Getting Started as a Permanent Nomad

For me, the hardest part about getting started as a permanent nomad was the preparation.  By the time you reach 66, you’ve most likely accumulated a lot of STUFF.  But now I was planning to live out of a suitcase, and it would be crazy to store everything, so downsizing was the way to go. 

I sold stuff on Ebay and on Facebook Marketplace.  We held garage sales and made a lot of donations.  It took a solid nine months to empty our four bedroom house.  I had to arrange for movers to take stuff to storage and other movers to take Rachelle’s stuff to her new apartment.  Then there’s the general spiffing-up of the house and yard to get it ready to go on sale.  Rachelle and I had a graduation ceremony to go to in England in July 2023, and I was running-running-running up to the very moment I needed to head to the airport.

There are probably as many styles of nomading as there are nomads.  Many, like me, are retirees who have no work obligations and can therefore afford to spend the time hopping around the world.  Younger folks are usually digital nomads who can work wherever their laptop is located. 

Some folks keep a home base in the US, either renting out their home so they have someplace to come back to if they decide the nomad life isn’t for them, or they travel for part of the year and live back at home for part of the year.  There are slow-mads who stay in one location for a month or more to feel like they’re really absorbing the daily life of that country.  Others check off their sights-to-see list in each city and move on as soon as they’re done.  I even see some who operate “if it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium” style, trying to sightsee two or even three cities in one DAY!  (Note: I don’t recommend this, but it’s your travel, your style).  Some go high end, with 5-star hotels and luxury cruises while others go the budget route and try to hostel or housesit or couchsurf their way around the world.  I’m somewhere in the middle.

Since I was planning to be a full-time nomad, I decided to sell my house.  I couldn’t afford both the mortgage and my travel expenses and chose not to rent it out.  I didn’t want to worry about whether the tenants were holding loud parties and making my neighbors mad, destroying the house, or neglecting the yard.  I didn’t want to worry about repairing a flood in the basement or removing a fallen tree in the yard.  And the house was way too big for just me, so I knew I wasn’t going to return there to live full-time.  It was time to say farewell to Maryland.

But not entirely.  You never know what the future holds, after all, so I chose to store the equivalent of a one-bedroom apartment at a storage unit.  What if my dream of nomading turned into a nightmare and I wanted to return to the States?  And what about my sentimental items?  I didn’t want to let go of all of those.  I know people who store just a few items – or none – but I opted for “instant apartment” should I decide to come back. 

In future installments, I’ll talk about packing, and what my travel style is, and anything else you folks want to know about.

#Nomad, #Preparation, #TravelStyles