Redefining retirement with purpose and adventure
John and Bev retired at 55, sold almost everything, and traded their dream home for two backpacks, golf clubs, and a life of full-time travel. Since then, they have visited 107 countries and all 50 states as “The Retirement Travelers.”
Their journey began during COVID, when cancelled plans led to an Airstream trip across America’s national parks. Living in 220 square feet showed them how little they truly needed—freeing them to downsize, travel, and focus on experiences over possessions.
With Bev’s MS diagnosis adding urgency, they embraced their “go-go years” while working closely with financial planners to ensure their plan supported their lifestyle. They now share stories, practical tips, and inspiration through their platform, proving meaningful travel does not require expensive, tourist-heavy destinations.
Their message is simple: whatever your dream is, pursue it now.
Learn more here: https://www.retirementtravelers.com
_
Advisory services are offered through Root Financial Partners, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Viewing this content does not create an advisory relationship. We do not provide tax preparation or legal services. Always consult an investment, tax or legal professional regarding your specific situation.
The strategies, case studies, and examples discussed may not be suitable for everyone. They are hypothetical and for illustrative and educational purposes only. They do not reflect actual client results and are not guarantees of future performance. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal.
Comments reflect the views of individual users and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial. They are not verified, may not be accurate, and should not be considered testimonials or endorsements
Participation in the Retirement Planning Academy or Early Retirement Academy does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. These programs are educational in nature and are not a substitute for personalized financial advice. Advisory services are offered only under a written agreement with Root Financial.
Create Your Custom Strategy ⬇️
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, john Hi Bev, thank you for joining me today.
Hi Hi, thanks for having us.
I'm very excited for thisconversation.
We talk a lot.
I talk a lot about retirement,and retirement not just being
this thing that you go to togive up, to settle down, to kind
of just drift quietly into thenight, but it should be this
season of adventure, of joy, ofpurpose, of doing everything
(00:22):
that you want to be able to do,and you two are excellent
examples of that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You are the Retirement Travelers.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You have a wonderful YouTube channel.
You got tons of resources whichwe're going to touch upon in a
little bit.
I'm going to link to them inthe show notes below, but do you
mind just sharing a bit aboutyour journey.
How did you come to be known asor become the Retirement
Travelers that you are today?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, it has been quite a journey.
I would say, let's see, let'sgo back.
I retired at the end of 2019.
And we hadn't really thoughtabout retirement travelers at
that point.
We knew we wanted to travelsome and at that time Bev said
you know, let's, while we travel, I could probably blog and, you
(01:03):
know, write some blogs as wetravel.
We weren't thinking full time,maybe a couple months, a year
kind of thing.
And I said naively, why notjust start a YouTube channel?
How hard could that be Famous?
Last words, and she came upwith the name Retirement
Travelers and that was how itwas kind of started, back at the
(01:24):
beginning of 2020, again beforeCOVID.
So that's where the idea wasstarted.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, yeah, it was that simple.
And after we got started withit, I mean we can get into that.
But yeah, the idea was never.
We never had the plan to beworld travelers.
We never had.
Well, we always wanted totravel but we never had the plan
to be YouTubers.
I mean, the idea of that wasjust so foreign and you know, we
(01:55):
didn't really know anybody thatdid anything like this.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And yeah, and then we had a trip to Europe planned
for March of 2020.
And we were going to go for acouple of months and do some
blogging and just kind of feelour way through.
We had no idea what we weredoing and then COVID hit and
that was something that hasreally impacted our lives,
everyone, everyone.
(02:18):
But she said, hey, I don't wantto just sit here during COVID.
Why don't we buy an Airstreamand at least go see our country,
while we can't travelinternationally?
So within a week of COVIDshutting everything down, we
were up in Tampa, we bought anAirstream, we already had a
truck and we hit the road in Maywith a goal of we didn't know
(02:40):
how long COVID would last, butwe said let's just go see all 50
states and all the nationalparks in the lower 48.
And we took off and that's whatwe did, and that was kind of
the birth of RetirementTravelers.
We did a little bit of.
