The Great Wander

A year or so ago, my wife and I were sitting in the hot tub talking.  While we were talking, she tells me her retirement dream is to buy an RV and travel North America.  I listened and thought that sounds cool and fun.  I hadn’t thought about retirement plans, because I still have seven more years.

The more I thought about retirement, I started thinking about what I want to do when the time comes. I’m going to work for seven more years and then what?  What’s next?  What am I going to do?  After much deliberation, I told her what conclusion I had come too.  I said, the RV sounds cool.  Seeing the country would be great, but I’d like to buy a fishing boat and charter deep sea fishing trips.  She thought that sounded cool, until I started looking more into some of the associated costs.  While we were looking at fishing boats online, I put on a sailing documentary about a family that lived at sea for the better part of 15 years.

While we were watching the sailing documentary, my wife says, “What about sailing?”.  Fuel costs are a lot lower than if we bought a fishing boat,  yes there are other expenses but it’s still probably a bit cheaper and you can go to different places than you can on fishing motor boat.  Why start sailing after our youngest graduates from high school, it would be a different way to live.  It would be a fun way to see the world.

Then in November of 2020, Covid 19 hit our house.  The four of us got it with my wife getting hit the hardest.  In fact, even today there are some lingering effects.  I would say she’s a long hauler.

The effects of COVID were more than just the direct physical and mental issues that COVID brings.  It got us thinking, LIFE IS SHORT!  Do we need to work?  What does working day in and day out get us?  The experience reminded me of when my dad retired from the Air Force after 24 years.  One of the things he said was that people were coming up to him saying, “I bet you remember the good old days.”  To which he said, “If you aren’t living in the good old days, you’re doing something wrong.”

Work is necessary, at least to live the traditional 9 to 5 middle class American life.  But, are there other ways to live?  Lifestyles that bring contentment and joy?  We started researching a bit, wondering what would it take for us to live on a boat.  How soon could we do it?  

We set both long- and short-term goals to achieve this new lifestyle.  Long term financial goals and liquidation of our accumulated possessions.  We are now 60 weeks out from our goal to being on open waters.  We’ve also set short term goals along the way.  For example, we will embark on our first sailing and scuba diving courses this summer. We are going to be writing about all of this, recipes that we are learning for cooking on a boat, how we are going to change our lives.  There will also be a bit of history about us, and some fitness writing too. 

We look forward to sharing this journey with you.