Our Simple Living Nomadic Lifestyle

In January of 2016, my wife and I retired early at the age of 53, sold everything, and set off to travel the world full-time. We have now been traveling for almost four years and are loving every minute of it. When we explain our lifestyle to people, it often takes a while for them to get their heads wrapped around what we actually do. Let me explain a little more about our way of life, how we live, and answer some of the most common questions we get.

I tried to summarize our lifestyle in the title of our blog and Facebook page, “Our Nomadic Experience.” This title captures our focus on having experiences versus things and the fact that we travel full-time staying in a country for weeks or months before moving on to the next destination. The tag line for the blog is, “Living Simply in Order to Travel the World Full-time.” By living simply, I mean that our overall expenses are relatively low, and we have pared down our worldly possessions to a minimal level.

What do you mean, “You sold everything?”

This blows the minds of people, especially people closer to our age or older who have spent a lifetime acquiring stuff. Technically, we did not sell everything. We both have a carry-on size suitcase and a small backpack that qualifies as a personal item for airline flights. These two small bags each contain all of our clothes, toiletries, electronics, and other items we travel with.

We also hung on to some family keepsakes, photos, and a little artwork. These items take up about half of a 5-foot by 5-foot storage locker in the USA.

Paring our belongings down to this level didn’t happen overnight. We began downsizing soon after our son grew up and left home. Our focus on experiencing things versus acquiring things accelerated at that point in time. This meant aggressively reducing the amount of stuff we had and had to store, insure, maintain, and take care of. It has been a very liberating experience.

How do you have enough clothes to live out of a carry-on suitcase?

We live 100% of the time with less luggage than the average person takes with them for a one-week vacation. There are a few things that allow us to travel with less:

• We only have clothing for spring and summer weather. We choose not to live in cold climates; therefore, we don’t have sweaters, snow boots, gloves, etc. We do have a compact compressible down jacket each that will cover us for short trips where temperatures might get down to freezing.
• I don’t have any suits or really dressy clothes. I travel with one pair of dress shoes and one tie. I have a few shirts and a pair of dress pants that will suffice for a nice restaurant or going to church.
• We expect to do laundry every few days. This may involve hand washing socks and underwear in the hotel sink. When we stay at an Airbnb, we try and find one with a washer. Often hotels will have a laundromat and in many places in the world, a local laundry will wash, dry and fold your clothes for a couple of dollars.

Where did you get the money to retire at 53 and travel full-time?

This is a question that is rarely asked outright, due to politeness and social etiquette, but it is something that you know people are thinking about and will either hint around or ask about in other ways. Certainly, on a global comparison basis, as people who were born in Canada and the USA, we have much greater wealth than the average global citizen. However, we don’t consider ourselves especially wealthy. We have no inherited wealth, we didn’t win the lottery or experience any other extraordinary windfall.

I started my working career as an electrician and at age twenty-four started training as an electrical engineer. At thirty-five I earned a Master of Business Administration degree. I had a good job in corporate America, eventually rising to mid-level management. My income was good, but I believe that the biggest thing that contributed to us being able to retire early was that we have always saved and invested a significant portion of our income. We try to live far below our means. During the last few years of my working career we put the maximum amount allowed by the tax code in our retirement accounts and then put away even more, sometimes saving up to 50% of our income.

How much does it cost you to travel full-time?

The answer is surprisingly little. Our expenses are much lower than what it cost us to live in the USA. A few of the key principles we follow that allow us to live a low-cost lifestyle are:

• Travel slowly. We typically don’t take long, expensive airline flights. We like to stay in a region for months at a time and try to max out the number of days we are allowed to stay in a country on a tourist visa. In a lot of places, this is thirty days but can be sixty and even ninety days.
• Focus on low-cost countries. We started our retirement journey in the Dominican Republic, and for the past three years or so we have been in South East Asia, where the cost of living is very low.
• Eat like a local. Trying the local food is a big part of our experience. Eating what the locals eat and eating food that is in season is the least expensive way to spend your food budget.
• Spend accommodation dollars carefully. We don’t need a lot of space. We prefer a one-bedroom apartment when staying in a place for an extended period, but even that is not necessary. Often our accommodations are a studio apartment or hotel room. The trade-off of a relatively small living space is more than offset by the benefit of early retirement and full-time travel.
• Minimize transportation costs. In Canada and the USA owning a car is pretty much a necessity. According to the US Department of Labor’s US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spent $9,576 in 2017 to own and operate a car. Not having a car allows us much more freedom to spend in other areas of our life.

