Four Years of Full-time Nomadic Travel – How Many Places Did We Stay and How Did We Get There?

On January 18, 2016, I retired, and my wife and I left the United States and began traveling the world full-time. We returned to the USA on December 17, 2019, for a three-month visit. One of the most common questions we get when people learn about our lifestyle is, “How many countries have you been to?” My answer in the past has been, “Umm, quite a few??” We didn’t really keep track of an exact number. In preparation for our trip back to visit friends and family, I decided to prepare some of the stats on where we have been and how we got there to be able to accurately recount some of our adventures.

Twenty-three Countries and Three Special Administrative Regions and Territories Visited

Since retiring we have been to twenty-three countries, two Special Administrative Regions of China – Hong Kong and Macau, and the US Territory of the US Virgin Islands. The government of China has become very touchy about calling places like Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet, and Taiwan separate countries so I have listed places like Hong Kong, Macau and US territories like the Virgin Islands separately. Before retiring, Susan and I have also visited eight other countries. I have been to six countries where Susan has not been that I traveled to before we knew each other or that I traveled to for work.  My grand total is thirty-seven countries and three SARs/territories and Susan has been to thirty-one countries and three SARs/territories in our lifetimes.

Since I retired at 53 years old and must wait until I am 59 and a half years old before drawing on my IRA accounts without penalty, we are focusing on spending time in low-cost countries for now. This is reflected in where we have spent the bulk of our time. Figure 1 shows the countries we have visited and how many days in total we have spent in each country. We have spent the least amount of time in countries that are small – Brunei, expensive – Japan, France, or small and expensive – Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Iceland.

How long do we stay in a city or location?

Our travel, in general, is slow travel. We like to spend more than just a day or two at a destination, but there are times when we are only somewhere for a short period of time. Sometimes this is while we are in transit from one place to another and just need a place to spend a night on our journey. Figure 2 shows a histogram of how many of our stays are for how many nights. For example, we have stayed for only one night in a location 31 times in the 1429 days of travel since retiring. Twice we have stayed for more than 50 nights in the same location.

How do we get from place to place?

We employ a variety of travel methods to get from place to place. Since we travel slowly and try to stay in a general geographical area for an extended period of time, we don’t have many long airline flights. We do still travel quite a bit by air. Asia has many discount airlines and sometimes it can be ridiculously cheap to fly. Depending on the country, there may not be a lot of infrastructure as far as roads and rail transportation, so air travel is the only way to get from place to place.

We do like traveling by rail and usually prefer rail over traveling the same route by bus. In places like Western Europe, China, and South Korea high-speed rail is fast, efficient and low cost. We prefer high-speed rail over air for trips of 1000 km or less (620 miles). In countries like Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia, standard, low-speed rail travel is fairly common. There are some very picturesque rail journeys in Myanmar and Thailand and it usually gives us a chance to see and mix with local people.

For shorter distances, like a couple hundred miles or less, buses are often the only way to get around. In places like Malaysia, the buses are very comfortable and modern. In less developed countries like Nepal and Myanmar, buses can be very old, crowded, and not that comfortable.

Some of the places we go are not served by any regular transportation system at all and so the only way to get around is by renting a car or hiring a car or shared van to get where you are going. Hiring a car can be very inexpensive. For example, in Indonesia you can often hire a car or taxi for the equivalent of $10-15 USD per hour for a car and driver in a modern air-conditioned vehicle.

Some places are most easily accessed by boat. We did take a 17-day repositioning cruise to get from Houston, Texas to Barcelona, Spain.

We walk quite a bit to get around when we are staying somewhere, but rarely to move from one overnight location to another. We did make one trekking trip in Nepal where we hiked an average of 10 km (6 miles) per day to get from village to village.

Figure 3a shows the transportation methods and number of times we used that method to get from place to place in miles. Figure 3b shows the same but in kilometers. I have recorded the rough distance between places where we stayed overnight. I have not included the way we got around once at our destination. The most common ways that we get around once we are at our destination for our day to day activities are by walking, public transit, or taxi/rideshare.

Even though travel is our full-time life, we travel fewer miles than we did during our working lives. I traveled from 50 to 100 thousand miles per year by plane for work. Add to that travel by car for commuting to and from work, we probably log less than half the number of miles now than we did before we retired

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