Full Time Travel - PROS and CONS | Retirement Travel

have you ever thought about traveling the world fulltime well we've been traveling for the past four years and even after that much time we still look at each other and say can you believe that this is our life now we knew it was something that we'd love to do but we had no idea that it would fall into place so well and that traveling would actually be so easy so today we're going to talk about what our lives are really like as we travel the world full-time we'll answer many of the questions we get and tell you some of the pros and cons of traveling the world fulltime so let's get going we're John and Bev and we are the retirement Travelers now before we get started we want to remind you that we do have a website and here we write about all the places that we go we also have a newsletter and we'll put the link below in the description now if you're wondering where we are as we travel the world you can always keep track of us by looking on Instagram we keep our location updated there so follow along and be sure you hit subscribe here it really does help us out I retired at the end of 2019 and we planned to do some traveling now we had dreamed of traveling abroad but since that wasn't really a good option at that time we took off to see all the beautiful national parks in the lower 48 in a truck and an Airstream now during that trip we traveled over 40,000 miles and checked off the remaining states that we hadn't visited now after seeing all 51 of the parks and our 50th state North Dakota we started off in our adventures abroad now in the middle of this journey through the states we decided to sell our home and give away all of our stuff we've done a couple of videos on the process so you can go back and watch them if you're interested but we will say that fully downsizing our lives have opened up the world to us and given us a new lease on life we highly recommend this process if you plan to travel fulltime now since our time in the states we've traveled to six continents and visited about 70 countries our plan is to travel for the really for the foreseeable future now when we started we thought we'd travel for maybe 10 years or so and then stop but you know at this point we plan to just keep traveling as long as we physically can yeah probably our biggest revelation of this lifestyle has been the amount of learning that we've had we told ourselves that the world had a lesson to teach us and promised each other that we would be open to that lesson that we wouldn't predetermine what we needed to learn we'd be patient to see it revealed to us I think we talked about this in one of our early videos at every turn we learn something new you know and we aren't just talking about building a website or a YouTube channel that's hard enough very very hard but it's all the other things that we've learned you know we are constantly learning new facts history you know flags of each country their capitals artworks it just has simply exceeded you know what we had imagined we always appreciated our world but you know we didn't imagine just how accessible it would be to us you know we never dreamed that we could just maneuver through all these different cultures and countries and feel like we're part of each one at this point in our journey we feel that the biggest lesson we've learned so far is that we have to turn negatives into positives I mean everything we do every day is different from the food we eat to the pill we sleep on to the paths we take now before we left we repeated the same thing every day everything was the same we were set in our habits now on the road we have no habits I mean our lives are different every day who we meet what we eat where we go so our first big lesson was to embrace ambiguity we we were just never certain of anything and and that's really kind of beautiful so let's talk about the actual Journey you know we aren't slow Travelers and and we don't consider ourselves budget Travelers we kind of like to think of ourselves as bargain Travelers you know we're always on the hunt to make our money stretch but overall you know we travel fairly fast you know moving locations about a week at a time you know sometimes our locations are are two hours away on a train so we travel regionally and it might seem like a lot of moving but it's it's really not when you when you travel you know just a short distance away now rather than sit in one spot and do day trips we just pack up our bags you know we travel light and just move on down the road yeah our favorite length of each location is a week now we both carry a backpack and we've learned that the secret to successful travel is to be nimble and very very light in our pack and we carry one week's worth of clothes and we don't carry anything for the just inase scenario I mean we try to travel to warm locations but not hot locations this year we did a couple of road trips with Dental cars through Ireland Scotland and the pharoh islands but for the most part our favorite mode of transportation is train travel because I don't have to drive yeah that's true I don't like that we've also taken some buses which we have determined is better than a car but not as great as a train uh We've hired some drivers and of course we take some you know flights when necessary um we've taken our fair share of fairies as well and uh we will hop on a cruise when we know that it can get it us to a location that we can't get to easily like the South Pacific or our most recent transatlantic Cruise back to the States one of our favorite things we've done this year is to accept invitations to stay with people who follow us now we stayed