and how can I be one????
M and I have been drawn to the lifestyle of the Retired Nomad. We love to travel a lot, for extended times, and we strive to have a reduced stress life that comes with owning less stuff. We have learned a lot about this lifestyle and nomadic community and are getting sucked into it further. We are a transitionary period in our life and have learned a lot from the Retired Nomad community that is really a diverse group that accepts all types of travelers including all of the “non-retired nomads” listed below. Before I try to define a Retired Nomad, let me try and explain some things that it isn’t (as we look at how we define ourselves). :>)
- Digital Nomad – The Retired Nomads community is not young tech bros that have figured out that you don’t need to live in the same town as your employer in the post pandemic world. Our community is for people that are retired and living on pensions, social security, or investments. Some of us have side hustles to earn some extra money, but the majority of our income is passive.
- RV’ers and Vanlifers – This is a huge community with their own blogs, vlogs, and websites. There is a lot of overlap with Retired Nomads, but our community for the most part, does not travel fulltime in a vehicle. We prefer to not own anything that will limit us to one continent or where we can drive.
- Expats – There are many people that sell their house and move to another country fulltime. If you end up living in a new country permanently, you aren’t nomadic, you are an expat.
- Snowbirds – Lots of people in the colder states and provinces of North America travel to a warmer spot for the cold months of the year. If you end up having a Northern home and a Southern place that you always go to then you still aren’t a true nomad.
- Youtube Travel Vloggers – While many senior nomads love to share their experiences in blogs and vlogs, if you are doing it fulltime for income, then it becomes a job. Retired Nomads don’t have full time jobs.
- Vacation Travelers – If you are retired and go on lots of vacations, then you still aren’t really nomadic, you are just a good traveler. Officially we are still in this category but if we continue to travel 6-9 months of the year then we can probably cross the gray line into a retired nomad.
So my definition of a Retired Nomad is- someone who has retired and are traveling the world full time (or the vast majority of the time). Their home has been sold or rented out, and most of their former possessions are now in their luggage, a storage unit, or their kids’ attics. But Bill you say…. you guys just bought a new house, how can you say that you are a Retired Nomad? We aren’t…. but we are still traveling the majority of the year so we have a lot in common with those who are truly nomadic. The retired nomad community is open to everyone including many of those categories I outlined up above. Traveling research can be difficult and it is great to share places you have been and some of the challenges of not being in a permanent home for long stretches of time. We share tips and hacks of nomadic travel on Facebook groups and in meetups in other countries. Many of us have blogs and YouTube vlogs to share interesting locations around the world. We get inspired to go to new places by reading travel blogs and watching travel YouTube videos. We may end up renting out our home someday and becoming a fulltime nomad… or we may end up being expats or snowbirds… but for now we are happy living in Seattle for the summers and traveling most of the rest of the year.
So traveling fulltime sounds amazing, but how can you afford it? It really doesn’t have to be that expensive. Many people are living in some really cool places for $2000 or less per month. In many countries in the world it is possible to rent Airbnb’s for $1000 or less for a month, especially if you commit to staying for a couple of months. Many people are house sitting so they can stay for free. There are several websites to find house-sits but we have never done it, so I can’t really recommend a specific one. Staying in houses with kitchens make it easy to cook most of your own food. Groceries are also much more reasonable in many parts of the world. We stay in places within walking distance to attractions and grocery stores or on transit lines so we don’t need to rent a car. Health Insurance is expensive even if you are old enough for medic aid and a very complicated topic. There are some reasonable international travel insurance plans but many people opt to stay on Obamacare plans and visit their doctors when they travel back to the US to visit friends and family. Some people rely on emergency health care provided by other countries but that can be really risky. Some YouTube nomads such as Tim and Amy Rutherford have some good videos about this one including this one from early 2022. They recommend using an insurance broker like this one.
One of the biggest obstacles to this lifestyle is giving up your stuff. We have downsized a lot from our house to move into our much smaller townhouse. It has been a lot of work of selling and giving stuff to charity but it wouldn’t take much more to sell the rest of our stuff except for some photos and keepsakes we would put in a storage unit. Everyone that has done it say how free they feel when they finally do it. Stuff if just way overrated.
The next step in long term traveling is travel planning. Long term traveling is like vacation planning but it becomes a little more important to get right if you reserve an Airbnb for 3 months instead of just 3 days. Everyone plans travel differently. Some people still travel without much planning and it works out great but we have our own travel planning process that I have written about here. and next level planning I wrote about here.
Where can I learn more about slow traveling and Retired Nomads? There some great books, vlogs and websites out there from people that have made the leap to full time traveling.
Home Sweet Anywhere by Lynne Martin
Your Keys, Our Home by Debbie and Michael Campbell
Debbie and Michael also have a travel blog Senior Nomads and have started a facebook group called Senior Nomads
Two Carry Ons and a Plan by Chris Englert
Tim and Amy Rutherford have a vlog primarily focused on the money side of full time retirement traveling. They also have a facebook group with a lot of senior nomads.
Brian and Carrie have a vlog on their full time traveling experiences.
Nomadic Matt is a blog with a lot of good useful full time traveling tips.
Trip Advisor is also one of my favorite resources. especially the travel forums
There are a LOT of other great full time travel vlogs out there but many are doing it to make a living and aren’t really focused on the idea of retired full time traveling. I spend a lot of time on YouTube and it seems that every tourist town in the world has many YouTube travel videos on it. Of course there are many more bad travel vlogs than good useful vlogs.
There are a lot of great travel blogs out there and I can waste a lot of hours reading about other peoples adventures and getting new ideas on where to go. Some I will create a list of my favorites but that is going to be a future links section of this blog. It is going to take some work…
There is so so many different ways to do full time travel. There are so many different kinds of people in this world and so many different places. It is hard to find what works best for you. We are still trying to figure it out and probably will be for the rest of our travel life.