We started YouTubing.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I started blogging at the same time and we realized
that we were really bad at it.
We were bad at all of it.
We didn't know anything.
We were so, so green and justdidn't have any clue.
But it was really good becauseas we, as we kind of got our
bearings I mean, it really tookus two years to kind of get a
footing for really what wasgoing on we weren't very
(03:18):
consistent on our channel, butat least it taught us some
things and we started learningthat we were way over our heads.
So we backed off of the blogand decided let's just focus on
YouTube.
Later on, after we startedtraveling abroad, I looked at
John one day and I said you know, this wasn't my dream to be a
(03:41):
YouTube editor, it was my dreamto be a blogger.
So we put the YouTube on holdfor about eight months.
We just didn't film anythingand we worked on our website to
try to create a blog.
And then we went back to Asiathe next trip and John said you
know, let's just give it onemore go.
And the one more go was what weneeded and that just kind of
(04:03):
started us going in the rightdirection.
So we still blog, but it iskind of a little bit of a
backseat.
We wanted it to be bigger butwith AI and all of Google
changes we don't really see afuture for blogging like we see
with YouTube.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
The other funny thing that happened while we were
gone.
You know, we were still paying,you know, our HOA fees and
everything in our neighborhood.
While we were in this Airstream, which was about maybe 220
square feet, we realized that wedid not need a big house, that
we were quite happy, you know,out there exploring the world
together.
We didn't need a big home andlots of stuff.
(04:45):
And that first year on the road, first of all, we had never
even spent a single night in anRV before we just jumped into it
.
And by the end of that year webegan thinking you know what we
could do this.
We don't need a home, let's goout and explore the world.
For 10 years, you know, we weretired at 55 and the average
(05:07):
age in our community was 70 or75.
And we said, why?
Why spend the next, you know,35, 40 years doing this?
Why not go see the world?
We can always come back here in10 years.
So that kind of got the ballrolling that you know, let's,
let's just sell it all and go.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Will you paint that picture for us, because you know
it's not just.
We got an airstream andtraveled the lower 48 and came
home and took a couple trips ayear.
What has travel looked like forthe two of you the last five
years in terms of frequencywhere you've gone?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We have traveled mostly full time.
We do come home for a couple ofmonths at a time.
When we're home Sometimes it'ssix weeks.
Now we're trying to get to abetter pattern and a better
consistency because ourgrandkids are growing up and we
still want to be a part of theirlives.
So balancing family with travelhas been something that we've
(05:59):
learned that we can do, but thathas taken a little bit of an
adjustment period for us.
But we travel mostly.
We're trying to see it all.
I mean we really are trying tosee it all.
One of the things and we back upagain one of the things that
happened to us is that when Iwas around 40 years old maybe a
(06:22):
little younger than 40, I wasdiagnosed with multiple
sclerosis and with a diagnosislike that and I'm doing very
well, but with a diagnosis likethat it makes you reevaluate
everything about your life and Idon't know that tomorrow I will
walk.
So you know there is someurgency to our method of madness
(06:44):
.
Let's go see as much as we canwhile we're the healthiest.
We really are in our go-goyears.
You know, when you retire youhave go-go years, slow-go years
and no-go years and we are inour go-go years, we're the
healthiest we will ever be.
We know that 10, 20 years fromnow we will not be as healthy as
(07:04):
we are now, and there's nomagic cure out there that's
going to change that fact.
So right now is the time for usto go and go big and do as much
as we can, and so that hasplayed into our life as well.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So we've been to 107 countries so far and all 50
states.
So you know we are veryaggressive with.
You know the sense of urgencythat she talked about, not only
with travel but with our YouTube, with downsizing.
You know we don't want to haveregrets, that said we were
procrastinating.
You know we see that a lotactually with viewers that write
(07:43):
to us and that they're a littletentative with wanting to take
that step of downsizing ortravel.
I don't know if I can do it onmy own that kind of thing.
So we try to encourage peopleand give them confidence that
they can downsize or travel ordream bigger in retirement.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Our motto is the CS Lewis quote you're never too old
to set a new goal or dream anew dream.
