About Us
Hi there! We’re Sandra and Jeff—a couple who, in 2022, decided to trade a predictable life for an unpredictable adventure. We packed up our carry-on, sold almost everything, and dove into our new-to-us lifestyle as Americans living abroad, one country at a time. Our plan; figure out where in the world we could actually afford to live without draining our savings. Spoiler alert: It’s not where we thought it would be!
If you’re dreaming about retiring overseas but think you can’t afford it, following along as we share with you what we learn along the way.
Where we’ve lived and traveled
Our Backstory Story: From Overpacked Closets to Carry-On Freedom
Jeff’s a veteran, Sandra grew up as a military brat, and together, we’ve lived and traveled everywhere-from small towns in the USA and villages in England to the Caribbean and beyond. After 20 years rooted in one place (Oregon), we realized we missed the excitement of discovering new destinations. So, we sold our home, parted with nearly everything we owned, and hit the reset button.
Armed with determination and a tight budget, we set out to live overseas-one country at a time-choosing places that aren’t too hot or too cold, and that research says are truly affordable.
Now, we’re sharing everything we’ve learned about living abroad on a budget-no sugarcoating, no gimmicks, just real talk.
Why We Hope You’ll Love Our Blog
We’re not here to sell you a dream or paint Instagram-worthy-yet-delusional pictures of what it’s like to live abroad. We’re here to help ‘paint’ a realistic picture of what is like to live abroad, as a nomad, on a budget. Our blog is for anyone who:
- Wants to explore affordable places to live abroad and hasn’t quite reach the threshold for retirement residency status for the places you might want to live (just like us)
- Needs practical advice on full-time travel
- Enjoys stories that are as honest as they are entertaining.
Here’s what you can expect:
- Budget-Friendly Relocation Advice: From cost breakdowns to cultural insights, we’ll show you how to make the leap without going broke.
- Destination Spotlights: The good, the bad, and the weird—every place we’ve stayed has a story.
- Relatable Tips: We’re figuring this out as we go, so you’ll get advice that’s fresh, practical, and occasionally hilarious.
Curious about the thought process that went on behind the scenes before we left the United States?
Follow along (click the down arrow to expand the stories)…
Why Nomadic Retirement?
Our original plan? A tropical paradise retirement in Panama. But the more we talked about it, and the more that Sandra bought into the idea, the more I realized that buying a beach house and living out the rest of our retirement days in a tropical country might not be a satisfying plan. Health concerns, political anxieties, and a growing wanderlust pushed us to rethink everything.
Redefining Retirement Goals
So we started by defining our true retirement goals. What truly sparked joy? (I’ve been reminded through this process it’s also important to recognize that your understanding of what your goal actually is may change as you attempt to define it more clearly. )
We had initially made a decision that we would retire at age 67. We had planned on settling in Panama unless a visit there changed our minds and so we had tentatively formed a plan to spend a couple weeks there in May. A friend of mine was retired to Coronado so we at least had a shot at some inside scoop on how the process should go. We also decided that we would rent first before committing to a purchase so that we could be WAY more familiar with the country.
Downsizing and Preparing for an Affordable Retirement
Step one was going to be downsizing from our current property. We have 5 acres with a 1,680 sf 3 BR house, a 1,000 sf ‘shop/storage’ space that was the original house on the property, plus two 40′ Conex containers we used as storage and workshop space. I’ve been collecting tools and shop equipment for decades as an auto mechanic and woodworker plus we have so much art; paintings, prints, dimensional pieces, glass, the mind fairly boggles at the scope.
The original plan starts with selling off most of our stuff, sell the house and use the proceeds to buy a motorhome or 5th wheel and a small piece of land. Then we could continue to work but be debt free and stacking money away while we prepared to retire. Oct 2022 we were laying out the timeline for early summer 2023 to sell the house, still with an eye towards working until 67.
Between personal property, project cars and equity in the house we’d be starting with a decent chunk of cash. We figured on spending maybe as much as $100k to set up a small acreage with an RV and use the rest to buy a rental property somewhere cheap to start developing a passive income. With no mortgage or debt we’d be able to live on maybe around $2,500 per month so anything we earned over that would go towards more rental properties
Adapting Retirement Plans Based on New Information
But then a couple of things happened in November 2022 that caused us to start having a much more serious discussion about what retirement looks like for us. First thing was that I went in for a routine follow up at the end of October (I have had some issues with my heart and actually have an ICD to improve my odds in case of a 3rd heart attack) and they started me on a blood pressure medication. When I went back 3 weeks later to see how that was working out my BP was 228/122 so they sent me to the ER. I had been monitoring it at home for a couple of weeks and 202/103 wasn’t an unusual reading, the systolic number was seldom below 180. This was explained to me as being bad and wrong and liable to result in a stroke so I wound up being admitted to the hospital for hypertension. Change to the medications and more monitoring but ya know, stress is a thing.
This was my third admission to the hospital because “this is the kind of thing people die from” situation, so it got me thinking very seriously about retirement sooner rather than later. Like, I have always wanted to travel more and I’m apparently running out of time to get that handled.
Around this same time, 45 announced he was going to try and become 47 and we were both uncomfortable with what we imagined the campaign was going to be like having already dealt with 2 years of “I didn’t actually lose; the Dems cheated”. I follow politics casually but it’s enough to cause significant stress because I can’t even believe we’ve gotten to this point in our country. Even if 45 isn’t a contender it looks like Desantis would be the GOP nominee and that’s hardly an improvement.
The Plot Twist: Affordable Nomadic Adventures
That’s when we stumbled upon the idea of affordable nomadic retirement. I had been reading up on various cheapest places to live aka affordable retirement destinations with an eye towards where in the world a couple could live on our anticipated Social Security of about $3,000 a month. During the process we learned more about SS benefits, and that by being strategic about our destinations and living arrangements, we realized we could explore the world while staying within our budget.