with a couple in New Zealand and loved every minute of it we also stayed with a couple in Sweden that we had actually met in Spain now in both cases they took the time to show us their corner of the world and we felt so blessed to have made these new friends you know we also met you know people for dinner and we met some lovely people on the two cruises that we took all of this has led us to have many Great Moments in our travels you know when we started this trip we didn't realize that we would make so many new friends as we went along but we have one of our biggest surprises is the pride that we see from locals in their home country especially small countries now we first noticed this in Guatemala when we met a local the first question was what do you think of our country now when we do a video about a small country we often get comments saying thank you for showing our country in a positive light it happens a lot and I think this has surprised us no matter where we go people love where they are from and and we're really no different that's right so let's get into some of the questions you know when we started traveling abroad we stayed exclusively in Airbnb but over the past year or so we've switched to hotels since we weren't long-term renters you know we think that this fit our travel style much better you know we've done a couple of videos on Airbnb so be sure to check those out and that leads us to our first question that we get often and that is if you're staying at a hotel how do you cook your meals do you eat out all the time well here's the answer you know we eat out most of the time you know usually we book hotels that include breakfast and we eat a really really big breakfast and we try to do it as late as possible in the morning you know our goal is to eat only one more meal during the day and really the truth is after raising our family and being retired we're frankly kind of tired of cooking or she's she's tired of cooking I didn't do that much cooking so eating out one meal a day is no big deal to us you know we want to try the Local Foods anyway and you know we do well with this plan you know sometimes we buy a salads or a rotisserie chicken at the supermarket and you know make it a picnic you know we try to find a nice place to go eat and and that works out great for us really good for us yeah you know we've stayed in some apartment hotels as well and when they have a kitchen we do use it occasionally yeah but for the most part we just find an adequate nice place to eat yeah now here's the con of this method we have to be extra careful what we choose to eat uh we are usually very hungry by the time we eat this second meal right and uh we are tempted very much by pasta and pizza so we and gelato Ang gelato we know that we have to resist and resisting is difficult when you're very hungry especially if we've walked all day long so we make a point to eat fish as much as possible and we often times order a large salad to share as an appetizer our rule is no fried foods but sometimes those salty french fries are calling our name the other thing that we have to be really careful of is &ms and Pringles now these are in every single country and they're so convenient so we try to resist them but we don't always do that do we yeah we've been pretty good okay another question that we often get asked is about mail you know how do we manage our mail well first the federal government you know requires a physical address I they want to be able to send you that little love letter yes they they want their tax money for some reason okay for the first couple of years my sister managed all of our mail and she did a great job of opening up all the important things and and holding the junk mail for us to look at when we got back now now we have a mail service it's called myrvmail you know we have an affiliate link below if you're looking for a great mail service yeah it's really easy now the way this works is that they give us a physical address and all of our mail goes to them they scan each Envelope as it comes in and they send us an email with a scan so we can kind of see what what it is now when they will either open it scan it shred it or forward it now we choose to have ours forwarded most of the time but occasionally we'll ask them to scan it because we're just curious about what it is and whether it's junk we don't want to be forwarding things that we know we don't really need but there have been times when we needed something open and scan and it and it is simple and straightforward we did a couple of things to get ourselves ready for travel now first we've enabled paperless statements you know for almost everything like all of our Banking and Investments you know at the end of the year we get our tax documents but for the most part we we don't get much mail I mean we we don't like snail mail okay we've also gone online and requested our name and address to be eliminated from the junk mail list we'll leave the link below for how you can do this as well yeah but for the most part this system works wonderful for us we did have a problem with Oceanic cruises they love cataloges big big thick heavy catalogs but we went to their website and entered our mailing code from our mailer and this has stopped now overall dealing with our your mail should not hinder you from traveling and there are solutions and this is working great for us another question we get is what travel immunizations have we taken now we've taken just about everything yeah we even took ravy shots in case we got scratched or bitten by a monkey which was a distinct possibility in a few places now we've gotten Japanese and sephtis and all of