“Living” in another country

I have been dreaming about retiring abroad for a least 20 years. We always have traveled a lot, and I knew I wanted to take the next step when exploring the world. I pictured our retirement being staying in one location in another country for 2 to 3 months and getting involved in a community. We would really be living in another country instead of just visiting. We would be involved in volunteering, exercising, and doing activities in a foreign city. We might even get a part time job and contribute to the neighborhood. This would be the real way to learn new cultures; by being melded into our adopted community. We would still be travelers, and after a couple of months, we would pack up and find a new community to join. Eventually we would have friends and places all over the world that we could return to and “live” in retirement. That is not what our retirement turned out to be. It bothered us for a while… but not anymore. I will try to explain why that has not happened during our first 4 years of retirement.

Our biggest “problem” is that we travel way too fast. We like to stay 5 to 10 days in each city or area. We are still really excited to see new countries and don’t like just seeing a couple of areas in a country. We want to see EVERYTHING!!! That’s what just feels right for us. We have often felt a little guilty because we aren’t slowing done enough to really feel like we are “living” there. But this is what we want to do. We CAN do what we want. We SHOULD do what we want. We have now accepted that THIS IS WHAT WE WANT. We get a bit antsy when we have tried to stay longer than a few days. I can’t really say we are bored…. we just want to see something new all the time. We have heard a lot of nomads that just can’t stand moving as fast as we do. They say that it is just too stressful to pack up and move every week. We get this…. but we try really hard to make travel stress free. We book direct flight and try to keep buses and trains to 4 hours or less per day. We pack light and use carry-on luggage. We try to stay on public transportation but are not afraid to order an UBER on our transportation day to make our lives easier. Things might change when we get older, but right now we are really happy moving at our current speed.

We have tried some longer stays. We have stayed in Bucerias, Mexico for around a month for the last 5 years. I volunteer at a school which gives me something to do a couple of days per week. I have joined a Spanish conversation group which allows me to talk to locals and expats in Spanish. We know a lot about the town, but it is mostly just from going on to bars and restaurants and joining local Facebook groups. I don’t think I should be proud of knowing bartenders all over the world…. That isn’t what I envisioned when I thought I would become part of a foreign community.

This month, we have tried another experiment. We booked a whole month stay in Brisbane, Australia. We have seen all the big museums, walked a lot of the major trails, seen a lot of parks. We even did a lot of day trips outside of the city to for birdwatching or see some other beaches. It has been fun but I still can’t say that we tried very hard to be a part of the Brisbane community. We enjoyed ourselves but we are still just some Americans living in an Australian city and doing things by ourselves.

It isn’t easy to make friends even when we stay longer. We need to join things and be outgoing. That isn’t really our personality. Yes, we are competent social people that can survive in a variety of social situations but that is not our primary goal in being in a new city. We want to see things. That’s not how you meet people. We need to join things and get involved. We aren’t really motivated to do that. Our current hobbies are walking, hiking, biking, bird watching, and seeing culture through museums. Those aren’t things that you need to do with other people. We like to do those things as a couple….

We aren’t entirely without a community. We belong to a lot of Facebook groups of other retired nomads. We meet other people often to share our travel experiences and just talk to someone besides your spouse. We have met a lot of great people and some of them we have met multiple times in different countries and continents. We really enjoy these meetups as it gives us a lot of the community that we are missing from being away from our friends and family most of the year. And we like most of these like-minded people that are also traveling most or all of the year. We just don’t see them in person very often… They are important to use but we mostly just talk about our travel experiences. We absolutely think of many of them as friends, but most don’t really know that much about us other than where we have been and what I write on this blog. Not many of those friends even know our kid’s names… or even if we have kids…. That is very different from all those years of our friends being a part of our lives with sports teams, school activities, and scouting. It was so much easier to meet people when you are parents and are connected by kids’ activities. But, we have met some incredible people traveling these last 4 years who we can absolutely be friends with. Unfortunately… sometimes it is months or years before we are in the same country again.

We know some nomads that are way better at “living” in other countries. Some people can just meet people easier and know how to join groups in new places. They stay longer in places and often are housesitting or pet sitting. We hear stories about people with friends all over the world from their long stays in each country. I want to be clear that I am not comparing myself to the long stay nomads. I am only comparing our style to what I thought our retirement would be like. It might be a personality thing but that just doesn’t seem like us. After talking to many other nomads…. I don’t really think most nomads are like this either. Many people talk about making some acquittances during their long stays, but most don’t make deep friendships. I am beginning to feel better about our lack of success on breaking into new communities.

So while “living” in another country isn’t quite as easy I dreamed about 20 years ago, I am quite fine with the way things turned out. We are really enjoying traveling the world and are no longer feeling guilty that we are moving too fast. This is what we want, right now. That may change over time, and that’s OK too. As for community…. we are also surprised by how connected we are to the online nomad community. This wasn’t a thing even 5 years ago. We have been to over 30 meetups and we really enjoy talking to like-minded travelers. We do have friends all over the world and we just see those connections growing in the future. We are going keep “Living in other countries in OUR own way” in our crazy retirement.