Or as our family would say “You’re doing what??!?” I was going to call this post ‘Episode IV-A New Hope’ but I didn’t want to deal with lawyers, soooo…
Scrolling through retirement blogs, we stumbled upon a question that hit us like a ton of bricks: “Do we want to have a home or do we want to have a life?” It got us thinking. How much cash would we really need to retire right now and enjoy life before Social Security kicks in (which, for us, is still 90 months away)?
$4,000 per month means we’d have to have $360k in the bank. Hmmm, that’s a lot
If we set our sights on retiring in June – which would make the selling of the house happen on a much more tolerable timeline for me – then it’s 83 months to SS so we’re down to $332,000.
Okay, what if we could live on $3,000 per month? Now we only need $249,000 to retire early. That’s not as big a number as it sounds, though. I mean, it’s a bunch of money but it’s not out of reach.
We had also just switched brokerages to work directly with a friend of ours and Sandra reminded me that we had committed to a year with Christina. So that means starting this grand adventure more like November/December. Which then means the window to collecting SS payments is 78 months and the required capital is down to $234k.
Hmmmmm. We had some money saved and we’ll get a decent chunk from selling the house so retiring early is suddenly looking like a pretty doable plan.
Making the Retirement Math Work on $3,000 a Month
The big question was, could we swing this financially on $3,000 a month? Traditional retirement wisdom tells you that you need a small fortune saved up. But what if we could create a fulfilling retirement experience without needing a mountain of money?
So What does a $3,000 a month Nomadic Retirement lifestyle look like?
I’d been reading up on other countries and was pretty confident that $3k per month would allow us a decent standard of living in a lot of different places. But the residency visa appeared to be an issue.
We couldn’t get a resident visa anywhere just based on having a pile of cash in the bank and having $250k invested won’t generate the required $2k per month income to qualify to get a pensionado visa in Panama. Well, it would in rentals but we’d have to show that income stream for 2 years prior to moving so that’d mean we’d be homeless in Oregon with $2k/month to live on unless we kept working. (Update – that was bad info; in order to qualify for the residency you need to have a guaranteed-for-life pension from the government or a major company)
That’s when we discovered the magic of affordable nomadic retirement. By being strategic about where we go and how we live, we realized we could explore the world for less than the cost of maintaining our house in the States. Think about it – no more property taxes, no more expensive lawn care!
Affordable Retirement Travel and Living LIKE a Local
So what if we didn’t ‘move’ to a country, what if we just maxed out the 90 day visitor privilege and became senior nomads? 3 month rentals seemed to be readily available in most countries I looked at and the whole point of getting out of Oregon was to avoid snow and cold.
We both have enjoyed our limited travels but always felt rushed – 10 days in France, 10 days in New Zealand, not enough time to really enjoy the country except on a very superficial level. The 4 years we spent in England was an awesome time but we had young kids, we didn’t have much money and 4 years is soooo long that we never felt any pressure to get things seen so we wound up missing quite a lot.
The question then became, could we reduce our lives to a big suitcase and a backpack each then just be nomadic seniors? 90 days per country should be long enough to really get a feel for a place but short enough that we would feel some small pressure to see what we wanted to see. I was pretty confident that I could do that and she’s game to give it a try.
Is the Affordable Nomadic Retirement Life Right for You?
Listen, senior nomadism isn’t for everyone. It might not even be right for us. But if you’re like us and craving something different out of retirement, and you’re open to exploring the world on a budget, then this might just be the perfect path for you.
Planning this adventure has been an eye-opening experience, and guess what? There’s lot to think about! This post tackles some of the practical questions (and potential solutions) we’ve encountered so far.
Can We Earn an Income While We Travel?
Turning our travels into a side hustle is tempting. Can we monetize the affordable traveling retirement concept at all to help subsidize our senior nomad travels and maybe not skate into SS completely broke? Could we get jobs in foreign lands to supplement our savings? She’s good with tech and I’ve got a big personality so perhaps we could establish ourselves as a ‘hints and tips’ resource for folks interested in affordable retirement travel or extended vacations.
The Cost of Living Challenge & Affordable Retirement Travel
For cost of living and convenience reasons we are looking at cheapest countries to live in and had our eyes on Montenegro and Croatia. Studio and one bedroom apartments were plentiful in the $500 to $600 per month range. But wait….
Affordable Retirement Travel: How Long Can We Stay In a Country?
One appealing option was the idea that we could do 90 days in Croatia then take a bus and do 90 days in Montenegro.
I looked into visa requirements and restrictions and it turns out we would not need a visa for short trips to the European Union (EU) or countries in the Schengen area if we were staying for 90 days or less in a 180-day period.
This means that someone can enter the Schengen Area as many times as they want, but only stay for a total of 90 days, every 180 days. (This rule applies to every state of the Schengen Area.)
So could we do 90 days in the UK (not in the EU) then go to Croatia (in the EU) for 90 days, then go back to the UK for 90 days and then go to Montenegro for 90 days?
(Update: Montenegro is not currently in the EU or the Schengen zone – yet – but it’s also really tiny (slightly smaller than Connecticut!) so 90 days might be too much)
We’ll also need to schedule occasional trips back to the US to visit family. Is that annual trip?
Healthcare on the Move: Prescriptions and Sleep Apnea
I was really struggling with how my prescriptions could be handled and Sandra suggested that perhaps they could be shipped to the US Embassy wherever we were living. That might could work because we certainly aren’t liable to move anywhere that doesn’t have a consulate at least (Update – Apparently non-narcotic prescription drugs are much more readily available pretty much anywhere outside north America. Whodathunkit?)
My sleep apnea therapy is another healthcare consideration; the CPAP machine I have is pretty bulky but I know there are smaller, more portable options available – that’s another expense to consider.
You might also be interested in our post Prescription Refills – Planning an extended period overseas? What You Need To Know About Prescription Refills Abroad
House sitting and Pet Sitting: A Short-Term Affordable Retirement Travel Solution?
