When one leaves the conventional working world behind to create a new lifestyle sans paycheck, often there can be different ideas of what that perfect path should look like. One spouse might want to travel while the other would prefer tending the roses or becoming more involved in the community.
Holding these divergent views doesn’t have to mean assured conflict and it doesn’t need to point to joint misery, with neither quite having what they want.
While working out a travel lifestyle with your spouse might be a challenge, you could try some of the following suggestions on for size.
Travel or keep a home?
One might think that maintaining a home is just too expensive to blend with any sort of long term travel. If one of you prefers familiarity and wants to keep a home and the other would like to travel or mix it up a bit, there are several options that could work.
Snowbirding
Many couples have found contentment by becoming snowbirds. They spend six months of the year in one location, making friends, and having a routine, and then they add some zest to their retirement by spending the alternate six months in a different state, country or climate all together. This arrangement can also solve the issue of missing the grandchildren growing up. Four to six months isn’t a horribly long time to be away from the little ones if that is an important component on one’s list.
Travel and share adventures
Others have worked it out where one spouse is the homebody taking care of plants, animals and the home, while the other spouse takes trips for weeks or a couple of months at a time to go exploring. With the internet, keeping in touch is far easier today than ever before. VOIP like Skype http://www.skype.com/en/ or Magic Jack http://www.magicjack.com/plus-
Sending photos and touching base through email is commonplace now. There might be thousands of miles between you for a determined amount of time, but that distance can be shortened with scheduled or even impromptu phone calls along with video. Digital photos and video calling allows you to share the adventure with your spouse in real time.
If you can’t go to the mountain, bring the mountain to you
While nothing takes the place of your own original experience in foreign countries, one can still meet travelers or learn about far away cultures. Try taking classes at your local university or learn firsthand from others by welcoming international travelers in your home. Organizations like Hospitality Club http://www.hospitalityclub.
This is the time in your life to try new things. Why not open your vistas and enrich your lives by making the most of both worlds?
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Editor’s Note: Billy and Akaisha Kaderli are recognized retirement experts and internationally published authors on topics of finance and world travel. With the wealth of information they share on their popular website RetireEarlyLifestyle.com, they have been helping people achieve their own retirement dreams since 1991. They wrote the popular books, The Adventurer’s Guide to Early Retirement and Your Retirement Dream IS Possible.
