Changing Priorities

For those who pay particular attention to the blog, you may know that usually the top right hand corner of the blog header looks like this:

You may also know that it doesn’t look like that anymore. It now looks like this:

No More Travel?

We definitely still intend to spend a good portion of our time travelling in early retirement. We love to travel and don’t ever plan to stop.

But, you might remember from very early in this blog, we had intentions of travelling full time for at least a few years. We were inspired by a podcast called The Expat Chat. We were very excited to reach early retirement, sell all of our stuff and head off.

But over the course of the last two years, our priorities have changed.

We have moved a few times in that two year period which made us realise how important it is to us to be settled. We also realised that, because we want the freedom to make adjustments or do renovations, renting is not an option so we plan to buy our retirement home in the next couple of years and have it paid off by the time we retire.

In the last two years, I have also become an aunty twice over. My nephews bring me an enormous amount of joy and I can’t imagine not seeing them on a regular basis. While I don’t live particularly close to one of them now, being overseas for a few years would increase that distance enormously. It is not cheap to fly in and out of Australia, which means we couldn’t come back to visit as much as we’d like. I intend to be very heavily involved in both of their lives as they grow, which means spending at least most of my time living in Australia. One of my nephews will grow up in Newcastle, hopefully in the same suburb as us. I’m working on my sister to try and get my other nephew nearby so that I can see him just as much.

Priorities change, and ours have. We still plan to travel regularly in retirement, aiming for at least one large international trip per year. We plan for this to be slow travel, maybe for two months or so. We can handle being away for two months and given my brother will be living in the same suburb, he will be able to keep an eye on our house (and feed our dog if we ever stop debating what kind to get).

Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with this toilet-paper-pulling gremlin?

But most of our retirement will be spent with our family and friends, here in Australia. It will also be spent gardening, renovating our home and just enjoying being in our home together. We’ll take plenty of mid-week trips locally (avoiding the crowded weekends), satisfying our yearning for travel.

We are pretty happy with this new found plan and believe it suits us much better. We’re not the type (especially me) who can spend too long away from family without missing them immensely.

What do you think of our new retirement plans? Could you spend your retirement permanantly travelling? Share in the comments below!

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5 Responses to Changing Priorities

  1. My husband and I consider ourselves “roots” vs. “wings” people. We will always enjoy seeing new places and traveling on occasion, but we thrive by becoming engrained in our community, creating a home setting we love, being a regular, etc. So if we ever retire early, we likely won’t be globetrotting 🙂

  2. Good on you for reflecting on your priorities and being prepared to change your plans. Personally, I think having somewhere to feel settled is a wonderful thing, near family and friends, with the ability to travel if and when you like.

    And congrats on being an auntie! I love spending as much time with our own kids as I can, it’s the best thing ever. I also love seeing them build new friendships at kinder / school, so would hate to pull them away from that. Much rather take them on as many holidays as we can!

  3. NZ Muse says:

    I’ve travelled for 6 months in a row and I like having a home base. I think in my ideal world, maybe 3 months in a year travelling tops! And I’m sure having kids would further affect that even more.

  4. Mrs. ETT says:

    This is us. We are travelling regularly in the lead-up to our retirement (overseas every 2 years, Australia every other 2 years). We plan on continuing this in retirement. What we are looking forward to is no constraints around how much time we can get off work, and when we can go.

    Having said that, 6-8 weeks seems to be our limit for when we are ready to return home. Slow travel will mean that we don’t try to fit the breadth of a country in a single trip. We can focus on a smaller area and do a place deeply.

    “toilet-paper-pulling gremlin” – lol!

  5. Miss Balance says:

    Reflecting on your plans and seeing if they still fit nicely is so important – nothing is ever set in stone.
    I love travel too, though agree with Mrs ETT that 6-8 weeks or two smaller 3-4 week trips is enough for me before I’m ready to come back home again. I think thiis is for the same reasons as you share; family, community, having a strong base.
    Best of luck getting your sister to move closer.

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