House Sitting or pet sitting gigs could be a way to stay in one place for a bit and explore locally. Plus, caring for a furry friend wouldn’t be too demanding if the only responsibility is to feed and walk Fido twice a day. First glance at this sort of side quest are generally going to be a week or at most a month at a time (Update: Pet sitting and House sitting while traveling internationally is proving to be more complicated than we first imagined…. some countries view pet sitting, house sitting and even volunteering abroad to be “unauthorized work” and deporting or denying entry to travelers who are doing this.)
The Pet Quandary: Can We Travel with Them?
Speaking of petsitting, another challenge is what to do with our 2 cats? We love them and they are an important part of our home life. Seeaytee was a rescue from the animal shelter and when we first got her it took 3 days before she came out from under the bed. She’s around 10 years old now so another rehoming would be pretty traumatic after 7 years with us. Anathema was a barn kitten we turned into an indoor cuddler. Well, not really that cuddly, there is a reason I sometimes call her “Razor Floof”. Traveling with them fulltime is complicated due to quarantine requirements and the logistical nightmare of managing food and litter box issues. It would limit our access to rentals as well as making spontaneous changes in plans problematic. Can we rehome them?
So, what are we going to do?
We’re still figuring it out! This blog is all about sharing our journey, the challenges we face, and the solutions we discover along the way. Maybe you’re a soon-to-be retiree with wanderlust too, or perhaps you’re just curious about affordable retirement travel. Either way, join us as we navigate the world on a budget, and who knows, maybe we’ll inspire you to chase your own retirement dreams!
Where Do We Land in our Full-Time Retirement Travel plan
Today’s post dives into a recent conversation with Sandra about our ideal retirement destinations, expat bubbles, population density and setting a target launch date for our full-time retirement travel adventure
While a beachfront paradise sounds tempting, Sandra wants a bit more. She’s drawn to the idea of being near, but not within, American expat communities.
We both understand the appeal of expat bubbles – a sense of familiarity and support. But we also agree it can hinder feeling connected to the locals and their community.
When surrounded primarily by other Americans, we risk missing out on experiencing the local way of life – the vibrant festivals, the delicious (and sometimes unfamiliar!) cuisine, and the enriching interactions with people from different backgrounds.
Living in an expat bubble can also discourage us from picking up the local language, a key to unlocking deeper connections and navigating daily life confidently.
Ultimately, we want our retirement to be a journey of continuous learning and growth, and that means embracing the unique culture of each place we call home, not just recreating a piece of America abroad.
It reminds me of when we were stationed in England. We purposely rented a house far from the American base to truly experience life in a new country. I vividly remember telling the military housing office, “Sorry, I didn’t travel 5,000 miles across an ocean to a foreign country to spend the next 4 years surrounded by Americans.”
Full-Time Retirement Travel plan: Avoiding Crowds and Finding Balance
Sandra also emphasizes avoiding overwhelming crowds. k. I’m completely on board with that.
Neither of us has much interest in spending significant time in Asia or the middle-East (preconceived notion of high population density) so we’ll stick to Central America and Europe as we research destinations
I’d really like to golf more in retirement but most of the places we’re looking at have a dearth of courses. There’s like 9 in the whole country of Panama, same with Puerto Rico. England should be good, I feel like there’s probably a lot of muni’s.
Full-Time Retirement Travel Plan: Rethinking the Timeline
And then today, 12/6/22 she tells me she isn’t comfortable with a 1 year timeline to drop everything and go. She isn’t ‘done’ working yet. Alrighty then, so we’ll be talking about that…
Exploring Options and Setting a New Target Date for Launching our Full-Time Retirement Travel Plan
Much of our discussion centers about the various moving parts and various “what if” scenarios to determine a new quit date; when we plan to bail and travel full-time informs the decision of how we handle the money from selling the house. Because we both agree that getting off this property is a necessary first step to retirement planning and that should happen in the spring this coming year.
Originally, we envisioned November 2023 as our departure date. With Sandra’s concerns in mind, we’ve pushed that back to October 2024.
This extended timeline means our “transitional period” is now 17 months instead of 6. We’ll need to carefully plan for this extended period, especially since it includes another winter in Oregon.
Remember our ever-evolving timeline? Well, Sandra recently surprised me by saying, “I’m not so sure I want to face another Oregon winter. What if we revisit our original fall 2023 target date?”
Alrighty then, let’s talk about that…
Adapting and Planning for the Transitional Period
We’ve already committed to a timeline for selling the house and downsizing. But the question of “where will we live” during the “transitional period” – the time between selling the house and embarking on our nomadic adventure – is a subject of some discussion.
Sandra keeps coming back to buying an RV as temporary housing. However, logistics get tricky. Would we sell it before flying out and need temporary lodging? Or find a place to store it in case the nomadic life isn’t quite the right fit?
The truth is, the answer to “where do we live after selling the house?” will likely become clear once the house is on the market and things feel more real.
Building Our Online Presence: TheMobileRetiree™ is Born!
In the meantime, we did score a major win – locking down our domain and social media handles! We debated “bigasssuitcase.com” (because, let’s face it, packing light for a multi-year trip abroad isn’t exactly my strong suit), but ultimately landed on TheMobileRetiree™ and snagged the matching social media handles.
This website thing is important for a couple of reasons. Apparently, the magic internet monetization fairies require a well-established website before we can monetize our retirement travel diary. Plus, the sooner I start tinkering with this writing and video thing, the better. Practicing on local attractions and nearby golf courses means way less pressure if I mess up. Besides, who wouldn’t want a do-over on a bad Oregon day trip, right?
Join Us on the Journey!
So, stay tuned as we navigate this ever-shifting path to mobile retirement. We’ll keep you posted on our latest decisions, challenges (because let’s be real, there will be challenges), and maybe even some travel tips along the way. Cheers to a new year, and who knows, maybe even a (slightly) more settled retirement timeline!
