What in the World are the Mossop’s Doing? – Our Decision to Retire and Travel the World Full-Time

On January 15, 2016 I left my full time job after thirty-five years in the electrical industry and my wife, Susan, and I began our journey of a nomadic lifestyle – living in various countries in the world for one to six months at time. We have no permanent home or residence anywhere.

Right now our plans are as follows:

• ·       January 21 – March 15 Dominican Republic
• ·       March 16 – April 13 Asuncion, Paraguay
• ·       April 16 – May 2 Repositioning cruise from Houston, TX to Barcelona, Spain
• ·       May 3 – July 1 Travel around Spain
• ·       July 2 – 15 Iceland
• ·       July 16 – Back to Nashville to pick up belongings in our storage unit
• ·       July 23 – Taos, NM to attend a friend’s wedding vow renewal ceremony
• ·       July 26 – Salt Lake City, UT visit friends
• ·       August 3 – Washington State visit family and find permanent location for our stuff
• ·       August 15 – Vancouver, BC visit family
• ·       September 1 – Dawson Creek, BC visit our son and other family
• ·       September 26 – South East Asia somewhere then, who knows?

As we explain our choices and our coming lifestyle change to people, we get a lot of different reactions and questions. “What made you decide to do that? Wow, I wish I could do that. Are you crazy?” Let me address some of these common questions.

What made you decide to do this?

Susan and I have always liked to travel, meet new people from various countries and backgrounds, try new foods, experience new things. My career meant moving nine times in twenty-five years, so moving from place to place in the USA and Canada was not a big deal for us.

Around twenty years ago we read an article somewhere about North Americans retiring overseas. This article led us to a publication called, “International Living.” We subscribed to the magazine and found stories every month of people who had retired to Costa Rica and were living on $1500 per month, or Penang, Malaysia living on $1200 per month. From there we found other publications such as, “Live and Invest Overseas.” We bought a few books on the subject and joined some Facebook groups of expats. At that point we had pretty well decided that, “When we retire, we will retire overseas.”

I began subscribing to different blogs of people that travel extensively. I also bought a book called, “Vagabonding” by Rolf Potts. The book describes a lifestyle of long term travel, whether for 6 months, a year or two, or forever. After Susan read the book, she said, “Why don’t we try vagabonding?” Although the book describes more of a backpacker lifestyle, the concept certainly appealed to us.

From there we decided that, when we retire, we were going to travel continuously for as long as we could or as long as we wanted to.

What kind of travelling will you be doing?

We plan to travel slowly, by that I mean move from area to area spending one to six months at a time there. Some of this will depend on the visas required for each country, most allow stays of up to three months with just a tourist visa. I know it doesn’t look like it from our initial itinerary, but to minimize travel costs, we will spend time making trips from nearby countries to each other rather than flying long distances or across continents from one country to another. We don’t have a full time home anywhere that we have to get to, so there is no need to make long flights “back home” to check on things.

As much as possible, we will keep hotel stays to a minimum and instead rely on web sites such as Airbnb, Homeaway, Homestay and others to find apartments to live in. We have heard that in South East Asia it is very common to find furnished short term rental in the local paper or using other methods besides the internet.

Although we plan on visiting most of the well known tourist sites in an area, our life won’t be that of a constant tourist. As much as possible, we plan to live where the average people live, eat what they eat, shop where they shop.

Language will be a bit of an issue in most places. I always try to learn a little of the language in the countries that we visit, things like courtesy words, numbers, etc. I know more Spanish than any other language and the first six months of our travels will be in Spanish speaking countries, so hopefully I will be able to speak Spanish much better in a few months.

Where are you keeping all your stuff while you travel?

For some reason, this is the hardest thing for many people to understand. We have sold or given away the vast majority of our earthly possessions. Right now, the two of us are travelling with a medium sized checked bag that we share, a roll on suitcase each that fits in the overhead storage bin of a plane, and a small backpack each.

We have kept some keepsakes such as photo albums, artwork, a few books, etc. and these items are stored in a 5 foot by 5 foot storage locker. That’s it. Nothing else.

However, here is how the conversation often goes. Me, “Yes, we are travelling full time. We don’t have a home anywhere and besides our luggage, everything we own is in a small storage locker.”

The other person, “Yes, but where will you keep all your furniture while you are gone?”

