Hey all, I’m back!
We spent just over 2 weeks in France in caravans (3 of them!) and although at least 2 of them were pretty swanky by caravanning standards (the decidedly non swanky one is shown in the picture above!), I have to say that I missed the comfort of our high-tech memory foam mattress specifically, and our modestly sized 3 bedroom terraced house in general.
On our limited downtime while away, I got reading a lot of the Mark Manson blog, which is a magnificent read btw, and stumbled across his post on how to quit your job and travel/work anywhere in the world. The classic digital nomad schtick.
I’ve talked about this kind of thing before… but while I respect people who can and want to do the long term travel thing, I become more and more convinced that I don’t think it is for me/us any more, or at this stage of our lives at the least. Things could sway back the other way as we get older as well of course!
Look, I know that comfort and luxury is just another weakness, but I am finding more and more as I get older that I miss my home comforts, and Mrs T is the same. Having a rugrat in tow as well is surely part of it as well, although there are plenty of people doing the travel/living abroad with kids thing. Again I can’t say enough how much I admire those people for doing what they are doing and living an awesome life, but I just can’t see myself being happy with this lifestyle.
I know you can’t really compare a 2 week holiday to what those people are doing which is more akin to either slow travel or even just setting up base in different countries and working from there, then moving on every 6+ months. This could well be a remedy to the home comforts issue, as you would get the benefits of having a “home” base as well as seeing other places and cultures, but it doesn’t fix the family/friends being round the corner issue. I guess this is a bigger concern for some people than others, but my feeling is that I could not hack more than 3 months away from my current locally based life.
We did 4 months on the road in 2008 and it was a blast, but that was over 10 years ago now (side note: WTAF!!!) and we were definitely ready to come home at then, even back then with all of our enthusiastic youthfulness still intact 🙂
In all honesty I’m not sure we could make it much past a month nowadays. You can cover a lot of ground in a month but then you are taking away the slow travel part of it and everything becomes much more stressful. Once you place a time limit on your time away you end up with a constant balancing act between how many places you want to see and how “slow” you can go, with a faster pace of travel normally always being more stressful and expensive.
In summary, you have to be a pretty specific type of person (or people if you are in a couple/family) to do that whole long term travel thing, and I really don’t think we are cut out for it.
And that is fine!
There are a whole lot of people out there selling this dream and even more people, including me 5 years ago, lapping it up, but until you’ve had a pop at it yourself I would not bank any of your FIRE plans on this being your no.1 activity, or worse still factoring in Geo-arbitrage to make your numbers work.
I’ll be back with a few more short posts that were inspired by / while I was on holiday over the next week. Hopefully it won’t become like… “this one time, while I was in France” but please bear with me if it does… haha!
Discussion (18) ¬
I know that feeling of when you’ve been on holiday, wanting to come back and to be back in with home comforts etc. Something nice coming back to home after a long time away to get back into the ‘swing of things’.
Did you go to south of France?
Yea there is isn’t there Jase?
Yea, really lovely down there, would definitely go back.
I will laugh if you post 3-4 things in the next week, all along the same lines as “btw, guys, did I mention that I was in France last week? No big deal, here’s something I learned…” But, it’s of course not a problem if that ends up being the case; it’s only natural that being in a new environment will prompt a number of new ideas!
That photo is a blast from the past. My parents often took me and my brothers on a Eurocamp holiday whilst we were young. They were awesome! Lots of happy memories.
I think you raise a good point. Travelling and living abroad looks and sounds glamorous, but if even a two-week holiday can wipe me out, how am I supposed to manage living out of a suitcase for months at a time!
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Haha Dr FIRE I am totally doing that now! 😀
Yea they are great. We might try a different country next time though, they have them all over now, might do Croatia as I went there years ago and really loved the country.
Yea I think some of the blogs on it aren’t as honest about how tough it can be, as they are essentially selling you a lifestyle?