As we excitedly plan our nomadic retirement, one crucial aspect threw us a curveball: medical insurance for fulltime travelers. Budgeting for this seemed straightforward, but the reality for nomadic retirees like us is quite different. So much so that we did a blog post to explore the the different types of “travel” insurance and discuss the differences and similarities of travel insurance vs medical insurance for fulltime travelers. We’ll also share the alternative solutions we discovered to ensure affordable health coverage for our globe-trotting adventures, helping you navigate this essential step in planning your own mobile retirement!
All about the Benjamins
I worked up a preliminary travel budget for this adventure based on information gleaned from various travel bloggers, my own research and a little bit of caution. Virtually all of the countries we plan to visit are on someone’s “You can retire here for $1,500 per month” list so I’m allowing $3,500 per month to include travel between locations as well as the fact that food and housing expenses will almost certainly be higher based on frequent travels. You can secure a 12 month lease at a significantly lower cost than a 1 to 3 month lease and moving to a new country every 90 days means A) there will always be new restaurants to explore and B) there will be significant travel expenses, especially on inter-continental moves
We’re starting off with the proceeds from selling our house and selling almost everything ‘stuff’, so there is an investment strategy in the background to maximize return on that money, but this whole thing is predicated on not having any ‘actual’ income; just what we get from investments and the cashflow needs to be managed because we will be living out of that pile of cash we start with. This not a situation where we have millions to invest and we can just live off the return; we need to really make the most of every opportunity so the money doesn’t run out before our SS benefits kick in.
By the same token, we don’t want to be living on beans and rice in a 5th floor walk-up somewhere just to escape the rat race, it would make more sense for us to keep working in that case.
What’s in our Travel Budget?
Housing
Based on the numbers I’ve heard from various travelers (mostly folks in the ‘digital nomad’ category) I had budgeted $700 per month for housing. Since my search for rental apartments had turned up numerous options in the $350 to $600 range in most of the countries I explored options for online I’m pretty hopeful we can do that. I checked out AirBNB for the first time this week and monthly rentals under $700 aren’t hard to find at least in Panama and Costa Rica which are our two starter countries. I also found a 9 bedroom villa for $26,511 per month that is not a finalist.
Activities
I’ve got $400 per month assigned to ‘transportation and entertainment’ because we’ll certainly want to do things wherever we go.
Relocation
I budgeted $600 per month for relocation assuming a change of countries every 90 days – $1,800 per trip. The first trip will be to Panama and if we were booking tickets right now it would cost about $1,200 so there is carryover to future travels. And the second target country is Costa Rica; we can get from Panama to Costa Rica for $50 by bus or maybe $450 if we fly so there will be additional carryover for the 3rd relocation which takes us to southern Europe. Looking at future destinations there are a few that may be over my baseline budget depending on the starting point so it will be important to keep a reserve in that account.
Food
Ah, my favorite reason to travel; I love to eat. Again based on what I’ve heard from various travelers I $400 for groceries in our travel budget, which should be plenty since our grocery bills here in the US in a pretty high cost of living area run $500 to $600 per month. At present I am NOT a careful shopper and we have several ‘prepared food’ meals each month. I budgeted an additional $450 per month for meals out assuming 15 restaurant meals at an average $30 each. Mostly I hear you can eat in a decent restaurant for $10-$12 per person in most places at dinner prices and less for breakfast and lunch prices so I feel good about that number right now
Insurance
I have travel medical budgeted at $350 (see my post about that _here_) Life insurance right now is listed at $225 but we are discussing ways to reduce that since we really won’t need the amount of coverage we currently have once we sell the house. Policies for us really just need to cover the “Shit, he died now I have to get his carcass back to the states” level of expense. I’ve included $30 per month for prescriptions because I am on several daily medications that currently cost about $50 every 90 days. This is actually one of the more stressful parts of the planning, i.e., how do I get my meds when I live overseas?
You might also be interested in Prescription Refills – Planning an extended period overseas? What You Need To Know About Prescription Refills Abroad
Communications
I threw in a travel budget line for cell phones/internet at basically a random amount of $200 per month. If we go the ‘local sim card’ route and take advantage of WhatsApp and wi-fi calling that’s realistically probably going to be closer to $75 – $100.
If you did the math you’ll see I’m actually a little under, that all totals up to $3,405 per month out of my $3,500 budget because, better to have a little headroom in our travel budget than try and find ways to scrimp. I figure we’ll track as we go and reevaluate quarterly.
Important factors to consider in the budgeting process include a level of ‘cushion’ in that Sandra will probably continue some of the administrative work she’s doing which will generate some cash and we can certainly create an entertaining and informative enough YouTube channel to monetize it to some extent. I’ve based the budget on zero income, completely living off of savings for 7 years. Also important is that if it all goes pear-shaped we can call the whole thing off and go back to residential real estate sales or car sales.
So, there you have it – a peek into our initial travel budget. We’ve factored in what we’ve gleaned from other nomadic travelers, along with some healthy skepticism (gotta have that cushion, folks!). While living on beans and rice might seem quaint for a hot minute, it wouldn’t exactly jive with our vision of this adventure.
The good news? Our research suggests this budget is doable in most of the places we’re considering. We’ll definitely track our spending as we go, with adjustments made quarterly to keep things on track. Remember, there’s always the possibility of some income down the line – Sandra might keep doing some freelance work, and that YouTube channel idea has some monetization potential (fingers crossed!).
The bottom line? This budget allows us to ditch the rat race and explore the world, all without burning through our savings before Social Security kicks in. Here’s to living life on our terms – stay tuned as we continue to refine our plans and share our journey with you!
Ah, the modern age of convenience… We all have a handful of electric or electronic devices we just can’t (or don’t want to) live without. Well, the good news for travelers is that most modern small electronics are dual voltage by default – thank goodness for the global marketplace – so you only need an electronic adaptor for the plug rather than a voltage convertor. read on…
But when you’re traveling around the world you’ll find there is no global standard for the electricity supplied to homes and businesses. Various countries primarily use either 120 or 240 volts AC but 110/220 means the same thing since the voltage varies in real-life. 60 hertz* is common with most 120V systems while the majority of 240V systems alternate slightly slower at 50 cycles. Check out this chart if you want to see who does what.
