SOME
call themselves “senior gypsies.” Others prefer “international nomad.”
David Law, 74, a retired executive recruiter who has primarily slept in
tents in several countries in the last two years, likes the ring of
“American Bedouin.”
They
are American retirees who have downsized to the extreme, choosing a
life of travel over a life of tending to possessions. And their numbers
are rising.
Mr.
Law and his wife, Bonnie Carleton, 69, who are selling their house in
Santa Fe, N.M., spoke recently by phone from a campground in Stoupa,
Greece, a village on the southern coast of the Peloponnese. He explained
that they roam the world to “get the broadest and most radical
experience that we can get.”
They
recently decided to fold their tent. “Hey, we’re getting to be too old
for this,” said Mr. Law about camping out. But they intend to continue
what he termed their “endless holiday” in a more comfortable and
spacious recreational vehicle.
Between
1993 and 2012, the percentage of all retirees traveling abroad rose to
13 percent from 9.7 percent, according to the Commerce Department.
About
360,000 Americans received Social Security benefits at foreign
addresses in 2013, about 48 percent more than 10 years earlier. An
informal survey of insurance brokers found greater demand by older
clients for travel medical policies. (Medicare, with a few exceptions,
does not cover expenses outside the United States). While many retirees
ultimately return home or become expatriates, some live like vagabonds.
Lynne
Martin, 73, a retired publicist and the author of “Home Sweet Anywhere:
How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the World,” is one.
Three years ago, she and her husband, Tim, 68, sold their three-bedroom
house in Paso Robles, Calif., gave away most of their possessions, found
a home for their Jack Russell terrier, Sparky, and now live in
short-term vacation rentals they usually find through HomeAway.com.
The
Martins have not tapped their savings during their travels, alternating
visits to expensive cities like London with more reasonable
destinations like Lisbon. “We simply traded the money we were spending
for overhead on a house and garden in California for a life in much
smaller but comfortable HomeAway rentals in more interesting places,”
Ms. Martin said by email from Paris.
On her blog, Barefoot Lovey,
Stacy Monday, 50, a former paralegal and mediator who lived in
Knoxville, Tenn., wrote: “I used to dream about all the places I would
go as soon as I was old enough to get away. But then ... life happened.”
On May 1, 2010 — like many itinerant baby boomers Ms. Monday can
quickly recall the date her journey started — she embarked on her dream
trip. She “crisscrossed the U.S. three times” and visited Mexico,
Ireland, France, Italy, Morocco, Spain and many other countries.
Travel Tips for Vagabonds-in-Training
- Make sure travel insurance covers medical evacuation to the United States. A rider or separate policy may be required.
- Bring noise-canceling headphones for immediate access to peace.
- Consider downloading the Point It app, a catalog of photos of items travelers need with translations in several languages.
- Buy a few pairs of fast-drying microfiber underwear, which take up less space in luggage than conventional knickers.
“I
sold everything I had,” Ms. Monday recalled earlier this summer from
San Francisco before she headed to Las Vegas, Dallas, Memphis and
Knoxville. “I paid off all of my debt. I have no bills and no money.”
She estimates that she now spends $150 a month — sometimes less if she
is saving up for a flight — and earns a modest income through
“odds-and-ends jobs,” as well as the tip jar on her blog.
To
stick to her tight budget, Ms. Monday volunteers for nonprofits and
organic farms in exchange for room and board or finds free places to
stay through Couchsurfing.org. The company puts its membership of people 50 and older at about 250,000.
Ms.
Monday monitors ride-share boards at Couchsurfing and Craigslist for
free or inexpensive transportation, and she travels light. “I get away
with a couple pairs of jeans, a pair of shorts, a skirt and four or five
shirts and a pair of pajamas,” she said.
When
she answers the ubiquitous question, What do you do? Ms. Monday notices
that most women respond with encouragement, while many men are less
supportive. “They say: ‘You should be home. That’s not safe. You are
old.’ I get that from a lot of the men,” she said.
Hal
E. Hershfield, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of
California, Los Angeles who studies the influence of time on consumer
behavior, observes that many “pre-retirees” still assume retirement is a
“decrepit, sitting on a porch, maybe playing golf, ice-tea type of
life.”
But
current retirees are “changing the way they think,” he said, “because
they are still healthy and sort of young at heart.” In the last 50
years, retirement “wasn’t this period that we spent years and years in,”
Mr. Hershfield continues. “It really, truly was the end of life.”
Galit
Nimrod, a research fellow at the Center for Multidisciplinary Research
in Aging at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, says an
extended postretirement trip can assuage a sense of loss from ending a
career. Travel can “act as a neutral, transitional zone between
voluntary or imposed endings and new beginnings” and “serve as a healthy
coping mechanism,” Dr. Nimrod said by email.
Gary
D. Norton, 69, acknowledges that he felt “afraid of retirement” when he
left his job of 34 years as a science professor at a South Dakota
community college.
In
2002, he and his wife, Avis M. Norton, 67, a retired farmer, sold their
house, bought an R.V. and started volunteering full time for two
nonprofits: Nomads on a Mission Active in Divine Service, or Nomads, and RV Care-A-Vanners, an initiative of Habitat for Humanity.
The
couple typically rebuilds houses damaged by natural disasters, projects
that usually last several weeks. Mr. Norton, who now specializes in
drywall finishing, and his wife, who studied carpentry, say they cherish
the chance to give back to society while seeing the country. “Now what
we’re doing is so satisfying and fulfilling, even though we have some
health issues, we say we don’t want to quit,” said Mr. Norton, who
estimated that he and his wife had repaired damaged homes in 28 states.
The
chance to volunteer on international conservation projects and the
opportunity to live like a local inspired Danila Mansfield, 58, and her
husband, Chris Gill, 64, to sell their house in San Jose, Calif., last
year. They got rid of nearly everything they owned — the exceptions
being two suitcases, clothing and a pair of guitars (Mr. Gill’s prized
Gibson ES-335 electric guitar is stowed at a friend’s house, but he
totes around a travel guitar) — and do not even rent a storage space.
The
purge of possessions was “a little nerve-racking” at first, but
ultimately “hugely liberating,” said Ms. Mansfield, who is currently in
South Africa. She and her husband plan to volunteer on game reserves to protect endangered species and then study great white sharks.
So
far, their travels have surpassed expectations. They drove from San
Jose to Florida over five months, before cruising to Europe. High points
included meeting a judge at a bar in Amarillo, Tex., who invited them
to visit his drug court, catching crawfish with locals in Louisiana’s
bayou country and making new friends in Austin, Tex., who invited the
couple to stay with them in South Africa.
But
Ms. Mansfield has also hit bumps in the road. In Galveston, Tex., and
New Orleans, an acute respiratory illness required three visits to
urgent care centers. “It was really dragging me down,” she recalled. At
one point she cried for home, but then managed to brighten her mood. “I
kept telling myself, ‘This is home,’ ” Ms. Mansfield said. “Where I am
is home.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/business/increasingly-retirees-dump-their-possessions-and-hit-the-road.html?emc=edit_my_20140908&nl=your-money&nlid=32663937&_r=0
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/business/increasingly-retirees-dump-their-possessions-and-hit-the-road.html?emc=edit_my_20140908&nl=your-money&nlid=32663937&_r=0
