Effective June 1st, once the project of regional additions is fully completed, Harry Mitsidis is retiring from NomadMania, a project he was the leader of from the initial building stages in 2011 up to 2023, and co-leading as of 2023 along with current Managing Partner Orest Zub.
In this interview, Harry talks to us about his retirement and some of his future plans.
Aneho, Togo
Harry, you’re the only traveller to have had four interviews with NomadMania – one every four years it seems. How does this interview compare to your previous three?
The first one back in 2014 was very much an introduction. At the time, I had barely met any other travellers personally, this was before the notorious Bouvet expedition, so it served to personalise NomadMania somewhat and put a face to the project.
The 2018 interview was mainly about the William Baekeland debacle and the subsequent book I wrote about this story which even today fascinates the community.
The 2022 interview reads more like a doctoral thesis, it’s almost 7000 words long, apologies for that! I would say that interview is the most substantive and I urge people to re-read it to understand what NomadMania strives to be.
As for this one, I guess this is the ‘goodbye’ edition.
First retirement party in Baku, Azerbaijan
In our recent newsletters, we highlighted not one, but two retirement parties of yours in the past month. Tell us a little bit about them.
It was truly a great pleasure to bring together an incredible collection of travellers to Azerbaijan to have a retirement party and then travel together to Garabagh.
What I like most about these events is the diversity of people. For example, we hosted 88-year old legend André Brugiroux and 24-year old Luca Pferdmenges, representing two such different eras and ways of travel. And we included people like Andrea, the youngest verified female UN Master on NomadMania, Azusa and Kazuto, the first Japanese woman, man and couple we know to have been to every country, Baba, the charismatic fixer from Mauritania and even my elderly parents, whose own love for travel is perhaps the reason I am who I am.
Overlooking Tbilisi with his parents
This mix is what best exemplifies what NomadMania aims to be, and it was quite emotional for me to be surrounded by such a worthy group.
And that was followed by our Turkish Envoy Sevcan’s warm welcome in Istanbul – and she’s a real force of nature. The great thing with that event was the strong woman-majority composition of the attendees, which dispels the idea that what we do is more in line with ‘competitive’ or ‘male’ interests.
Second retirement party in Istanbul, Türkiye
In your last interview in 2022 you mentioned retiring but clearly didn’t. Now you claim you’re retiring again. Nobody believes you! Can you really retire this time?
I can and I will. This time it’s for real and there are many reasons for this. At this point, NomadMania has a functioning team with clear duties and a structure, so the continuation of tasks is ensured. But the main reason for my retirement is that I don’t believe in ‘Great Leaders’ even if I may be fascinated by them. Just like in democratic countries there needs to be a change of leadership, so in NomadMania I feel that younger, more tech-savvy and forward-thinking people should take over across the board.
I have some talents which have been used to the maximum to develop the project, but at this point I feel there is little more I can give other than repeat the same thing. And repeat is not something I do well. While in the travel community I am obviously primarily known as a traveller, I am much more diverse than that, and it’s time to focus on other aspects of life which I am equally eager to experience.
At the end of the world at Puerto Williams, Chile, with Cedric Shostia
So how does it feel letting go? Do you believe you can?
I’m actually more relieved than anything else. When I started with all this back in 2011, I had no idea what a complex, multi-faceted project I was embarking on. I’m not sure I would have signed up for it then had I known just how much commitment is required in terms of everything from design, coding, project management, diplomacy skills, networking and geographical knowledge.
I’m obviously also very thankful, especially for meeting some truly exceptional people, but not only do I believe I can, I am sure I can let go, this is necessary for me to restore my inner balance. Life is about evolution, not staying static or going round in circles doing the same thing.
Miquelon, France
Is your retirement absolute or will you still be involved in some NomadMania projects?
It depends what is meant by absolute. I am staying on as a volunteer of the media committee, which is composed of another three travellers and involves an online meeting every couple of months, but apart from that and occasionally contacting some NomadMania travellers for interviews – something I have always enjoyed immensely – I won’t have any other concrete responsibilities. I believe that once every couple of months I will have a briefing with the management team, just to stay in the loop. But seriously, nothing that happens anymore will be my doing – for better or worse.
Baluchistan, Pakistan
Your final project has been your involvement in the addition of further regions to the NomadMania Masterlist. Why do you feel this was necessary?
The main aim of NomadMania from the start was to divide the world as rationally as possible and give countries a number of regions relative to their worth in the world. As we expanded both the scope of relevant criteria and have also seen some global shifts in the past 15 years, it has become clear there were some glaring mistakes in the regional allocations, especially in terms of China being way underrepresented.
While there can’t be any ‘perfect’ list, and everybody has their own ideas how to divide the world, reviewing it all was, to me, a necessary and very worthy final project. I do find it rather disappointing that some of the bigger travellers were so vehemently against the changes – I would have thought that opportunities for further travel would have been welcomed. Interestingly, younger travellers were strongly for these changes.
Off St Paul’s island, Nova Scotia, Canada with Harris Legome and Joao Paulo Peixoto
What values do you expect NomadMania to continue adhering to as part of your legacy?
I believe NomadMania’s core value has been to be close to travellers – in other words, to really put their interests first, to listen to them and act on their input wherever possible and, now that we also offer experiences, to give great, unique value, which is made even greater by bringing like-minded people together.
So, for me, the idea of treating everyone equally, of rejecting so-called ‘exclusive’ labels, of celebrating all those who love travel and the world, even if they haven’t had the chance to go very far yet, is the key to what NomadMania stands for. As well as to celebrate the world’s lesser-known places and ‘dare’ people to go there! And, of course, to be the best it can be, remain professional and elegant, maintain the standards of verification and keep its dual focus on both the place and the traveller.