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So you may find yourself shopping for a converter but what do you actually need ? Well, the good news is that most modern small electronics are dual voltage by default – thank goodness for the global marketplace – so you only need an electronic adaptor for the plug rather than a voltage convertor.
The acceptable voltage range is determined by the manufacturer based on their intended market. If they plan to sell a particular item only in the US market – or never in the US market- then they’ll save the $1.49 additional manufacturing expense and not build in a voltage convertor chip
Three numbers that matter
There are 3 numbers that matter when we’re dealing with electricity:
- Voltage
- Frequency and
- Wattage or amperage.
Wattage is a measurement of how much electricity is being pulled through the wire to power the device – you can think of it like water flowing through pipes if you imagine watts as being like gallons per minute; a small hose can handle a little bit of water but if you need a lot of water then you need a bigger hose or way more pressure.
Amps are determined by dividing the wattage by the voltage (and that’s transitive – voltage multiplied by amps gives you the wattage) so your 3 amp cell phone charger is drawing around 350 watts; your 1750 watt hair dryer is pulling around 15 amps at 110 volts. That’s why the outlet gets warm to the touch if you run it for an extended period – the circuit it’s connected to is probably only rated for 20 amps so you’re pulling almost as much electricity through that outlet as it’s designed to safely handle.
Look at the power supply for your device (the brick or box part for plug-in chargers) and you’ll find a label or engraving somewhere on it that indicates ‘120VAC/60Hz’ or ‘240VAC/50Hz’ or, far more commonly these days “110/220VAC – 50/60Hz” There will also be either a wattage or amperage number – 1500W or 1.5A – that lets you know how much current the device needs.
That set of numbers and your destination informs whether you need an adaptor, a convertor or both. Areas that use 110/60 power also usually use the same type of 2 bladed plug so no adaptor or converter is needed to take your US spec devices to, for example, Panama. 220 volt systems are super random. Your UK spec 220/50 device will be fine in India except the plugs are different.
If you’re curious, here’s a link that shows who uses what plug types
Generally speaking, the more power is required, the bigger the voltage convertor needs to be. Not only does more current require physically larger wires – remember that water hose analogy – but the conversion process generates heat so the convertor needs a larger mass to dissipate the surplus heat. A 1,000 watt convertor will easily handle a laptop and a couple of cellphones but might melt down when you plug in your curling iron
The power supply for my laptop, phone, electric toothbrush and electric razor all indicate they are essentially universal – ‘110/220VAC – 50/60Hz’ or ‘120/240VAC – 50/60Hz’ but my beard trimmer is marked ‘120VAC/60Hz’. So the majority of my electronics will only ever need a plug adaptor to be used anywhere in the world. My beard trimmer will need to be replaced because I have very little interest in buying a voltage convertor just for that one device.
*********************UPDATE July 2024*******************
I decided to carry the beard trimmer with us and use it as long as the battery held out. Since it only gets used for 5 minutes or so, once a week, I thought it would last until we got to Europe and I’d be able to easily source a replacement there.
As it turns out, the battery held up very well and then in England we ran into a thing I had forgotten about –
the hotel bathroom shaver outlet. These outlets include a transformer to reduce the voltage from 230 to 115 allowing people from the Americas to use their electric razors. I was able to put a full charge into it and by the time it needed a boost, we were back in North America.
*********************UPDATE the Second October 2024*******************
That beard trimmer was several years old and the adjustable guard no longer stayed securely in place so I dropped US$19.99 on a new one that is not only universal voltage but also is designed to cut hair. It came with about 11 different length guards and, through trial and error, I have figured out which 3 need to travel with me. The voltage adaptor block is smaller, too, so I’ve saved 3/4 cubic inch of space and easily 8 or 10 grams of weight 😉
************************************
Stay safe with electricity by not overloading circuits or adaptors/convertors and by using the appropriate device to get the job done.
Just because you CAN connect the charger to the outlet with two paperclips and a car key doesn’t make it a good idea. When in doubt, get advice from a qualified electrimagician
*‘Alternating Current’ refers to the fact that the voltage actually ‘pulses’ between zero (ground) and 120 or 240 volts (supply voltage)
If you’re curious here’s the travel adaptors we chose to purchase
This adaptor will convert to virtually any plug type and also has a high current USB-C port that can be used to charge my laptop
The countdown is officially on! With February’s chill clinging to the air. We’re selling the house, brushing up on languages (well, mostly Spanish for now!), and strategizing our nomad retirement departure – it’s all part of the thrilling (and sometimes overwhelming) process of transforming our retirement dream into reality. This blog is our way of sharing the journey.
Random thoughts on a cold February day: I was today years old when I learned that ‘waterfall rappelling’ is a thing that exists. I was watching a video about countries where you can buy residency / passport and in the bit about Dominica they mentioned it. My sister-in-law confirmed they do it in Costa Rica as well and it’s fun. Hmmmm, gonna have to bear that in mind. I’m intrigued but have some trepidation
I’ve also just recently learned that one of my brothers-in-law is very interested in retiring to Costa Rica or Portugal because of the lower cost of living. He also has similar concerns to mine as to the state of politics in the US.
Today I learned that my wife is developing a pretty serious case of short-timers disease as we approach the time to sell our house. Pretty funny to me since when I proposed leaving in November this year she initially wanted to put it off for an additional year; now she’s hot to go, like, soon. I, on the other hand, am struggling somewhat with the ‘getting rid of stuff’ part of the process so, baby steps. I photographed all my Subaru and Harley Davidson branded shirts to post as available and started looking at donation programs for the ‘professional’ clothes I’ll be getting rid of. Looks like the local college has a program so I feel good about that
I also learned today that English is apparently widely spoken in Croatia. I’m excited about that because I started looking at some common phrases and Croatian is a tongue-twister of a language. Not crazy confident of my ability to become conversational in a year of occasional study. Since we’ve been working on Spanish I think we’ll be okay for casual conversation by this fall and Italian has some common roots so I wasn’t worried about being able to pick up enough to get around.