And we truly believe thatRetirement Travelers for us was
a new dream.
John had a great career and hewas amazing at his career and I
was a stay-at-home mom to fivekids.
So as we age, and then when hecalled me and I think you were
(08:30):
in New York or Pittsburgh at thetime and he called me and he
said you know what?
They're offering me a package,what do you think about retiring
?
And I'm like let's do it.
And before he got home I had atrip planned.
Before he got home I had a tripplan.
So it was that much that thatexcited.
But one of the things thatwe've we've kind of seen in our
(08:50):
in our plan is that you know, Iwas a stay-at-home mom all those
years I still had a dream.
Someone said to us in ourneighborhood well, bev, the
corporate world missed out onyou and you know I, they didn't
miss out on me, but my kidsbenefited by me being around.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
But at the same time, I still had a dream and I
benefited.
You did benefit.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
But we had, I had a dream.
So when I said let's, let'svlog, I didn't imagine YouTube,
but it's still the same thingand it's still a goal.
It is still learning.
We're overwhelmed sometimeswith the amount of learning that
we've had to do, but at thesame time, our roles have kind
of switched and I'm the creativebehind the brand and John is
(09:37):
the workhorse.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Throughout my career.
She was my rock and dideverything at home and supported
my career, which was verybeneficial to our family.
We were very aligned and nowthe roles have kind of switched.
She's the creative genius ofretirement travelers and I
support her.
But we're very aligned in whatwe do.
We're a team, we are theultimate team and it's kind of
(10:04):
sad for us.
We hear from so many viewersthat one wants to travel and one
doesn't, one wants to do thisand the other doesn't, and that
misalignment, you know, forcouples in retirement is a big
issue.
So we feel very blessed thatwe're fully aligned with what
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I'd love to dig deeper on that, and real quick.
Before I do, everyone should gocheck out
retirementtravelerscom.
I'm looking at your site rightnow.
Everything from trip planningstrategies, cheap business class
tickets, our travel costs, howto pack travel, health insurance
, money in base so everythingthat you could possibly need to
know go toretirementtravelerscom.
Go to the Retirement TravelersYouTube channel.
(10:43):
There's a hundred videos thatwe could take a deep dive on.
But go check that out foryourself, because it is pretty
incredible to see what the twoof you have done.
I want to talk about a couple ofthings.
One was that you touched uponthe sense of urgency.
I think that so often people,even once they retire maybe
they're not retiring as young asyou did, but at 60, at 65,
there's this sense that I've got20 more years, I've got 30 more
(11:05):
years, I've got 30 more years.
But what you said was soimportant of not all those years
are created equal.
You're never going to be ashealthy, you're never going to
have as much energy, You'renever going to have the vitality
that you have today.
So how do you, how?
One, how can people create thatsense of urgency?
And then, number two travelingis an amazing goal and for some
(11:26):
people, that's exactly what theywant to do, and it sounds like
that was you.
How did you learn that, knowingthat that it won't always be
travel for everyone?
It will be other things forother people, but what was the
point at which you two felt likethis is what we want to do with
our retirement years once we'rethere?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I think for us it started when we were children.
We were both.
We both had very differentupbringings I mean not really
that different upbringings, butI grew up in Arkansas and John
grew up in West Virginia.
I grew up and our family hadwhat we called a farm.
We really didn't have very manyanimals, just a few donkeys.
But my family, my dad, decidedwhen we were dad, decided when I
(12:07):
was seven years old, that wedidn't need a television, and he
threw away the television andsaid we have all this land out
here and you guys need to getout and go do it.
So I think that played a reallybig part in who I am today,
with creativity and with justthe dream of having a dream.
(12:28):
I couldn't see someone elseliving a dream.
I had to dream myself, and oneof the side effects of that was
that my brother and my sisterswe read everything we could get
our hands on and we lived inthis little community had no
library.
My parents the only lie I everheard my mother tell was to the
librarian in the nearby townthat we lived there so we could
(12:51):
get a library card.
We just didn't have a libraryback then in that area and so my
parents filled our world withbooks and I heard wonderful
stories, and so John's familybrought in you knowin Colombia.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And we spent a month with my sister who was down
there and it kind of my parentsreally stressed education and
you know it's a big world outthere.