“We don’t have any furniture. We sold or gave all of it away.”

Them, “Well, you must have a house or apartment somewhere in the States, right?”

“No. We use my Sister-in-law’s address for our mail. We don’t have a house, apartment, condo or any other habitation anywhere.”

I know the concept of not accumulating a lot of stuff is foreign to the average American or Canadian. We are bombarded by advertisements telling us that, “You deserve the very best! Seventy-two months with no interest! Buy! Buy! Buy!” Thankfully, we have been able to resist these impulses. It has taken me a while to see the light, Susan has been on board with a “less stuff” lifestyle for quite a while.

What are you going to do with your time? Surely there are only so many museums you can visit in the world?

Although we both love museums, as I said earlier, this is a lifestyle we have chosen. We are not going on a permanent vacation. We are now retired, so the things we “have to do” is limited. We are playing it by ear and taking life as it comes to some degree.

Susan plans on getting back into her artwork. She was a fine arts major in college and has brought some paper and pencils with us. She has said she might take up water color again.

We both plan on studying language, at first Spanish, since that is the main language spoken in the areas we will be travelling for the first six months.

A healthier lifestyle is also in the plan. We are walking a lot more and plan on eating more fresh fruits and vegetables.

I am now on the Board of Directors for New Heights School International, a USA based charity founded to support a school for some of Paraguay’s poorest children. I plan on spending time helping NHSI fund raise and improve the school.

I am sure that life will open up opportunities for us, it always does. We are active in our church organization and seem to get involved in one way or another wherever we go. For example, we just learned of a group from the USA that is coming to the Dominican Republic to help do some renovations of a church and school in early February, we will likely join them.

Another goal for me is to do more reading and more writing. I am currently working on reading some of the “classic” literature. I am almost finished Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days.” I plan on posting at least once a week on the blog and even have thoughts of trying my hand at a little fiction.

Besides that, I plan to lose 40 pounds, write the great American novel, find a cure for cancer, establish peace in the Middle East, you know, the usual stuff.

Aren’t you a little young to retire? How are you able to do this at your age?

Talking about personal income and money is generally a taboo subject in polite society. However, from the looks I get when I say that I am retiring, I know this is a question on people’s minds. With a few close friends that I have discussed our life decisions with, I have been told, “Wow! That is inspiring. It gives me hope that my wife and I will be able to do the same when we are your age.”

I am 53 years old, definitely younger than the typical retirement age of 65 or 67. The day that I publicly announced my retirement happened to be the day after the record Powerball lottery prize of $1.3B was drawn. A few minutes after I sent out my email announcement to colleagues at work I received a phone call, “Did you win the lottery last night?” No, we didn’t win the lottery, but on paper, everything says that this will work.

We wouldn’t be able to do this if we remained in the United States. Although the USA has one of the highest standards of living in the world, it also has one of the highest costs of living. For us, in particular medical care and medical insurance would make retiring in the USA before we are eligible for Medicare next to impossible. We purchased a global health insurance program that covers us all over the world except the USA, China, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Our lifestyle is relatively simple from a financial point of view. Many years ago we decided to spend our money on experiences rather than things. For the past 10 years we have mostly lived in one bedroom houses or apartments. We have been a one car family for at least 10 years and for the past 3 years that one car has been an electric car with free electricity provided by charging stations either at the apartment, work or various places around town.

We have had a lifetime habit of saving a portion of our income, whatever that income was. Even when I was an underemployed electrician in the 1980’s, we still saved a portion of our income. Saving consistently, even if it is a small amount, adds up over time. Especially if well invested due to the time value of money or compound interest.

Don’t get me wrong, this wouldn’t have been possible without a good job. I started my career as an electrician and over the years I went to school to become a Technologist, then to university to become an Electrical Engineer, got an MBA while working full-time and progressed a fair ways in my career in the electrical industry.

For the first few years at least we plan to focus on countries that have a lower cost of living than the USA or Canada. For example, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand have quite low costs of living.

We are willing to take a certain amount of risk. We don’t consider ourselves foolhardy, but we tend to be a little on the adventurous side. If this doesn't work out, we can always come back to the USA and Canada and find something to do. Due to a combination of personal and professional circumstances we decided fairly recently that “when we retire” was going to be sooner rather than later.

And there you have it! I plan to keep you posted through this blog on our adventures as they come. Thanks for reading.