I’m beginning to wonder if maybe we should do our time in Italy as stop #3 (April/May to June/July) and then up to England to finish out summer. It’s hard to plan in 3 month increments to avoid anyplace they have an actual winter while minimizing travel expenses – once we hit Europe I’d like to stay at least a full year and that requires bouncing in and out of the Schengen zone. My original thought was 90 days in Croatia, then get out of the zone by staying in Montenegro for 90 days then 90 days in Italy and get back out of the zone by going to the UK but I don’t think we can avoid sub-50 degree temps with that routing. Still a lot of work to be done to get the scheduling right; it’s starting to look like maybe we do 2 or 3 segments in Europe then escape back to the Caribbean or Latin America for the winter months, LOL.
Between waterfall rappelling in Costa Rica, navigating Schengen zones in Europe, and my wife’s case of the pre-departure jitters, February is proving to be a month of unexpected twists and turns as we gear up for our mobile retirement adventure!
This is a ‘catch up’ post in our adventure of downsizing and embracing a nomadic lifestyle since I’ve been a bit distracted of late. We’re at day one of the ‘nomadic’ part of the adventure (still in Central Oregon for now) so I’ll add my thoughts on that this evening.
(11 April 2023) The past couple of weeks have seen a flurry of activity towards the sale of the house. There were several projects that had been on hold due to design questions (the railings on the deck) or motivation (a 75’ trench to properly bury an electrical cable to the hay shed) or weather (finishing up staining the skirting on the deck and refinishing the deck on the old house).
Scheduling a real estate photographer to take listing photos and having a published ‘go live’ date for the listing put the pressure on to get those things sorted. Getting organized enough to have a professional come in and do an estate sale so we don’t have to waste hours and hours of our time as well as stressing out about pricing things we’ve become somewhat attached to. That’s a bigger burden for me than her, emotionally, but I came to a place of peace last week – basically, I said to myself “If you lost everything in a fire, what would you actually miss enough to replace?” If it ain’t on THAT list it’s going away in the sale.
We had been trying to get a load of gravel delivered and they kept blowing us off; finally on Thursday we got 10 yards of gravel. Photographer was scheduled for 10 a.m. on Monday so, no pressure, LOL. A combination of crap weather and a hydraulics problem with our tractor meant we wound up relying on our neighbor to come over with his skid steer to finish spreading it. Which was fine except he couldn’t do it until Monday morning and finished about 20 minutes before the photographer showed up.
Then on Tuesday we got a full-price offer. Which is ‘yay’ but also ‘Dude, we literally just spent $500 for photos YESTERDAY which I might as well have set on fire, LOL’
Presuming this goes forward – and I have no reason to think it won’t at this point – now we have a real deadline to not only get rid of 40 years’ accumulation of random stuff but also find someplace to live. Based on the way the offer was written, they are understanding of the fact that we need a little flexibility with the closing and moving dates so, that’s a positive. Realistically we have 6 weeks, maybe 8 at most, to find someplace to live for some number of months until we hit the road. The timeline for going nomadic is still flexible; our only ‘commitment’ is that I booked us a place to stay in Panama City in mid-November and told my friend that lives down there we’d be coming out to his area of the country after Thanksgiving weekend. Truly though, we could leave as soon as the sale of the house closes if we decided to. It would only require that we make that the plan and divest of the last of our stuff a bit sooner.
I’ve reminded both organizations where I am a board member that my time is running down; our local road district is the shortest notice because once we move out of the neighborhood I’m no longer eligible to be on the board.
In the process of getting ready to move we have sooo many small things to take care of. Particularly in my case, since I have several cars in the project stage that need some level of work done in order to sell them for actual money. Our extended crummy weather is to blame, in a typical year we would have already had quite a few days of decent weather (above 50 and dry) so I would have been comfortable working outside. Since I am not at all okay with working outside when it’s below 45 and/or raining/snowing there are a lot of projects that got pushed back so now I’ll have to crunch.
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We had a bunch of showings when the house went ‘live’ but the initial offer stayed in play and we are now under contract. We’re actively trying to find a rental now since we will need to be out of here absolutely no later than June 1st. Lots of stuff to take care of in the next few weeks, too.
Since we are downsizing our lives to ‘a suitcase and a backpack each’ we need to deal with 40 years accumulation of random possessions. The boys have been over and picked up stuff they want and we hired an estate sale company to come in next weekend and handle the majority of it.
There are a few things of special sentimental value we’ll be hanging onto so we picked up a couple of 27 gallon totes yesterday. Number one son already agreed to store them for us until we eventually settle somewhere. With full understanding that it could be 2 years or 10 before that happens.
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So. Much. Stuff.
Over 40 years of traveling I have spent literal thousands of dollars on mementos and reminders that appear to have never actually meant anything or reminded me of anything because it was stored away in boxes. Now we have to deal with it. I have never owned a Harley but I had collected 26 HD shotglasses from dealerships around the country (not a thing they do internationally, it seems. I always look but I’ve only found t-shirts. That’s another troubling collection). Most of those shotglasses were in a box and wrapped in newspaper from Aug 2006. I think if I haven’t even seen a thing in almost 17 years it must not have been that important to me.
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We had the estate sale over the weekend. We hired a company to do it and their normal mode of operation is to open the sale Thursday and Friday from 10:30 to 5 and then on Saturday everything is 50% off. They called a couple days ahead and announced that they didn’t think we had enough stuff to justify all 3 days so we told them that was fine but they weren’t getting a half price day and to go ahead and advertise it for three days anyway.
We spent Saturday with the hardcore bargain hunters who love the final day of a sale. The good news is that we actually moved a lot of stuff to neighbors. The hard part was that since we just really want the stuff gone we were making some crazy deals. Next door got a 22’ extension ladder, an 8’ step ladder and a bunch of other stuff for $100.
