Any gypsynesters?

[vafoodie]

My husband and I hope to be able to country hop and live for a few months at a time in different places. Anyone on this board doing/done that? Not sure which forum to hunt for this kind of thing.

 

[rodi]

There are a couple of people who do this - but it seems COVID has put the lifestyle on hold. I think Candrew is one of them.

 

[pb4uski]

Yup.... U.S citizens won't be doing it in Europe for a while... or even Canada for that matter.

 

[Big_Hitter]

Yup.... U.S citizens won't be doing it in Europe for a while... or even Canada for that matter.

we were planning to come visit the NE/Burlington later this year too....DW has a family reunion in late Sept in PA and we were going to hit VT

I don't think we are going to travel anytime soon

 

[HarveyS]

We are getting geared up to do something similar. Sold the house and put everything we wanted to keep in storage. Hitting the road in July and will hop around the US until December. AirBNB, VRBO style lodging -- no RV for us. Then planning to hop to Europe and stay/travel for a few years. If Europe is closed to us, plan B is to keep hopping in the USA. If the pandemic is still a raging issue we will long-term rent a place in US and hunker down.

 

[Olbidness]

I am currently living full time in my RV. My plan is to do combination of domestic and international travel. I have a secure place to store the RV when I travel internationally.
Of course all plans are on hold per COVID-19 travel restrictions. All I’m doing now is making repairs/upgrades to the RV in preparation to be on the move.

 

[vafoodie]

Let’s keep in touch and compare notes. I’m still in the planning stages and hope to learn from this board.

 

[DD4L]

While we have no choice in pandemic lockdown I thoroughly recommend the US road trip option.

Before heading back to UK we finished the country off with a road trip that took us from OKC to Roswell, White Sands, Tombstone, Tempe, Scottsdale, Sedona, Flagstaff, Petrified Forest, Winslow (meteor crater and standing on the corner Eagles style) finally Albuquerque with all the Breaking Bad haunts (spoiler alert owner of Walter Whites house doesn’t like you visiting - why buy the house? *) then back to OKC via Cadillac ranch.

Rest of AZ and southern UT is also pretty awesome from previous road trips [emoji594] [emoji266] [emoji902]

 

[vafoodie]

You all are braver than us. We will keep our vacation house as a base that we also rent out for short term
Rentals. My project for the next two years is purging our current residence, so we can sell or rent it.

 

[brett]

After retirement we sold and traveled for six month. Europe, Africa, US, Costa Rica. We did one month condo rental in Costa Rica and used it as a base. Also a few last minute cruises-Med, Transatlantic, Xmas, and March break.

Since retiring nine years ago we typically do two eight/nine week trips per year. Europe in the fall. Somewhere warm in the winter-SE Asia, Australia, or Mexico so far. Time limitation is based on our out of country medical and DW's preference.

We typically try to spend at least four days, more often a week in one place. We book a few days in advance for two or three nights. If we like it we stay.
Last fall in Greece it was a week on each of three Ionian Islands, two weeks in Cyprus, plus some other spots in between. In SE Asia it is always a month or so in Thailand followed by time in Vietnam, or a flight south to Australia.

We switched to carry on only. We only want to take what we can each physically handle. Not for everyone but it certainly works for us.

 

[projectmaximus]

My husband and I hope to be able to country hop and live for a few months at a time in different places. Anyone on this board doing/done that? Not sure which forum to hunt for this kind of thing.

No but I sure love reading about it! Great thread

We have a short-ish term plan to be a nomad family in about 5 years. Of course our concerns and circumstances are different from yours since we have young kids and the fact that we aren't actually RE, just FI. The first step is to become an expat family (next fall in Taipei). Then maybe 5ish years later we'll make the jump to full time travel. I'd like to give it a try for 2 years and then we could either return to the US for high school years or keep on nomading if everyone is on board.

The very long term plan would be to "gypsynest" once the youngins have left the nest.

 

[vafoodie]

This has been our long term plan for awhile, and wouldn’t you know it, as it becomes close to a reality, this pandemic happens.

