Senior Nomad Budget Travel
Easy, Safe, Fun!The New Senior Nomad Lifestyle
Being a “Senior Nomad” is a relatively new lifestyle. Unfortunately, many retirees don’t know enough about it to decide whether or not it might be right for them. What is it really like? Any obstacles? How about advantages? Is it difficult to do? How can I get started?
As a retired nomad myself, I can help. I can give you the insiders view of this lifestyle and answer many of your questions. That’s why I’ve written my Nomadic Retirement Guide. This lifestyle is great fun and well suited for many retirees. Give it a look and serious consideration. And if later our nomad travel paths happen to cross, let’s sit down and trade stories!
Nomadic Retirement Guide
This guide is designed to help you understand what this emerging nomadic lifestyle is really all about.
This lifestyle goes by many names. Sometimes it’s called ‘senior nomads’. Other times it’s ‘roving retirement’, ‘gray nomad’, or even ‘home free retirement’. But whatever you call it, the same basic desires are behind it. Retired seniors that love to travel are choosing to spend a lot more of their retirement years doing exactly that… traveling the world.
The guide also gives you all the resources you need to explore the possibilities of this lifestyle while seated comfortably in your armchair at home. You can then decide if it’s for you. And to what degree. The same resources will serve you well as you travel on your journeys to wherever you want to go.
Browse through the topics below, or jump to the Table of Contents to see them all listed.
Why a guide is needed
Because transitioning to a nomadic retirement requires much more than a few random tips and the purchase of the right suitcase.
It requires detailed up front planning and some intense introspection. In my view, it’s also not an all-or-nothing lifestyle either. It covers the full spectrum — from barely more than stationary to having no home at all. And where you are on that spectrum and what you need while traveling is highly personal, only you can decide.
I’m a full-time senior nomad. I love where this nomadic lifestyle has taken me personally. There have been lots of hurdles along the way. Things we call “learning experiences”. It could have been much easier if I had known from the start what I know now.
That’s what my Nomadic Retirement Guide is all about. All the stuff I wish I had understood from the beginning. My hope is that it will save you time and make your path much easier.
Step 1: Lifestyle
Find out what a senior nomad lifestyle really is. Chances are, it’s not what you think. Learn how roaming retirement can give you more fun, more options, more freedom at less cost than how you live now. Click here to read more.
Step 2: Priorities
They say life’s all about priorities. So is a senior nomad lifestyle. Once you know your priorities it gets pretty clear whether or not this style of retirement travel might be right for you. In addition, knowing those priorities makes it much simpler to decide where and when to go if you do decide to give it a try. Click here to uncover your personal priorities.
Step 3: Locations
Personally I love this part. It’s armchair traveling but with a clear objective… finding the locations that match up with your own personal priorities. Use your list of likes and dislikes to zoom in quickly to your perfect nomad travel locations. You just need a few good resources to help you with that task. Click here for help finding locations.
Step 4: Climate
This is really part of the previous ‘locations’ step, except with a focus only on the climate aspect you love. You can do it first if you prefer. And it’s super fun to play with the websites I list! For example, do you love Hawaii weather and are looking for places like it? A couple clicks will reveal every place on the planet that is similar. Click here to find the places with climates you love.
Step 5: Balance
Every senior nomad needs to understand and use multiple travel styles effectively. This is about mindset, not level of expenses. Your roving retirement rhythm is how you best cycle through these various styles. Click here to learn about balancing styles and rhythm.
Step 6: Routes
Senior nomad routes are clusters of locations visited on the same trip. Having repeatable routes greatly improves your roving retirement lifestyle. Making it easier, cheaper and much more relaxing. Tried and true routes become jumping off places for new routes. Click here to discover the power of routes.
Step 7: Budget
Having a senior nomad budget is imperative. Although admittedly, the process of getting it isn’t much fun. Hopefully, when you understand what we’ll be doing with those budget numbers, you’ll be up for the task. The really fun part is getting to play with “what if” plans when you are done. Click here to learn about budgets.
Step 8: Stuff
It’s human nature to collect stuff. And by the time we’re retired we’ve likely got a lot of it, making downsizing for a roving retirement a daunting challenge. The right perspective and motivation can cut through easier than you think. Click here for help with your stuff.
The story behind this guide
The Nomadic Retirement Guide actually came about by me following the principles I have laid out for you. Although at the time they weren’t written down. In fact I really didn’t even see them all or understand them. They were still bubbling in the stew of my experiences, waiting to be born.
I was physically and mentally tired, greatly in need of some extended down time after too much hectic tourist style travel. I was also becoming increasingly unmotivated about posting on my blog. Nearly a thousand photos languished on my computer from the past 6 months of my travels. But every time I thought about posting them, I got even more tired!
I then gratefully settled into a 3-week do-nothing interval that I had fortunately scheduled for myself at the beginning of my trip. In the back of my mind I knew that I had to resolve this. Either do something fun and intrinsically motivating with my Over 60 Nomad website or dump it all in the waste bin and forget it.
It took 3 or 4 days of long naps and mindlessly watching TV before it happened…
The epiphany
I realized that the internet has more than enough websites showing you gorgeous photos and detailed commentary on any destination you could ever type into the search bar. Sure I can post a few pictures and witty comments, but unless you are my personal FB friend or family, you have zero need or interest in knowing where I’ve been.
Clearly, if it’s of no use to you and I’m not getting any satisfaction out of doing it, then I should stop, right? But then I thought about what I really do love to do…
What I really most love and enjoy is research, analysis and turning things into systems. It’s deeply embedded in my nature even from childhood. It’s also what I did for 40+ years in my working career as a data & systems analyst in the software industry.
And that’s when I realized that I had gotten way off track with this blog. I had originally started writing tips and advice, but got totally distracted by trying to do pretty photos of exotic locations. I realized that the real value (both for me and for you!) would be in refocusing my analyst brain onto the process of becoming and living as a modern senior nomad.
Since this roving retirement lifestyle is now just emerging, the internet clearly doesn’t have enough help and assistance on how to do what I did.
The next step
That’s when I decided to write this Nomadic Retirement Guide. A how-to guide containing what I’ve learned so far about being a senior nomad. Advice for anyone considering starting out. And once I refocused my mind, the how-to principles crystallized and the words poured out. The doldrums were gone and my natural enthusiasm and motivation returned.
What I really love most about this guide is that it’s not about my particular version of the new retired nomad lifestyle. It’s not about my favorite places. This guide is about how you can create your own personal retirement travel lifestyle. A lifestyle tailored to what you love to do, where you love to be, what you want when you’re there and how often you want it.
Wishing you as always, happy travels.
-Suzann