What I found most interesting but probably shouldn’t have surprised me was the number of people who wouldn’t bite on ‘I don’t know, make me an offer’ so there were a few things that sold higher than I expected because people can’t or won’t negotiate. Someone had built a pile of stuff and wouldn’t make an offer so I’d say “I don’t know. Is that worth $100?’ and they’d agree to pay $100. I would have been happy with half that because I really want the stuff gone.
Also, it’s kind of fun to haggle a little bit. I had a router table marked at $75 and this guy asked if I would take $30. I said ‘Dude, there’s a router attached to it’ he replied ‘Yeah but it’s a Ryobi’ ‘Still, either item by itself would be over $100 new.’ We settled at $40 and it was fine.
I had a couple of ‘what’s the least you’d take for <X>?’ to which I always – ALWAYS – reply “What’s’ the most you’d pay for it?” and it locks people up. That response is somehow super hard to deal with
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This week has been all about water. We lost water on Monday. Not the first time it’s happened over the 7 years we’ve been here, we had an issue when we first moved in with the cistern pumps – we share our well with our neighbor and apparently his pump sat (past tense, LOL) lower than ours in the cistern. He left a high pressure hose running all night and our pump was uncovered, which led to it burning up because they’re poorly designed. Seriously, who designs a $1,500 pump with no thermal protection? It’s water-cooled and if the pump runs dry it just continues to run until it burns up?
This time we both lost water because the well pump stopped running and we had to have the professionals come out. They did all their basic testing and decided that either A) the well pump failed or B) we ran the well dry. So, best case scenario (replace the pump) is like $8,000 and worst case scenario (drill a new well) is closer to $100,000 (we’re already over 700’ deep) with a small but non-zero possibility of an in-between solution where the well might be able to be drilled deeper.
As it turned out, the water level was okay and the pump had failed. Phew. They went through all the data with us and we were able to work out that the level in the well had dropped by like 25 feet since 1979 and at the current level we had 13 feet of water. But the well was also drilled deeper than the pump was set so we opted to spend an extra few hundred bucks to have them drop the new pump another 10 feet. So if the trend holds steady it will be okay for 30 or more years. I mean, I truly only care about the next 6 weeks or so, but it was the right thing to do.
With all that said and done we got the full damages this morning for replacing the pump and going deeper – Just a fast food meal under the $9,000 mark which is super irritating but not debilitating.
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(2 May 2023) We have business cards now. Oooooh, FANcy, LOL. They’re very cool and include some blank space on the back for notes which is a thing I would have hoped for but probably not thought of.
In other news, Sandra has set up a Google map specifically for our travels so if you want to follow along you’ll be able to get a lot of info in a single place – The map will include layers for specific categories like countries, cities, restaurants, museums/galleries, attractions and then the pins will be color-coded to indicate the ‘trip status’ of that place. Orange for places we plan to visit, for example and then for restaurant/activity places once we DO visit they will be color-coded to indicate whether we think it’s a ‘must do’, a ‘cool if you aren’t pressed for time’ or “don’t bother, we weren’t impressed’. So you could pull up the map, display just the restaurant layer and see where we ate and whether we enjoyed or recommend it. There is room for notes on the pin so when you select a specific pin you’ll see our comments or a link to the corresponding blog post. I’m frequently amazed at the way she can make the technology sing and dance.
I’m super excited to get going; have I mentioned that yet? We’re 3 weeks from officially downsizing – moving out of our 3 bedroom house on 5 acres and into a tiny little studio in Redmond. From there we’ve got about 6 months to complete the downsizing into a fully nomadic lifestyle. 6 months from getting on a plane and leaving our old life behind. Like, a couple weeks away from actually buying tickets.
I also got more serious about mapping out the travel schedule to get a better grip on the search for accommodations. Aside from the first stop in Panama City, everything is a placeholder. We won’t be traveling on the 1st of every month and we won’t be staying a calendar month in each location but it will be closer to that than not
| Nov 15, 2023 | Nov 28th | Panama City | Panama |
| Nov 29th | Dec 28th | Coronado | Panama |
| Dec 29th | Jan 25th | Boquete | Panama |
| Jan 26th, 2024 | Feb 28th | David | Panama |
| Mar 1 | Mar 30 | Costa Rica | |
| Apr 1 | Apr 30 | Hopkins | Belize |
| May 1 | May 30 | Dubrovnik | Croatia |
| Jun 1 | Jun 30 | Tuscany | Italy |
| Jul 1 | Jul 31 | Lisbon | Portugal |
| Aug 1 | Aug 31 | Scotland | |
| Sep 1 | Sep 30 | England | |
| Oct 1 | Oct 15 | Portland | USA |
| Oct 16 | Nov 30 | Panama |
(18 May 2023)
The schedule above is probably super inaccurate now, LOL. Looks like we will be able to find pet and house sitting gigs; she’s already applied for two in England in April/May next year. That would be very awesome especially since they are near the Weymouth area so we’ll be able to do some of the genealogy research either right before or right after.
We signed all the paperwork for the sale of the house; that was a bit of a goat rope and we’ll be closing late but at least not as late as their mortgage broker was trying to get us to sign off on.
In this post we are going to touch on some of the things we had to take into consideration as we planned our nomadic retirement. Deciding to retire is a jumping off point. Deciding to go fully nomadic is a jumping off point. Deciding to do that internationally throws an extra twist into the half-gainer of research.
One of the first, I guess I’d say, awkward, things we found, is that this thing that Sandra and I are doing, this grand experiment to sell off everything and travel the world, is harder to put a name to than it should be. We’ve kind of settled on ‘nomadic retirement’.
We’re essentially quitting our jobs. We will no longer have either a fixed business address nor anyone supervising us. Most of our generation would define that as ‘retirement’ – “the action or fact of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work.”
If we were working full-timeish remotely while traveling then we would be ‘digital nomads.’ Defined as: “a person who earns a living working online in various locations of their choosing (rather than a fixed business location).”