Even growing up in a smallrural town in West Virginia they
had that vision for their kids.
So that kind of got me startedwanting to travel and I've
(13:51):
always enjoyed travel.
It's just as you're raising afamily and working that cuts
into your travel time a littlebit.
But yeah, we've always had thatpassion for travel.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
So that passion's always been there.
Was there a fear of you knowyou went for lack of a better
word.
All in, you sold your home.
You've seen 100 plus countries.
You've seen all the states.
Was there a fear of doing thatbefore you actually went?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
So here's kind of how this transpired for us.
And after we had gone one yeararound the country with the
Airstream, we had planned to oneto do an interior loop and one
to do an outer loop of thecountry, which is a good route
to take if you're looking fornational parks, and so we had
(14:36):
done the first loop.
After we got back then westarted thinking well, how could
we travel?
We had gone to our financialplanner when we had to set up
our retirement plan and we hadhad a discussion about how much
travel do you want to do?
It was something that we didand in that planning we said to
(14:58):
ourselves and to them we thinktwo months is kind of a rational
idea of keeping the lifestylethat we had and still giving
ourselves a couple of months totravel a year.
But then we kind of startedthinking after that first year
of travel and realizing that wecould live with a lot less, that
we might could go travel more,but we couldn't stay in the home
(15:20):
that we were in.
And it wasn't that we couldn't,but it was that it would have
been silly and it would havebeen a waste of money for us to
stay there, because it was anexpensive neighborhood and had
club dues and things like that.
So we decided you know, I satdown one day and I just figured
out how much does it cost us tolive here every single day.
(15:43):
And even my friends in theneighborhood when I told them,
you know, it costs us this muchto live here and to live in this
home, and they're like I nevereven sat down and figured up
what our daily cost is.
So when we figured that dailycost, I said to John I said,
look, we can go travel the worldon this amount.
(16:03):
We can always come back.
A house is a house and itwasn't like we had raised our
family there.
So when we looked at thatnumber and we said we could sell
it, we could come back in 10years or whatever and we could
buy again.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
The other thing we realized was how much of not not
only cost, but our mental youknow, mental and emotional
energy was spent on oh, is ahurricane going to come?
What do we got to do with thisboat?
Or our house insurance, allthese things that end up, you
know HOA, you know stuff, allthe things that occupy our minds
(16:39):
.
Wasn't necessarily, we thought,the best thing we could be
doing in our retirement.
It wasn't the healthiest, itwasn't the healthiest thing
versus you know what othercultures could we go?
You know experience around theworld and what can we learn?
We've learned so much bytraveling to all these countries
and you know we tell people.
(17:00):
People ask us questions nowbecause we're doing our China
series.
But my goodness, we've learnedso much.
We did a 3,000-mile trainjourney through China and the
learnings that we had on that.
There's no way we could havelearned just, you know, living
in our golf community.
So it's, we enjoy the learningaspect of it.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I think that this is an important thing to touch upon
is this wasn't just a recklessthrow everything to the wind and
hop on the next plane out?
There was.
When I say a financial plan, Idon't just mean what do you do
with your money, I mean what's?
How do you allocate your time,how do you allocate your
emotional energy, how do youallocate the skills, the talents
that you have?
And you took a lot of time, itsounds like, to really think
(17:41):
through how do we do this in avery not just financially
responsible way, but also in away that we're not going to look
back with regret one day.
We can always get another home.
We can always get the other.
You fill in the blank we're notalways going to be able to get
these years back, so let's moveforward and take advantage of
that.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I think it starts with knowing that you have a
great partner.
And for John and I, we verymuch love each other and there
are times when I'm like get out,he's like get away from me,
because we're together all thetime, but for the most part we
have a very loving relationshipand I trust that he's going to
have my back and I have his back, and whether we're traveling or
(18:24):
whether we're home, whatever.
I think that's where I think,when we sat down together and
said you know we could do this,said you know we could do this,
I knew I could trust him to be abig part of it or be all in.