 

[Palmtree]

After retirement we sold and traveled for six month. Europe, Africa, US, Costa Rica. We did one month condo rental in Costa Rica and used it as a base. Also a few last minute cruises-Med, Transatlantic, Xmas, and March break.

Since retiring nine years ago we typically do two eight/nine week trips per year. Europe in the fall. Somewhere warm in the winter-SE Asia, Australia, or Mexico so far. Time limitation is based on our out of country medical and DW's preference.

We typically try to spend at least four days, more often a week in one place. We book a few days in advance for two or three nights. If we like it we stay.
Last fall in Greece it was a week on each of three Ionian Islands, two weeks in Cyprus, plus some other spots in between. In SE Asia it is always a month or so in Thailand followed by time in Vietnam, or a flight south to Australia.

You are living my dream.

 

[vafoodie]

After retirement we sold and traveled for six month. Europe, Africa, US, Costa Rica. We did one month condo rental in Costa Rica and used it as a base. Also a few last minute cruises-Med, Transatlantic, Xmas, and March break.

Since retiring nine years ago we typically do two eight/nine week trips per year. Europe in the fall. Somewhere warm in the winter-SE Asia, Australia, or Mexico so far. Time limitation is based on our out of country medical and DW's preference.

We typically try to spend at least four days, more often a week in one place. We book a few days in advance for two or three nights. If we like it we stay.
Last fall in Greece it was a week on each of three Ionian Islands, two weeks in Cyprus, plus some other spots in between. In SE Asia it is always a month or so in Thailand followed by time in Vietnam, or a flight south to Australia.

We switched to carry on only. We only want to take what we can each physically handle. Not for everyone but it certainly works for us.

Brett—how does medical insurance work when you travel? Fortunately, we have never gotten sick on any of our travels. We are 5-6 years out from Medicare, so don’t know if we’ll have private insurance or Medicare. Depends on when we both retire.

 

[brett]

We are both now in our late sixties. We live in Canada. I have a sixty day out of country medical benefit from my company pension. In the past we have purchased additional days from a third party to supplement when necessary.

We have only ever made one claim. In Malaysia six years ago for cracked vertabrae. Half day in hospital, exrays, consult, MRi, consult, script for one week, full written report, the xrays and a CD from the MRI. $850 CAD ($600USD). Insurance claim submitted and paid in 10 business days. My spouse is a nurse. She was incredibly impressed with the care and with the consultants.

We are a little concerned that this pension benefit may disappear post covid. We are well aware that a two month policy will be expensive now that we are in our late 60’s.

Our advice...just do it. Have a rough idea of where you want to go but only plan a few days or a week in advance. And pack light....a 20 “ international size carry on roller.

 

[bearkeley]

Never heard of the term before, but guess we are Gypsynesters! We retired early 5 years ago and have been snowbirding, mostly Southern Hemisphere (Australia, Asia, South America) from November to April or May so my husband can get back home to our house in Va before the grass grows too high! One year, we took our boat down the ICW to the Keys.

We had intended to list our house for sale this spring but because of Covid, put it off a few months. Once we sell the house, the plan will be to continue to travel to warm places in the winter, travel via a campervan during the summer, the spend spring and fall at the condo in Florida. We have a very active lifestyle (boating, hiking, diving, fishing, etc) and enjoy experiencing how people live in different parts of the world...guess that’s what other gypsies like as well?

Re: insurance....we use Geoblue. About 1k for 6 months at 100% coverage anywhere in the world other than the IUS. Requires US medical insurance to qualify....we are on Obamacare so it works well!

This year will be odd given that Americans probably won’t be welcome anywhere, so we will most likely stay on the boat.

Happy to share more if you’d like more insight!

Sent from my iPad

 

[Olbidness]

I follow 2 blogs that I’ll use as a rough guide gocurrycracker for the international travels and we’retherussos for the domestic. I’m going to try and do a hybrid of the two.

I was able to travel the lower 48 14000 miles in 2018 and 2019 to Alaska and back for another 14k or so. 2020 is turning out to be a bust thus far.

I got the idea from tiogageogre who passed away many years ago. He was an inspiration to me in that he was a cancer survivor with limited funds and managed to travel the US and Mexico always seemed to face many challenges with a hopeful attitude.

