- When I was 48, my husband and I decided to go on a six-month trip that ended up lasting almost two years.
- We decided not to go back into consulting and left.
- Twenty years later, we've still traveled the world and own three homes.
In August 1999, not long after my 48th birthday, my husband, Barry, invited me for margaritas at Compadres, a Mexican restaurant near our Palo Alto home. He seemed to have a purpose.
Over drinks, he suggested we rent a house and travel for six months—we both worked as consultants in Silicon Valley, so we didn't have to quit traditional jobs.
Of course, I was willing to do it too. Renting out our house in Palo Alto wasn't easy—this was before the days of Airbnb and digital nomads—but we eventually did, and flew to Mexico in November to spend six weeks in the vibrant UNESCO World Heritage city of Guanajuato.
Six months turned into 20. When we returned to Palo Alto after our time abroad, our house was still rented, so we bought a 1984 Westfalia camper, explored the California coast, and rented an apartment in the Victorian port town of Eureka.
We never went back to consulting and are now effectively retired, although I have resumed management training and coaching part-time.
Twenty-five years later, we're still living in the same apartment, and while everything else has changed, our axis remains as stable as ever: We sold our house in Palo Alto, bought a 150-year-old adobe house in Guanajuato, and traded in a Eurovan camper.
Now we are retired and traveling the world together.
The world is now our home
Our home in Eureka is our home base during the spring and summer, and when we're not in town, we explore Northern California and Southern Oregon in our van, which we load up with bikes, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, and telescopes, and hit the coasts and inland mountains and hot springs.
We spend part of the fall and winter in our home in Guanajuato. Centro, Where our home is located there are no driveways or garages and everything is within walking distance.
Every year we visit a new part of Mexico, and this year we took a three-hour ride aboard Mexico's Primera Plus coach, one of the country's luxury coaches, to another UNESCO World Heritage city, San Luis Potosi.
Barry is British, so we visit his family once a year and usually take a trip to continental Europe while we're there. One year we spent May to September in Scotland, Catalonia, the Hautes Alpes in France, and towns in Northern Italy at the foot of my favorite mountain range, the Dolomites.
We are also part of a home exchange site that swaps our Mexican home for homes from all over the world. We have swapped homes with owners from Brittany, Czech Republic, Ireland, Colombia and Portland, Oregon. In October, we stay in a home a few hours outside of Denver and enjoy the fall foliage. Next spring we will visit Cuenca, Ecuador. Our retirement is never-ending.
We have mastered the system that will make retirement easier.
Our lifestyle requires organization. In Mexico, we rent out our house when we're away, so we hire people to look after our tenants. In Guanajuato, we have a house cleaner who waters our plants. In Eureka, a friend who works nearby checks on our apartment regularly, and we park our van on another friend's property while we're in Mexico.
Strictly speaking, we make enough to get by and don't need to make more, but Barry and I both love writing, and I especially love making money, so we're lucky to be able to write from Eureka, or Guanajuato, or our camper, or wherever we are in the world.
I remember that August afternoon 25 years ago and I'm so glad I said yes. When Barry asked me out, I never would have imagined how much of a difference a simple margarita would make to our lives.