When he said I'm ready, let'sdo it, it took him about a week
to decide.
Oh, when I said let's just sellit all, that was definitely my
(18:46):
idea and it took him about aweek of thinking.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
It wasn't immediate, it took a few days, but then we
did it it.
It took a few days, but then wedid it.
Our style is to think about it.
We are thoughtful about things,but we don't hesitate after
that.
Once we make a decision, we gofor it, and then we're all in.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
But we have good basis, our foundation is strong,
and so we worked really hard toearn that money and we don't
want to ruin our retirement.
We're not being careless.
We in fact selling our home wasthe smartest thing we did
because it freed up besidesmentally a home.
(19:29):
It freed up not the money fromthe home to spend, because we
set that aside to invest so wecould come back to it and it was
our safety net.
But it was the being out ofdebt before retirement was so
important.
We could not have done this ifwe had a mortgage.
We couldn't do this if we werereckless and we were
overextended on things.
(19:50):
We were completely out of debta few years before retirement
and we worked really hard onthat.
So our decision to go wasalways founded in keeping our
financial future sound.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, go ahead, john.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I mean and playing.
That's why we met up with ourfinancial advisors.
We wanted a long-term strategy.
None of this was short-term.
We were aggressive with urgencyto go see and do things, but we
always had a long-term planfinancially that we felt very
good about and run ideas throughthem so that we didn't do
(20:29):
anything silly yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, one of the things that I would encourage
listeners to do that I'm hearingthat you did is that sense of
approach retirement from theblank slate mindset of the
thought of not having a home inretirement.
You work your whole life to payoff a home and then you just
sell it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, it was a dream home.
It was our dream home.
It was the one thing we hadworked so, so hard.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It had a perfect view on a river, you know, on a golf
course community, and we lovedit.
I mean, it was a, it was a.
We called it Disney World foradults.
It was a great neighborhood,but it was.
It was expensive and and itwasn't necessarily challenging
us the way that we, you know, wewanted to do in life.
So, you know, people people nowask us about you know, are you
(21:14):
giving up time with your kids?
What we really gave up withthis world travel was we gave up
our golf community in Floridaand we're still spending as much
time with our kids andgrandkids probably more now than
when we were living in a golfcommunity in Florida because our
kids aren't near there.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Right, yeah, so you.
So you put the time and thoughtinto what is actually most
important to us, and we have afinite amount of attention and
time that we can give to family,to travels, to the golf
community, and all are great,but maybe the golf community is
the bottom of the list in termsof the priorities we look at
there.
What is the right decision?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, I've played golf since I was a child, so I
am passionate about golf and youknow that was a big part of my
life, throughout my entire life,and you know.
But I also had a dream.
So, you know, was the dream tobe a YouTuber?
No, not really, but I mean thedream is to to live a great life
(22:12):
and I feel like that we'redoing that.
I mean, it's not all easy.
Everything that we come acrossisn't just rosy and perfect and
you know, we're in countriessometimes where it's very
challenging to travel in, but italways makes me think I thank
the good Lord for all that wehave and that we have each other
(22:33):
and we have a great family andthat's our core.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to once again redirect people
to your YouTube channel, to yourwebsite, to understand kind of
how and the where, where totravel, how to travel, some of
the tips and tactics.
What I want to spend a bit oftime on now is lessons learned.
You know, as you look back onthis, having spent a few years
doing this, are there lessonsthat you would share with your
(22:59):
younger selves?
Are there lessons that youwould share with people who are
kind of on the fence of?
I kind of want to do this.
It doesn't even have to betravel specific, but just to
what you said, bev, of living abig life, living fully, what
would you share?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Well, the biggest lesson for us, probably to our
younger selves.
Well, the biggest lesson for us, probably to our younger selves
, is that stuff doesn't matter.
And I look back on our livesand we have a big regret.
And that big regret is that wedid not take our children and
travel more.
And you know, that's one thingwe want to do with our
grandchildren.
That's kind of our legacy planis to take our grandchildren and
(23:36):
show them the world.