What do we call you….?
This sort of hybrid thing isn’t, apparently, a named and defined thing. We are calling it nomadic retirement because everyone needs us to have a label. We plan to mostly live off of savings but supplement our income with remote work and interwebz magic. Sandra will continue doing part of her current job remotely at least for the short-term. I will be developing our YouTube channel and the website. Sandra will focus on affiliate marketing and adsense or something on our website. While our budget is $3,500 per month, we don’t need to earn that much to support ourselves so it’s pretty low pressure – like retirement. But we’ll still be working, a little bit – like digital nomads.
Retiring abroad is relatively common; almost 600,000 US citizens get their SS checks as residents of a foreign land. Expats, they call them. They move to a different country and settle in. This is not that. It started out with that as a sort of core idea but we don”t know enough about enough different countries to even pick a place.
So, we decided to go visit a bunch of countries and stay a month or two or three to see if they felt like ‘home’. Remember, the original driver to the whole plan was Sandra asking me “What would it take for us to retire to Panama right now?” All the research, all the planning, all the math, all the conversations, started from that assumption that we wanted to someday ‘retire to a tropical paradise’.
Two concerns arise consistently when we talk about our plans:
1) What will you do for money?
2) ‘But you’re so young’
The money thing is a concern for a lot of folks and I totally get it. Most people haven’t ever done the math to figure out what it would actually cost to bail out on the American Dream. Most also don’t have a big pile of cash available to do it. If you’ve only ever traveled for vacations then you have an expectation that it’s really expensive to travel. We hope to prove our theory that it’s really not. It’s wicked expensive if you stay exclusively in hotels and only eat in restaurants. We’ll show you how to stay longer for less
What about other people’s concerns?
The age concern is consistent, as well. Part of that is not being able to condense our plan to a word or two so we say ‘retiring’. If we say that we’re becoming digital nomads, 90% of our friends group wouldn’t have a clue what that meant. So the question is typically some variation of “How can you retire at your age?”
To me, ‘retirement’ has always meant ‘having the freedom to work, or not, based on my desire to either work, or not’. That’s what this feels like to me; we will need to generate some income simply to stretch out our savings. We have no obligation to generate enough income to support our monthly budget each and every month. There is no looming threat of foreclosure for missing a couple of mortgage payments. There will be no need to own a car in order to get back and forth to work. Here in the US we could probably move somewhere that a car isn’t a necessity but the cost of that convenience is a significantly higher housing expense so there isn’t any savings to be had, it’s just spending the money differently.
That level of freedom to choose where and when is not a function of age – it’s a function of money.
The ‘What ifs’
We actually had a pretty in depth discussion about the ‘what if we get cold feet’ scenario. This was from either angle – ‘what if we get closer to our time to leave and chicken out’ as well as ‘what if we get out on the road and hate it’
The good news is that I had already considered both of those scenarios rather extensively in my over-worked and feverish imagination so we were able to hash out the concerns.
Avoiding regret
Firstly we are committing – we are selling out and leaving the US. We will figure out a way to keep a few things that are essentially irreplaceable – we have some artwork in particular that we have sentimental attachment to and that simply could not be duplicated. Most everything else is on the block. We are reducing our house and property and belongings to cash. The majority of the cash will be invested in one way or another with a scheduled plan for liquidation. That schedule is flexible enough to allow for increased income or significant reduction in expenses. For example, we are looking at petsitter or housesitter type services. Using that option will bring our housing expense to zero for 2 or 10 or 18 weeks out of the year. We’ll withdraw less money for living expenses. If we can generate more income then our savings will stretch even further.
Secondly by accepting that there may be changes to our long-term plans. We are going on the road with the intent to stay nomadic throughout our retirement. Maybe it doesn’t work out for some reason. If we wind up starting over again back in the US 2 or 3 or 6 years down the road it’s not a failure; it’s experience gained. For myriad reasons we HAVE TO get out so we will go until we can’t stay gone.
Will it work out?
I am under no illusion that this is a guaranteed success or that we won’t struggle with some aspects of the budgeting or the routine moves. Not doing this guarantees failure. I would then be left to wonder if we could have had a more satisfying lifestyle.
It’s been just over a week now since we moved into our new temporary abode, marking the ‘for reals’ start of our transition to nomadic retirees.
We’ve been back out to the old house to clean, sort, discard, etc., a couple of times now but the 14 days post-closing occupancy has been SUPER as a stress reduction tool. We need to make one more trip to the old house to load up the last of the recycling and junk, basically a pickup load. Probably get that handled tomorrow.
On Saturday we had our first official interview as nomadic retirees for a pet & house sit opportunity. We rocked it, of course. This success solidifies our commitment to head to England in April 2024, providing a great anchor for our travel plans. Now our focus is on lining up a few more house sits, although it’s likely that we’ll be in Panama by the time we make significant progress due to the fact that most people don’t plan their travel dates that far ahead.
Speaking of Panama, I think I’ll be booking our flights this week. There is a PDX-PTY flight with a few hours layover in Houston that looks good except for the fact that it’s Untied Airlines and they’ve left me high and dry in the past. On the one hand, a single stop is appealing. On the other hand, of all the airlines that make me nervous about their ability to meet their commitments…..
There isn’t a huge variance in fares, really; we’ll fly economy so the range is sort of $230 to $350 pp. I hate being rushed in airports and there are a disturbing number of flight options with a 40 minute layover at one stop and like 9 hrs 52 min at the second stop. Maybe give me a 4.5 and a 5.5 ? <sigh>
I also have a little decision constipation about booking almost 6 months in advance so I need to work through that. I know I will feel better once the tickets are purchased. I also know I will probably wind up just taking the single hop through Houston because minimizing complications is good.
The other big project for this week was switching the budgeting and bill paying responsibilities over. Sandra has been handling our money almost exclusively for like (10? 15?) years now and with the switch in roles to her being the ‘primary earner’ and me being the gadabout, we swapped the money duties.
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