How I Stay Grounded When Everything Around Me Keeps Moving
From Bookstore Hunts to Fasting Hacks, These 5 Habits Keep Me Balanced While Living Everywhere and Nowhere
Ever try living out of a backpack while maintaining a fitness routine, a writing schedule, and a social life, without losing your mind or your calves?
Welcome to “semi-nomadic expat life”, and no, I didn’t steal that term from anyone. I coined it. It’s mine. Trademark pending. Sue me!
People love to romanticize the lifestyle.
You post one photo of a cappuccino in Tuscany or a sunrise over the rooftops in Tbilisi and suddenly it’s Eat Pray Love all over again.
What they don’t see is the three-hour scavenger hunt that came before it.
I was just trying to find decent Wi-Fi, a toilet that didn’t require an immune system upgrade, and a quiet spot to do Bulgarian pushups without an audience.
Oh, and guess what? I found none of them.
I used to think travel was supposed to be this non-stop highlight reel.
Hustling from temples in Bangkok (of all places) to wine bars in Barcelona and Tbilisi like I was trying to win some invisible contest.
But all it did was burn me out.
Even worse, I was starting to forget why I started traveling in the first place.
That’s when I ditched the tourist treadmill and started building a daily system that moved with me.
Something that worked whether I was eating jam and black bread in a Ukrainian dacha or searching for a bookstore with more than one English novel in Skopje.
A system that kept me grounded even when nothing else was.
In this article, I’ll show you the five habits that have helped me stay sane, fit, focused, and just the right amount of weird… while living everywhere and nowhere.
Trust me, these are not the kind of tips you’ll find on Instagram.
1. Find the English Bookstore in Every City
You know what makes you instantly interesting in a foreign country? Sitting in a café with a paperback in English.
I learned this in Tirana, where I cracked open a battered copy of The Alchemist and suddenly people looked at me like I was a visiting scholar from another planet.
One guy even asked if I was writing a book. I told him I was. I wasn’t. But now I am (really I am, so stayed tuned).
Everywhere I go, Strasbourg, Sofia, Tbilisi, Tirana, Ioannina (I’m here now, as I’m writing this) the hunt for an English bookstore is a ritual.
When I head back to Skopje later this month, I won’t be looking for bookstores. I already know where to go.
The best place to buy books in English wasn’t in any shop.
It was a row of kiosks near the river, right in the center of town.
They reminded me of the old “Bouquinistes” along the Seine in Paris.
Last time I was there, I stumbled across them by accident and was shocked by how many hidden literary gems were tucked away in those tiny stalls.
It felt like finding a secret library no one talks about.
It pulls me off my screen, forces me to explore, and drops me into a space that’s usually run by quirky locals or expats who love books more than profit.
Even when the selection’s thin, the titles are weirdly wonderful.
That’s how I ended up reading a 1980s British guide to etiquette in Yugoslavia.
The shift: Swap your phone for a book and you’ll be surprised how often strangers turn into conversations.
Bonus points if your bookmark is a local bus ticket.
2. My Portable 9-Move Workout That Needs Zero Equipment
There’s something freeing about never needing a gym.
No contracts. No waiting for a machine.
No bass-heavy remixes on endless loops pounding off the walls while some guy deadlifts, grunting like he’s giving birth to a refrigerator.
No influencers filming themselves while side-eyeing everyone else. No worrying if today’s town even has a gym.
Just bodyweight, gravity, and whatever I can use that’s in the room I’m in for angles and leverage.
I’ve used corners of kitchen counters as dip bars, beds for incline pushups, and bed-sheets tied in a not, thrown over doors for rows.
The only “equipment” I carry around is a hand towel and an old bed-sheet.
That’s it.
It takes a little imagination, but that’s part of the fun.
I focus on time under tension, not full range of motion. Half reps and control. The results have been the best I’ve ever had.
I don’t chase pain or soreness. I chase consistency and the pump.
My routine is the same nine moves every day.
Because I do them daily, I don’t need to crush myself.
My muscles stay active, not wrecked.
It keeps me strong, limber, and sane.
Especially when I’m wedged into a marshrutka in Georgia or bouncing around Albania in a shared min-bus sitting next to a guy who needed 2 seats and smelled like yesterday’s fish and cigarettes.
The shift is this: Build a body that’s strong and moves well, not just one that poses well.
When you never know what city you’ll wake up in, your routine better travel with you and this one always does.
3. Fasting Is My Productivity Drug of Choice
I’ve tried every diet under the sun: keto, paleo, whatever that thing was in Spain where I ate tapas and justified it as intermittent grazing.
But the one thing that actually works for me is not eating. Fasting is my reset button.
I do OMAD (One Meal A Day) while in motion, and 36-hour fasts when I’m grounded.
That’s when I enter what’s called “monk mode.”
No food, no distractions, and I can knock out a week’s worth of writing in a single sitting.
In Saranda, Albania, my fast days are my power days. I’m able to outline a week’s worth of articles and a few rough drafts during a single 36-hour stretch, fueled by nothing but black coffee and mild self-loathing.
But guess what? I feel amazing. Clarity. Focus. Zero food regrets.
The shift: If you want clarity and control while everything else is chaos, stop focusing on what to eat and experiment with when not to.
4. I Walk Everywhere and Write While Doing It
My love affair with walking started in Spain on the Camino de Santiago.
What began as a spiritual-ish hike trying to “find myself” turned into a lifelong addiction to walking as therapy, exploration, and mobile content creation.
These days, I talk to myself while walking through the streets of Tbilisi or the hills of Saranda. With Google Docs voice-to-text, I can ideate, outline two articles and finish a rough draft before noon.
Forget running. I gave that up in France after one bad knee day and one too many runners who looked like they were training for a misery marathon.
Walking is low-impact, mind-clearing, and leads to weird little discoveries you miss in wheeled cages.
The shift: Walk first, figure the rest out later.
Movement breeds momentum. So does curiosity.
Put those together and you’ve got your own portable think tank.
5. Learn the Language, Even Just the Basics
Look, I’m not fluent in all four languages I’ve studied. But I’m conversational enough to surprise people. I’ve haggled in Russian with Taxi drivers in Ukraine. Then switched to French with a bakery owner in Strasbourg who clearly thought I was just another clueless American.
I’m not and their reactions usually say it all.
Because, I’m a semi-nomadic expat, thank you very much.
Even in places where I only stay a few weeks, like Mexico or Greece, I make the effort. Learn the numbers.
Learn how to say please and thank you. Learn how to order a meal without miming like a desperate mime in clown makeup.
You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
The shift: Language is your shortcut to trust. You don’t need fluency. You need humility, to make the effort (or appear so) and Google Translate.
Where You Go From Here
These habits aren’t about control. They’re about adaptability.
They’re about having some stability and staying sane when nothing around you is.
They add just enough routine to keep you grounded, even when everything else is in motion.
These are the routines and rituals I drag with me from country to country, hotel room to guesthouse, Airbnb to spare couch.
They’ve worked in Tbilisi. They’ve worked in Tirana. They even hold up in Saranda, where the electricity and Wi-Fi drop every time someone sneezes.
They work in any life that never stays still.
If your expat routine feels scrambled or your on-the-go lifestyle has turned into one long travel blur, try one. Try two. Try all five.
Pick one. Try it for a week. See what shifts.
David Peluchette is a Premium Ghostwriter/Travel and Tech Enthusiast. When David isn’t writing he enjoys traveling, learning new languages, fitness, hiking and going on long walks (did the 550 mile Camino de Santiago, not once but twice!), cooking, eating, reading and building niche websites with WordPress.