But had we been at 40, 45 yearsold, even 50, if John had been
able to take a year off and takethe kids on a big, long trip, I
think it would have been reallygood for all of us and for them
.
So when we meet young peopleout on the road and they say to
us I want to be like you when Igrow up, what do I need to do?
(23:58):
And our answer is always livesmall so you can live big and
don't let lifestyle creep comein.
We bought houses.
Every time we moved, john gottransferred, we bought a bigger
house, even after the kids lefthome.
We would, he would get atransfer or promotion.
(24:18):
And when we moved we alwaysbought a bigger house and we
should have gone down in size.
And we look back on that andthat was we would be.
Even you know that would havechanged a lot had we done that.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So that's our younger side.
Yeah, the bigger houses, thebigger houses.
Uh, we didn't need.
And then the whole thought ofthe uh snowboarding.
Uh, it just was a, it's a fineit's a fun lifestyle, but it's
financial.
If you can afford it, great, butit is not a.
We don't think it's a greatfinancial decision to have two
(24:53):
of everything and be paying forstuff that you're not living
there.
So we're just too frugal to dothat kind of living.
It sounded great and at thetime it sounded great, but we
know now that that's just notfor us.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
The other lesson that we've learned and this is
probably one of the biggestlessons outside of the travel
was the importance of downsizingyour life and when we think
back about the impactful thingswe did besides being out of debt
and being financially securebefore we made this big decision
, before we retired, it's thedownsizing.
(25:30):
We've done a couple of videoson downsizing and I recently did
one on the channel about thedifficulties of downsizing.
But one of the things that I'velearned through this process is
that people don't take the timeto do this.
They plan for their future.
They say, oh, I've got my willin place, I have my trust set up
(25:53):
, I have all of that done at theattorney, I've gone to will in
place, I have my trust set up.
I have all of that done at theattorney.
I've gone to my financialplanner, I have planned my
retirement and they have all ofthat set up.
But what they have not thoughtabout is the importance of
downsizing, even if you're notgoing to go travel.
When one spouse dies, the otherspouse gets the entire job to
(26:13):
themselves.
When one spouse dies, the otherspouse gets the entire job to
themselves.
And if that spouse cannothandle the process because
almost everyone downsizes and ifthey don't downsize, they leave
it to their children, and wehave heard from so many,
especially women, becausedaughters are usually the ones
that deal with this, whetherit's daughters or
daughter-in-laws.
But downsizing your things andgoing through a house full of
(26:37):
stuff is a burden you do notwant to leave on your spouse and
you don't want to leave it toyour children.
And having gone through thatprocess of downsizing, we know
what it's done for us, but wesee what it does for other
people, and that's our biglesson.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, and we went through a process.
I don't know if you've heard ofSwedish death cleaning, but
it's basically it's preparingall of your assets and
documentation and everything sothat your children don't have a
big burden.
It's preparing and you know,our advice is to do that earlier
(27:14):
rather than later.
You know, we it's part ofsimplification.
We wanted to simplifyeverything.
So if we get hit by a bustomorrow, our children, it's
basically one phone call.
Everything is digitized,everything is in order.
There's not going to be.
Yes, there's the emotionalgrief of losing your parents,
but there's not the I've got togo clean out a house.
(27:35):
I don't know what their, theirfinancial situation is.
We have taken care of all ofthat and we feel it's kind of
it's it's our gift to ourchildren to not leave that
burden to them.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
It's truly our love letter to them.
And our daughters have said tous you can't imagine what this
has done for us to know We'llnever have to do that to us.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
You can't imagine what this has done for us to
know we'll never have to do that.
I'm glad you say this becausefrom the outside it looks like,
wow, john and Bev, they're doingso much.
That's, how do you manage themental burden of all that all?
And what you're saying is thatthe mental burden was having to
deal with the what ifs of thehurricanes and the insurances
and the big house, and bysimplifying this, it's allowing
you to be fully present and dowhat you want to do.
(28:15):
That's not to say there's not alot you're still doing.
You're running a YouTubechannel, a blog, you're
traveling all over the place,you have family in different
parts of the country, but theburden of that is less than it
would have been with the quoteunquote traditional path.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
I mean, retirees have different goals and a lot of
retirees have no desire to gotravel.