I know that many people think of traveling, especially overseas, as an expensive proposition. For example, the airfare or transportation costs to get to your destination, staying in hotels, eating out, etc. Remember, when people go on vacation, they have many duplicate living expenses. In addition to paying for hotels in your vacation spot, you are still paying rent, mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, etc. on your primary residence back home. We travel full-time and don’t have a home or apartment back in the USA that we must maintain or keep up.

Where do you stay when you travel?

Traveling slowly, we have several options for places to stay. Below is a list ranked from what we usually find the least expensive to most expensive. Our goal now is to spend $600 USD or less on accommodation per month (including electricity, gas, internet, etc.). There are times when we have spent more than that.

• Furnished apartments for three months to twelve months at a time. We signed a twelve-month lease for an apartment in Bangkok in 2017. The apartment came with all the furniture and kitchen appliances. We bought household necessities such as sheets, towels, and cooking utensils and dishes. We used Bangkok as a home base and made trips to neighboring countries about once a month to reset our tourist visa.
• Serviced apartment for one month or longer. Serviced apartments are common in Asia. A serviced apartment is an apartment that is typically rented out by the week or month. It is fully furnished and comes with all necessary items for living such as sheets, towels, kitchen utensils, etc. Often a serviced apartment will have someone come in and clean every week or two.
• Airbnb for stays of a week or more. We like to pick an Airbnb with a washing machine and a kitchen.
• Local hotels. In smaller towns, we stay in local hotels and often find them through a web site like Booking.com or Hotels.com or through a personal recommendation. I think the lowest we have paid for a hotel has been $11 USD per night in Northern Thailand.
• Branded hotels such as Hilton and Marriott. Prior to retiring, I collected 1.3 million airline and hotel points. During the past four years on the road, I have probably picked up another five hundred thousand points. We spend points wisely, taking advantage of the fifth-night free offer with Hilton and Marriott when redeeming points. When paying out of pocket, we have paid as little as $28 USD for a Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Since we stay quite a few nights per year with Hilton and Marriott, we get quite a few perks such as upgraded rooms, free breakfast, and at many locations, we enjoy evening snacks and afternoon tea.

What do you do for transportation? How do you survive without a car?

Most of our travel while in a country is via train, public transit, or bus. Depending on the country, public transportation can be extremely inexpensive, sometimes 25 cents USD or lower per trip. Phone apps and friendly people help us navigate public transportation systems. Ride-hailing apps also offer low-cost transportation. In many low-cost countries, taxi rides are way less expensive than in the USA or Canada. For example, in Kuala Lumpur, we rarely pay more than $4 USD for a taxi ride. A taxi to the airport costs about $12 USD for the one hour and ten-minute trip.

We walk quite a bit. It is nothing for us to walk 2 to 5 km just to get from place to place during our travels. Our time is our own, so we typically don’t have to rush around from place to place as we did with our North American lifestyle. Walking also helps you get a feel for an area and local life. An added bonus is that it helps us keep in shape.

On very rare occasions we will rent a car. This is usually when we are traveling in areas that are well off the tourist trail and only accessible by vehicle. For example, we rented a car for a month to explore the Isan region of Thailand.

When will you stop traveling and settle down somewhere?

We get asked this all the time. Susan’s answer is, “We hope to keep traveling until we are too old and creaky to do so.” There is so much of the world that we haven’t seen. We plan on traveling nomadically for as long as our health allows us. We have not ruled out finding the “perfect” location and settling down for a few years or longer, but right now we really enjoy our nomadic lifestyle.

What do you think? Is this lifestyle for you?

There you have it! A brief explanation of our lifestyle. We are having the time of our lives but recognize that not everyone would enjoy living like this. Do you think you could live full-time out of the contents of an airline carry-on sized suitcase and a small backpack? How about not having your own bed to come back to? To us, the trade-offs are well worth the adventure. How about you?