We are a couple in our 60’s, retired since June of 2017. We loved living in San Diego, but we also love to travel. We juggled our work schedules and traveled often, both domestically and internationally, generally fairly low-budget. When we began looking more closely toward retirement, we were faced with a dilemma. Yes, our projected retirement budget would allow us to stay in high-cost San Diego, but we would be unable to travel as much as we would like. Thus began a year-long period of intensive research.
Based upon this research, we are traveling full-time and investigating various lower-cost retirement destinations, both internationally (expat), and domestically (or not). Our research told us that we should be able to accomplish this exploratory adventure for less than our living expenses in San Diego. After a year of travel, this expectation has held true, and the exploration continues.
When we started out, we were looking for a single destination. At the end of a year’s travel, we are now contemplating the idea of multiple part-time retirement destinations.
Our intention is to keep our readers posted with entertaining and practical details: planning, logistics, decision-making, means of travel, highlights, and challenges, as well as our itemized expenses, and all of our “what were we thinking” moments.
Why Follow Us
- You have thought about doing a similar adventure but can’t spare the time or don’t have the money or any number of other real or imagined excuses.
- You are curious about the idea of living overseas but are overwhelmed, just as we are, by all the choices.
- You wonder if it’s true that many of these potential expat destinations will cost you less to live comfortably compared to where you are currently living.
- You want to get an idea of how to integrate travel hacking into full-time traveling.
- You want to figure out how to use timeshares effectively. We own timeshares (WorldMark, Marriott, Hilton Vacation Club, and Starwood) purchased on the resale market and have gotten outsized value from them. Our plan is to integrate them into our travels to lower our cost of accommodations.
- You want a consistent perspective across multiple expat destinations from people who are seasoned budget travelers and are not trying to sell conferences, real estate, legal or other services. (Disclaimer: We did obtain some valuable and useful information from these sources.)
- You are wondering what could possibly prompt someone to want to do such a wackadoo thing, and you want to follow along with our adventures and misadventures.
- You are our family and friends and want to keep up with us
Yes, of course, we will have some bias, but we will attempt to report as objectively as possible. We can make this exploratory journey with confidence because of the many who have gone before us and shared their experiences. We are hoping that our experiences will encourage and assist others to follow.
Ian & Ann