I loved to travel when I was younger, but these days it’s getting less fun. Busy roads, busy airports, busy ferries, busy trains. Hotels seem noisier, Airbnb can be potluck….but somehow I still like the idea of it and I look forward to getting away. I feel all my holidays, even the more rubishy ones, were a worthwhile spend of money. In retirement, I’m intending to stay closer to home and feel I was lucky to do the long haul stuff when I didn’t mind ten hours on a ‘plane. Unless I can get Matched Betting to fund Business Class, of course.
You raise good point here, maybe I should be doing more travel before I get even more used to my home comforts! Eakk… scary thought 🙂
Didn’t know you were still doing this Matched betting… how’s it going with that?
Fell out of MB a bit for a time, but I may go back. I was trying the EWS but, as I think you stated, that was just sheer gambling. It seemed to me that without the odd 40-1 outsider romping home once in a blue moon, the whole thing was precarious. A bit like the old roulette “strategy” of doubling your money up on the red (or black) coming up eventually. Until you run out of cash.
Good to see you back,TFS and hope you had a great holiday.
The near 6 weeks I was away just after I was made redundant was the longest I’d been away from home since my late teens and although it felt like a real holiday, it’s not something I need to or intend to do when I retire and I was glad to be back home. Max time away in the future will be a month if it’s with family, other trips likely to be one or two weeks – depending on my FIRE funds!
I still don’t mind the whole airport thing – I see how it annoys some people but I think it’s something I just accept because I do fly long-haul at least once a year.
Like you, don’t know how people do it with kids so kudos to them, having the patience to do that!
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Sounds like we are on the same wavelength as usual weenie 🙂
I know it’s less efficient only going away for a week or two, but I still feel you can get a good feel of a place in that time (2 weeks at least). I would probably reserve my 1 week holidays for UK based ones, as you don’t exactly need to try to immerse yourself into the culture quite as much as trips abroad 🙂
I used to enjoy travelling, and still do on occasion. But several years of super-commuting once a week meant that the main thing I want to do is stay at home during holidays. But I live in a beautiful part of the world with easy access to forests, sea, mountains, rivers etc.
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Hi Chris,
Good point about commuting taking it out of you. Travel is no fun if you are doing that day in and out already!
There are obviously different levels of beauty in this country but you are never far from some green fields or hills, rivers, lakes, or even nice parks in bigger towns and cities. The UK is a beautiful place and hugely under appreciated by most people that live here in my opinion.
Cheers!
I worked as a campsite courier for 3 months in France when I was at uni, was pretty awesome!
I’m filled with the same dream that you had right now, I kinda hope it doesn’t change. Do you think that if you had no friends/family close by you would feel differently?
I can’t shake that itch that somewhere out there would be our ‘perfect’ place to live. I feel like I need to see everywhere to be able to make that decision 🙂
Hi Ninja,
That’s so cool, wish I had done something like that!
Yea we talked about that before right… I think it would make a big difference yea! Also you are not me and have your own thoughts, dreams and priorities – sounds like you are far more into the idea than I ever was which was mainly just a pipedream for me (otherwise why didn’t I just get a job abroad or whatever?)
There is probably far more than just one perfect place for you to live just like there would in theory be far more than one perfect Mrs Ninja. Best not to admit to that last bit though eh 🙂
I look forward to seeing where you eventually end up mate!
Sounds like a great holiday. As with most things in life it’s probably a balance that’s needed. I don’t think I have enough travel in my life just now, but with 2 teenagers in the throes of exams, that’s not that surprising. Although I did offer the choice of what they wanted to do this summer and they chose a road trip around England, so not exactly far flung travel from our home base of Scotland! It should be fun though, and we have a good route planned. I’m with you on the whole home comforts thing. I’m a home body, so I always like to get back to my home comforts. Glad you had a good trip and I look forward to more French themed blog posts.
Hah, that’s cool your children chose a close to home holiday. We did a road trip round your fine country a few ago and would definitely come back to explore more, beautiful!
Thanks and I hope England lives up to their expectations 🙂