What's up from FUEGO (aka Root of Good aka Justin). Long time, no post.
I do lurk every year or so a bit, and still recognize a bunch of names in this thread. TeeJ1985 summoned me from the shadows with a timely message letting me know folks here remembered me
A not-so-brief update: I just celebrated 11 years of successful early retirement a few days ago. I have no clue how I ever had time to work.
We do in fact travel for 2+ months straight each summer with our kids, and have done that for 10 years (other than summer of 2020 where we mostly stared at our living room walls like 8 billion other people).
Long term trips:
- Mexico
- USA/Canada road trip x2
- USA East Coast-West Coast-East Coast road trip
- SE Asia (Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam)
- Europe x3
- Bahamas
- Argentina (BA and coastal Patagonia) and Brazil
I figure those trips add up to about 1.5 years of living on the road. We've also taken a ton of 1-2 week cruises and other 1-2 week trips here and there during retirement.
Each trip was my favorite in its own way. Lots of learning along the way, and a shift in travel style as we've "done everything and seen everything" long ago. Yet if you look at a map of the world with the spots we've visited we have hardly seen anything, so we still have a lot of road left to travel.
I haven't updated my "list" of countries and states visited but pretty sure I'm over 40 countries and about 40 states. I'm not trying to visit every country and every state but figure I will see another several dozen countries in my life plus the remaining ~10 states eventually.
A great pride and joy is that I got to take my kids on all these adventures, although we've never taken them to Disney World (and we're only a couple states away). I don't think us parents or our kids regret the lack of Disney a single bit though!
Financially, we went from 1.3M net worth in 2013 to ~3.3M today. Without crunching the numbers, I'm certain portfolio gains were the biggest driver. My blog/side hustle/misc income stream was a secondary factor since it covers a big part of our spending in many years.
About traveling: I used to think I wanted to be a nomad. Due to practical reasons of having a family and kids in school, it was easier to maintain a long term home base here in Raleigh. Our fixed housing costs are pretty miniscule and the enjoyment from having somewhere to call home and return to is immense. Although I thoroughly enjoy about 90-95% of the time we spend traveling, I am rarely sad that I am returning home (if that makes sense). My king size bed, the AC, my kitchen, a clothes dryer, a driveway where I can always park my car, most people speak English so we can communicate easily, etc.
The sweet spot for us has been spending summers on the road when the kids are out of school. This usually means peak season trips and dealing with heat, crowds, and higher prices. We generally try to avoid the heat and the crowds (and sometimes the higher prices) by being judicious with where we travel and trying to go to awesome places before they become overrun with tourists.
With our ~2 month trips, we usually try to do a week in each place at a minimum, unless we need a 1-2 night stopover on the way to some other destination. I don't know if we could survive a 2 month trip where most stays were under a week. The longer stays allow us plenty of laid back days where we either "do nothing" or only have a few hours of planned outings during the day. An itinerary that most people cram into 2 days can easily take us a full week. We have the luxury of time and the luxury of money for lodgings, so we can afford to take it easy.
Sometimes we stay in the city or in the burbs, and enjoy the amenities that cities have (restaurants, groceries, tons of history/sightseeing). Other times we stay out in the countryside in the middle of nowhere and deal with the occasional struggle. Things like <1 mbit internet service split between one or more families, and no restaurants/groceries nearby.
My wife enjoys the quieter settings in the country and I'm starting to come around to the same opinion. Less noise, no crowds, and prettier natural scenery. The downside is that we have to drive everywhere, and sometimes spend a lot of time on the road for shopping and dining out instead of just walking downstairs or a block away. At least the country roads come with beautiful scenery.
Lately, we've been going on a lot of cruises during the school year. We have 5 cruises of 11-14 days each booked for the fall/winter/spring and will probably add another 1-2 more. Basically one every month till June other than taking a break for December so we can be home with family for Thanksgiving/Christmas.
As for our kids, the oldest 2 are in their last year of college at age 18 and 19. The youngest is in 7th grade now. We don't know what the future holds for our travel plans with or without kids, but it appears the oldest 2 might be too busy to spend 2+ months globetrotting with mom and dad during summers. Who knows if we'll continue traveling with our son who will be a teenager next summer. Or if we leave him with his sisters, or take shorter trips.
We've realized that vacationing in Europe, even at mid-range lodgings, is like camping. We like Europe (mountains, rivers/lakes/beaches, castles, historic cities) but the relative lack of creature comforts along the way can be trying at times. Yes, we are in fact spoiled Americans, ha ha ha. My wife swore off Europe "for the indefinite future" by the end of our 9 weeks in Poland. And now 2 weeks later she wants to go back to Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (and maybe Italy/Slovenia) to visit the Alps next summer. So we'll see.
For now, we have no plans to go full-nomad but we may do more or longer trips in the future. Or not. Who knows. A lot will change for us as we become empty nesters (or at least our need to constantly be at home to take care of kids).
