Everything continued more or less as it always had for another six years but I traveled more than before and I walked a lot in places like mainland Spain, Tenerife, Mallorca, the Azores, and Madeira. I also toured the Iberian peninsula from north to south and from west to east by train and bus and visited many fabulous places.

Then one day after coming home from a three-week tour of Eastern Europe I had a clash with middle management over a trivial matter and I suddenly felt that I had had enough of poor management and egotistical, stupid colleagues. I submitted my resignation a couple of days later and after two months notice I walked out of that office and have never looked back.

I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with the rest of my time on earth but the most I came up with was what I didn’t want to do. And I didn’t want to return to a job in an office working nine to five no matter how much I was paid. Then I made some calculations and it stood clear to me that if I could reduce my fixed expenses to a minimum I could afford to say no to wage labour for an extended period of time.

I decided to have a go at one of Europe’s longest walking trails, the GR-7, also called E4. The trail starts in Tarifa near Gibraltar in Spain and ends in Greece after more than 10000 kilometers. I settled for the distance Tarifa to Andorra that is well over 2000 kilometers. And that I thought was enough for me at least for a start.

Now I had a defined target and could focus completely on what I had to do in order to reach that target. So, I began to sell, give away, or throw away everything that I didn’t really need and also investigated the possibility of getting rid of the rent for my apartment. At the same time I wanted to keep some of my furniture and some of the other things that I had further use for, and I had to find a way to receive my mail not having a permanent address.

I found the answers to all of my questions and terminated the lease for my apartment, rented a large box in a warehouse where I could store my furniture and stuff for as long as I needed for a reasonable cost, and changed my address to a post office box. I also bought a large backpack and stuffed it with carefully selected items. I didn’t want the weight to exceed 15 kilograms excluding water and food.

And then came the day when it was time to set off. Early in the morning the movers came and collected my furniture and my other stuff that was diligently packed in cartons. Then came my landlord to make his inspection of the apartment and collect the keys.

At noon I stood outside my old apartment dressed for walking and with only my backpack to carry. It created a strange but awesome feeling when I thought about that I now had left a place where I had been living for the past 25 years and that I never would return there again.