 

[vafoodie]

Bearkeley—We are Virginians too! i definitely will have more questions.

 

[werdone]

We planned for 3 years before selling house and going fulltime in RV in Oct 2018. I was still working remotely (seperation package June '19). We are landlubbers for sure and have been doing domestic travel. Would like to to do some travel in Canada(maybe 2022?) Moving to a smaller rig this fall/winter to get to more out of the way places (40ft Diesel Pusher right now). The virus has not impacted us much due to the way we travel, we do not stay in parks. I have VA and we use cash/HSA for DW medical/dental. We have found that private clinics can be very cost effective if you are paying in cash. I wish I had built up the HSA more before going fulltime. Little tip: use roof mounted satellite dishes.. Elk can't reach them.

 

[candrew]

Country hopping and living in various locales for extended periods has been our choice since we ER'd in 2016.

We typically return to the U.S. for brief visits with family & friends for of a couple of months each year.

During 2017, we split time between living in New Zealand, Italy & Mexico.

In 2018, we lived the entirety of that year in Costa Rica.

In 2019 and into January of this year, we hopped between New Zealand, Morocco, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, France & Mexico. A return home from Mexico in late January with the intention of spending a couple of months seeing family has now effectively trapped us with the spread of COVID - killing our original plan of living in Oaxaca City, MX for this year.

We are very anxious to get back out there.

 

[old medic]

We plan on touring the US in an RV in the next few years....
Looking at camp hosting, stay free for a few months, work like 20 hr a week... have a home base and explore the area... then move on...
To practice ... we have been living in a 5th wheel camper almost 3 years already...
Well really its because we are restoring a house into our retirement home.
We currently camp and travel.... 3 1/2 week, 3000 mile trip to Maine last year...
Was planning a Tx run this year but COVID halted that....

 

[Paracelsus]

I've got two friends that are kind of doing the gypsynesting right now. They had moved to Chile about two years ago for retirement. They traveled back to the US to take care of one of their moms in fall. She got better, but now they can't return to Chile because of Covid-19. They will be moving in with me for about two months. I'm undergoing a hip replacement, so they will be around to help me with that. Afterwards they're moving to another friend for another two months and hopefully will be able to return to Chile early next year.

 

[sengsational]

...

I thought RV parks were the only option, and so I never considered RV life. The idea of parking 15 feet away from other random people doesn't appeal to me. I've heard of "boondocking", but didn't get the idea that it could be a very long term thing. At minimum, you'd need to add/remove to/from tanks of various types, so driving somewhere to do that on a certain schedule. And finding places where you could be there not only legally, but also not unwelcome seemed like a challenge. If you find a list of spots, you'd probably arrive to a crowd as bad as an RV park, hehehe!

 

[werdone]

The thing that appealed to us about this lifestyle was the flexibility. You can change things up on a whim. We knew in the planning stage that we were going to "boondock" as much as possible and made changes to our rig to make it easier. (solar, custom electrical, lithium batteries etc). You do have to think about managing your resources (water, waste dumping, maint, etc) but that becomes just another routine like we had in the house just different. Finding places to camp does take a little research but there are lots of tools and plenty of advice for the community. It sort becomes a game to me and a little fun. We do have friends that are more the RV resort type and they will mix a little "boondocking" in to change things up. Your version of this lifestyle is entirely up to you...and if your not happy with it you can change it.

 

[vafoodie]

What do you pack?

Would be very interested in seeing a packing list.

Country hopping and living in various locales for extended periods has been our choice since we ER'd in 2016.

We typically return to the U.S. for brief visits with family & friends for of a couple of months each year.

During 2017, we split time between living in New Zealand, Italy & Mexico.

In 2018, we lived the entirety of that year in Costa Rica.

In 2019 and into January of this year, we hopped between New Zealand, Morocco, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, France & Mexico. A return home from Mexico in late January with the intention of spending a couple of months seeing family has now effectively trapped us with the spread of COVID - killing our original plan of living in Oaxaca City, MX for this year.

We are very anxious to get back out there.