Travel has been almost an obsession with both of us for a long time and we find the diversity of experience, the ‘edginess’ of life on the road, the exposure to different cultures, has enormous appeal to us.

We find that much of our travel scheduling is driven by weather and the seasons. We try to stay out of winters in both hemispheres, so we tend to alternate between the north and the south. Shorter term, we select a country or group of countries and just head for them. Our planning is usually at the level of a week or two as we try to be open to spontaneity and serendipity.

We have worked together in the same offices for decades and thus are pretty accustomed to spending lots of time together in shared experiences. Sailing in Icarus for six summers was the first real test of this in leisure and it has never been a problem.

Living this way is much less expensive than living in a house. We have sold our home and have given away or sold almost all of our possessions and thus don’t have the burden of a mortgage and the cost of utilities and maintenance. We live carefully, eat out in restaurants only occasionally unless we are in an inexpensive region like Southeast Asia, and find that much of what appears to be necessary for comfort and practicality in domestic life are simply needless and cluttering luxuries when on the road.

There are a number of what some travelers call ‘the curses.’ Constantly on the move, it is impossible to have those experiences of community that are such an important part of living in one place. We can’t easily join in those activities that are the very basis of community. We meet wonderful people from all walks of life, but spend only days, even hours with then before we depart for different destinations.

It is demanding and tiring to travel all the time no matter how we are doing it, and burnout is a reality. In a similar vein, or perhaps one strong symptom of burnout, is that we become jaded about the very wonders we have traveled so far to see and experience. Isn’t that just one more herd of elephants? Another beautiful Buddhist temple or gothic cathedral? We have learned that we have to take a break from constant movement when this happens in order to recharge our sensibilities.

What we have left of regular bills (medical insurance, credit card bills etc) are paid through the ‘Bill Pay’ service of our bank. Some are set up to happen automatically; others we pay manually when what is owed through online statements. It all goes very smoothly. We also have an advisor who oversees our investments and notifies us if he thinks any action is necessary.

Since Medicare and our supplementary insurance do not cover us outside the United States for anything except accidents, we are on our own when traveling and must pay for medical services out of pocket, though costs for medical treatment tend to be much less abroad than in the United States. We do carry several emergency evacuation policies so that we can be ferried to good medical care if it is not available locally, and one of these also provides for evacuation to the United States in the worst circumstances.

It really depends on the country. When we travel in Mexico, and we do travel there a lot, we are careful as to which areas of the country are dangerous and which are not and travel accordingly. Before entering what we imagine to be perhaps a dangerous country we read all we can on the state of things and gather all the advice we can as to how to deal with the particular problems of that country.

We sure do miss them, but get back to The States at least twice a year so we do have time with them. Many in our families are spread across the globe and we see them as we travel. As we write this we are two weeks from a reunion of all of our children and grandchildren and other family members in Tuscany.

That simply is not in our plans. We do periodically stay in one location for several months at a time (we just spent October to January in San Miguel de Allende, and February in Baja, Mexico), but do not have any plans to ‘settle’ somewhere and stay permanently. That, of course, will be driven by medical conditions and could certainly alter our intentions if we are threatened with or incur a truly serious medical need.