With Thomas Buechler, NomadMania’s Verification Guru
So, who is the ‘go to’ person now, and can the community still reach you if they want to? And how?
The ‘go to’ people are any member of the NomadMania team or even the committee volunteers – but especially Managing Partner, Orest, for general queries or suggestions and IT-director, Daniel, for tech specific issues. During normal weekdays, there is a policy of responding to all enquiries within 48 hours and this is also part of our core values.
With Orest and Daniel at the Second Extraordinary Travel Festival in Bangkok
Our wider team also plays key roles across different areas: Pedro leads tours and travel experiences, Kalki oversees daily operations and secretarial work, Vika is responsible for mobile app development, and Yaro handles front-end development as well as merchandise delivery.
The community can always reach me and in fact I welcome that. I am retiring, not disappearing. I would especially like to hear from people who have great things to say about the team or NomadMania, or at the other extreme, have been disappointed or feel that the team have let them down.
The best way to reach me is via email – harry@nomadmania.com, which is an email address I will be keeping. Don’t be shy, I look forward to hearing from you! But please don’t expect me to adhere to a 48-hour response aim: such are the benefits of being retired! I am generally off social media and that will only get more so now, as I plan to spend much less time online.
Won’t you get bored being retired? What do you see yourself doing all day?
Most people don’t know that when I was a student I used to script and direct my own films, and I have been a movie aficionado forever. Travelling has meant side-lining this so one of the things I really want to do is catch up with some of the films I have missed in the past 25 years.
Reading a book in a cosy café also sounds like a romantic ideal I would like to make more of a frequent reality. And now I’ll have more time to research and plan quirky trips! Or just send a message to an old friend I haven’t seen in years because that trip to Burkina Faso was always more ‘important’ somehow.
Manzhouli, China with Sarah McArthur
What would you say have been some highs of your involvement with NomadMania?
I’d say the ultimate high was our conference in Fergana last May. This remains the largest event NomadMania has ever undertaken – soon to be overtaken by our next conference in Brazil where I plan to be present as a ‘mere’ attendee – and it was just incredible to realise how far we have come from our humble beginnings. And more importantly, to be happy at how much the global wanderers were enjoying every moment of meeting each other, being together and exploring some truly off-the-beaten-track places.
Fifth NomadMania Conference in Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan
One of my other highs has been meeting some people who I now can call more than just acquaintances – like Obed in Rwanda, Wassim in Algeria, Fadi in Syria or Utsab in Nepal. I don’t think I ever expected that it would be possible to foster meaningful connections with people from such a broad range of places, and the fact that I have fills me with optimism about the world and our global ability to connect positively.
In Damascus with Ola Salama and Ayham Al Malek
And what about some lows?
I’d say the lowest is witnessing the ego-centric toxicity of some self-serving travellers who criticise and disparage others or those who simply lie and exaggerate themselves. We often mock some of the world’s current leaders but I don’t know how we expect our societies to progress if we ourselves cut others down instead of genuinely encouraging and celebrating people.
One assumes that travel fosters tolerance, humility and a sense of understanding and yet some of the bitterness and outright wickedness I have encountered and even personally experienced has dumbfounded me. And it seems to be a rule that travellers benchmark themselves against others from their own country, retaining a parochial attitude – wanting to ‘beat’ the one from the same ‘village’ so to speak. And for those who think this is mainly toxic masculinity, for sure it is not limited to the men.
Shumen, Bulgaria
If NomadMania were to change the way it operates and its core values, how do you expect you would react?
I do not believe this would ever happen as the existing managing team are very much in line with these values, despite an incredible workload and often very divergent demands which need to all be satisfied simultaneously. But if NomadMania were to fundamentally change, it wouldn’t be NomadMania anymore, core values are what give any organisation its identity.
I believe in the case of NomadMania, the very carefully nurtured values are what make travellers love us, want to be part of us, offer their time to us. I guess if it changed too much, I would no longer want to be part of it, and I would end up feeling rather homeless – as I believe there is only one NomadMania and it has truly felt like an online ‘home’ for me over the years.
With travel legends Sascha Grabow and André Brugiroux
We see you’re relatively far down in the stats this year in terms of travel. You’re not retiring from travelling too, are you?
No traveller can ever retire from travel! Retiring from work is possible and even desirable, but travel is not work, nor should it ever be! I’ll still be travelling far and wide, but I do think I am cured of the need to explore every corner of the world or to fill up all the empty boxes on the list. It’s really great to have visible holes in my map again, I’ll admit that!
Anyway, just for the rest of this year, I am joining the NomadMania Guyana tour, as well as a part of the Nigeria trip. I also have visits to places such as Dominican Republic, Montenegro, Faroe Islands, Cambodia and Tajikistan planned for the year – if the global situation allows.
This is not exactly staying still, is it? But I am relatively satisfied with how far I’ve come and would generally like to explore some of my favourite countries deeper – so expect to find me more often in places like Algeria, Argentina, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico or Romania. My only remaining travel aim in terms of ‘lists’ is to improve my SLOW rating, which I consider is way too low. That requires less border-crossing and more concentration in one country, and I’m happy for that.
In Kumasi, Ghana with former NomadMania associate William Tetteh
Any final words of wisdom?
We are the lucky ones. So let’s be generous, let’s celebrate life and let’s spread good energy – everybody needs more of that. Be humble. Be sincere. Be kind.
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe side