our menitis vaccines we you know we've gotten everything recommended because our plan is really to travel everywhere you know when we downsized our home we gathered all of our imun ization records and I put it into a spreadsheet so from our you know from our baby years all the way up till now it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing it's very handy and we know what years we need boosters and how long each one lasts yeah the con is that travel vaccinations are very expensive I I don't remember the total cost but it seems like we spent about we spent several thousand doing this now that we've traveled abroad we think you can get most of these Elsewhere for much less like Malaysia or Thailand now we also know that you can get a free yellow fever vaccination in the Bogata airport the cost you pay here is probably the same as a entire weekend in bogot so book that trip for a fun long weekend you know if nothing else Bogata is more fun than a Travel Clinic would you say that's right now who doesn't love to go on vacation and get shots now when we went through the bogat airport we actually visited the clinic to check it out out and and ask them do they offer any other vaccinations but other than that they don't Our advice is if you plan to travel research what you need and ask your doctor we went to Passport Health and that was pretty easy and and pretty straightforward really they prescribed our malaria meds and all the other things that we needed people often ask us how we plan our trips when we're on the road now our very first year being on the road we planned everything before we left we felt a bit confined as we were traveling and so we ended up making changes now this we liked being flexible but we soon discovered that you know trying to travel and make new plans was very difficult so we switched it up and we only make travel plans twice a year when we come off the road so what we do is we pencil in two years of where we'd like to go and when we come home we sit down and do all the trip planning not for the immediate trip but the one that's 6 to 12 months out you know so we we are about to take off you know to India but these plans have actually been finalized for about 6 months now you know we have to be very very organized and make take very good notes mess up if you don't take good notes that's right we we don't have good memories anymore you know but being organized is the key and we're going to be doing a video on this soon so uh stay tuned it's coming yeah the downside to this is spontaneity now as we travel we learn from locals or other Travelers about their path or their recommendations and because we are planned so tightly we can't make changes it's hard when you want to see it all and do it all that brings us to another issue trying to do it all you know we've heard from other Travelers who insist they're they AR they aren't tourists but rather living their lives on the road you know we get what they mean but for us we're trying to blog our locations and make travel guides and for us to do this well you know and be able to make recommendations we got to do LS of different things you know we like museums and excursions and we like to incorporate all of these into our plans so that we can give an honest assessment and tell you what's worth doing yeah our blog would be pretty flat if we just told you all of the things you could do and not do them so while we don't take the extreme that we need to do everything in every city we try to create a great experience for ourselves and for our readers do we do everything in every city well no but we do say occasionally to each other well we'll do that next time that's right now we have several tips on saving money we love to save money okay but love to save now our favorite hands down is the world of H hack it's a good one it's a good one now check out our video for how this money-saving hack works we get so many free hotel stays every year I mean Lots like you know probably two months worth you know by using our Chase Sapphire Reserve card it's a great hack it's the only way we use our points these days because of really the incredible bargain that we get and we have a video that explains how to do this speaking of Chase with this card we get three times the points for all travel related expenses like hotels flights and meals now this adds up and while we pay an annual fee that is high we still come out on top we highly recommend a travel credit card and if our only perk was airport lounges we would be happy but there is so much more just like the high it hack now if you're looking for a credit card check out our link below we're sometimes ask about how we manage our money as we travel so first we have a financial advisor URS advisory that manages all of our investments you know Julia and Eric are like family to us and they support us and cheer us on all the time you know knowing that they're taking care of all of our daily details you know helps us have a better Journey you know when we need to discuss something there always ready with a video conference you know they have digitized all of our information they store it in a digital Vault for us you know we'll have their link below as well you know they have a new YouTube channel as well so follow them uh for some great financial advice yeah it just makes me smile just talking about them we do all of our Banking online as well to to do this you need a VPN on your computer and phone so that you can manage two Factor authorization a lot of banks won't allow you to log in from overseas with a VPN you can set your location for the United States even though you're abroad it's worked great for us we'll