only about taking in all the sights that a lot of tourists go for. For me it encompasses all from the monuments in the villages for the local kids fallen in the world wars to just going to the supermarket for pasta, bread and whatever.





Basically, it’s about the most precious commodity that we have, time to just be here. That feeling of having time enough (an illusion, I know) eliminates the usual stress of getting the sights and all done inside a specific timeframe. And it leaves a calm to enjoy the smell of the moist air in the morning. Or watching the lizards sunning themselves on the terrasse (now that I want to share a picture of them, they are long gone). And for me more importantly that leaves space for us to forget about plans and let our mood swing the moment. I have enough appointments, to-dos and tasks, when I am working. I usually have a Google Calender full of time slots and to-do-items, so no plans are a true luxury to me. That I think, is better done by living there for a longer period.
One other thing is that our middle name isn’t Jobs, Bezos or Zuckerberg, so the financial aspect also plays into the equation. Instead of a house back in Eutin, Germany, as before, we have scaled down that part in the budget, so we are able to rent nice accommodations like the one here in Monteleone Sabino. It also helps that here we don’t pay for utilities like electricity gas or water. That is included in the rent. Also included is that we have no or very little water for the moment. Large part of the village has this problem. The city has sent out a very polite message that they are working as fast as they can to fix it. When is anybody’s guess. When I get a little this-would-never-last-this-long-in-Germany, I remind myself that this is in fact not quadratisch-praktisch-gut-country but Italy, where the rhythm and tempo is different. And that’s is, why we are here.
A modern family?
And there is yet another aspect to this. We are, what is sometime termed a modern family. I have a son that lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, with his girlfriend and my grandson. My wife has three daughters, two in and around the German city of Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and another one is in Basel, Switzerland. Also here have grandchildren entered into the equation. So, we would always be far from them, my wife rightly pointed out. Distance is a fact of our life.
It doesn’t bother her that much. All the girls know that she is only a phone call, a car ride or airplane ticket away. And trust me, she has the milage on her trusty red VW Beetle to prove it.
I am built a little the same way. I was born in Greenland, and I was used to that my dad often was away, either in Denmark or at some technical installation on a remote mountain top. Later I was in the States and Denmark going to school and later university. My brother sailed the world as a captain on tankers. Somehow there was always an ocean or three between the members of our family. To me distance doesn’t matter that much. I still love them. Deeply.
Maybe that is strange. Wouldn’t be the first time that label got stuck to my forehead. And it doesn’t seem to bother my son that much. I have asked. He answered.
Bad grandpa?
Well, where does that leave me, when it comes to my doubts and lingering bad conscience for being a bad grandpa?
Right here.
I think that I and we are doing the right thing for me and for us. Does that mean that I have left the doubts and bad conscience in a smoldering ash heap behind me? No, I probably never will, but that’s the price I must pay for embarking on this journey. Depending on my mood any given day that’s my cross or matchstick to bear. I guess that’s also for you to decide, if you are mulling over doing something like this. I don’t think there is a one size fits all here. It has to be a custom fit decision. If my rather random thoughts on the topic can help, I am glad.
Anyway, after more than two months on the road we, two grownups and a massive mastiff, are okay. We are open to the changes that life throws at us. Of course, we have made mistakes, some costly, but we have been able to adapt to most of them. More important, we have managed to learn from them.
And while we’re at it, remember to enjoy the walks among the vines, fig and olive trees like me and Tante Emma in the video below.
Maybe that’s the topic for another post here at later date.
Coming up next is the story of how 14 stray dogs led to marriage and dog kennel outside Rome.
An apologetic side note
Now why am I writing this in English and not in Danish or German, you might wonder. The answer to that is we have family and friends on both sides of the German-Danish border and in a few other countries, so English seems the right choice (even though I am so very far from mastering this language well enough, for which I apologize in advance). And that means that I sometimes (most of the times) go back and edit and add content, if I find mistakes (many) and remember something that might be relevant.
And a practical side note
Our plan is to post content every week, at least one article every weekend, hopefully more, as we learn new lessons in how to live this new and for us different life. There will be many dos and (surely) don’ts as we progress. I will also explain in more detail, how we prepared us for this next step in our lives together, as it took a lot of work and endless evenings discussing all sorts of challenges and dreams.
Of course, we will also publish, when we find new places, sights and other things that leave an impression on us. Hopefully that will leave you with a list of this to do or don’t do if you pass by here or if you also want to try something like this. Now the plan is soon as possible to build an app, so you easily can do that. With my limited technical abilities, we need to finance that and other expenses, so in due time we will charge a tiny sum for this content.