leave our link below and as far as cash goes we use very little you know instead we use Apple pay you know on our phones and watches we pay everything this way I think in Europe for the past four months I don't think we ever pulled out a credit card you know it was only when we walked into a Walmart in the United States that we needed a card you know when we were in back out to the car and get it that's right now when we were in Asia this year we needed some cash and when we do that we use an ATM attached to a bank you know we have a dedicated debit card that doesn't charge us any foreign transaction fees now this is with Capital One and we set all that up online yeah we haven't had any Visa problems except in Vietnam they took a little longer than they said on their website so that almost caused us a disaster two hours yeah but we've learned our lesson and we apply for visas well ahead of time most countries allow for E visas and this is a big help years ago we had to send in our passports if we wanted to get you know like to their embassies to get the Visas but that's kind of e visas have kind of Chang the game we get asked about our health insurance plan and we intend to talk about that in an upcoming video but since it will take some time we thought we better you know devote an entire video so be sure to look out for that we're also going to include a travel Insurance in that video yeah the next question we get we get a lot is do you ever go home well we are home now we're at one of our daughter's houses uh our plan is to come home twice a year our hope is that our kids will meet up with us but some still have babies so it's a little more difficult we do come home to see our moms and families though we've been trying to come home for six to eight weeks but next summer we plan to be home for about three months so that we can do some US Travel and perhaps do some grandchildren trips so this brings us to one of our cons of travel you know when we made the decision to travel full-time we were living in Florida our grandchildren were living in different states you know we didn't have a home up North so we saw our grandchildren a couple of times a year you this is true for many people whether they travel or not their grandchildren just don't live in the same town you know we had accepted this as a fact because you know our five children all live in different states you know we weren't leaving our grandchildren we just were never living with them to begin with yeah we get a lot of push back from people not our kids about missing our grandchildren's lives well the truth is not one of our children live in the same town that we raised them in they all left home and made their own choice about who they married and where they live we're very proud that all of our children are self-supporting and independent yes theyd love for us to live nearby but we can't live by all of them all of the time anyway the con is that we do miss them when we travel you know it is a big challenge when we want to connect especially when we're on the other side of the world our kids work and connecting during the week on FaceTime is is nearly impossible you know weekends can be full of activities for them and and lining up the time zones is tough you know we do FaceTime often and we usually text with our daughters they're they're a lot better than the boys a little better you know almost daily but seeing and being part of the children's lives is is definitely very difficult it's a con of traveling the positive for us is a couple of things first when we're home we stay in their homes and they get Grammy and papa fulltime we also do family trips and that gives us another opportunity to spend time with them we're heading out on Christmas Day for a cruise with everyone and we met up with everyone last year in Lake Michigan for the summer and that was fun yes eight eight grandkids under the age of eight on a boat uh that should be interesting crazy our hope and dream is that our grandchildren will get the opportunity to travel with us each year abroad you know most of them are very little now but as they get old enough our legacy plan is to take them around the world as teenagers this summer one of our daughters is planning to meet us in Spain so it will be our granddaughter's first trip to Europe you know her parents will be with her you know but they are committed to helping teach her how to travel yeah she's six so when she's eight or so we anticipate taking her on some trips abroad without her parents we're excited about this she will know us on an completely different level we believe that this will be a unique bonding experience for her of shared experiences that we hope she will remember for and cherish really for her lifetime we hope this for each of our grandchildren we hope this helps you understand a few things about our lives if you have a question or other comments you know please leave them below yeah happy tles be sure to hit subscribe and follow along on our retirement Journey around the world it's

Channel: Retirement Travelers

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Keywords: retirement travel, retirement travelers, full-time travel, travel pros and cons, fulltime travel, full-time travel life, retire and travel, pros and cons of traveling, full time world travel, pros and cons of full time travel, traveling the world fulltime, traveling the world full-time, full time travel questions, pros and cons of world travel, pros and cons of traveling around the world, full time travel vloggers, world travel vloggers 2024, senior travel vloggers

Id: 7POVcxyJGpw

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 23 2023