But even outside of that youcan get your life in order.
And you know it's very famousthat people leave their.
You know they don't get theirwill in place and they don't
take care of their finance.
You know they don't do thatpart of life but downsizing and
(28:52):
just we know John's mom has goneto assisted living and the
family had to downsize for that,and you know, and his dad died
young and so those kinds ofthings happen and you need to be
prepared for them.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah, so I'm curious to hear what's next.
You spent the last five, sixyears traveling all over has
that?
Does the travel bug get out ofyour system at a certain point,
or is it more alive than ever?
And what's next?
For the two of you, it's morealive than ever.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I mean, I can't even believe that, because I mean,
certainly we are used to travel,so we don't land at an airport
anymore and say, oh no, webetter line up this and we
better have a map to the subwaystation and we better have every
duck in order, but we stilljust love it.
(29:47):
I mean, the key to good travelis being organized, and one of
the things we did a couple oflast year is that we created a
series called Travel SchoolRetirement Travel School and the
very first lesson is organizingall of the details.
And for us, we don't justtravel, you know, a couple of
weeks out of the year where wecan keep all of our things in a
(30:10):
folder.
We're planning a trip.
Every week of the year, evenwhen we're home, we're planning
a trip.
So we have a lot of details tokeep track of.
So organization is reallyimportant.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
And again down, simplifying all we have is two
backpacks.
We tease people.
We have two backpacks, sevenshirts, seven shirts and and our
golf clubs, cause we're notcrazy, and that's it.
I mean, that's literally all wehave.
We last year we bought a usedcar, but we went three years
with no car and people just findthat how did you, how did you
(30:46):
do that?
And and but wasn't that, wasn'tthat difficult, you know, it
makes you think differently, soyeah, and but wasn't that,
wasn't that difficult, you know,makes you think differently.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
So, yeah, no, but we really are excited.
What's next for us is that weare going to continue to travel,
but, but in terms of YouTubeand what we, what's next for us
here is we are vlogging, kind ofwent back to vlogging.
We feel like we've said how topack.
We feel like we've given youall the tips and all of our
thoughts on that.
So we're really traveling andwe're really vlogging.
We want people to see us gothrough a subway station in
(31:19):
Korea and say to themselvesSouth Korea, by the way.
We want them to say, well, ifthey can go through a subway
system and get where they aregoing, I have the confidence
that I can at least get a taxiand get to my hotel.
So we're excited that we canshare our.
You know, if we can share, giveyou confidence that you can do
(31:41):
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
We also want to encourage people.
You know we talk to so manypeople our age that it's either
they go on a cruise or they goto London, paris or Rome and
we're trying to tell peoplethere's a lot more to the world
than just big touristy places.
In fact, we kind of enjoy thenon-touristy places so much
better.
You know, being in a city wherewe're probably the only
(32:06):
Americans there, we like thatand really enjoy interacting
with local people there, and youknow that's what we enjoy and
that's what we're going to domore of in the future.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
So for us, when we look at what's ahead for the
retirement travelers, we arevlogging, but we also have
realized that one of the biggestthings that we really feed off
of is our community, and so westarted a Facebook community,
because we've always givenadvice and how we do things, but
we haven't provided our viewersan opportunity to ask questions
(32:42):
except in the comments.
So we created a Facebookcommunity called Retirement
Traveler Senior Travel Communityon Facebook, and you can go
there and share your pictures,you can ask questions.
There are so many people thatare on the platform that are
good travelers and they willlend their advice to that, and
(33:03):
so that's a big part of oureffort.
Today We've kind of niched downto community, our vlog, and
then group travel.
We are planning our first grouptrip with our community to
Victoria Falls in April and wehave a few spots left.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Very, very, very excited about that.
You know, a lot of people haveasked us and that's it's new for
us, but we think that's part ofour future.
You say what's next in travelcommunity, as Bev said, and we
want to meet you.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
We want to meet people that are out there who
want to go travel but maybe nothave the confidence to go to
Victoria Falls on their own.
It's one of the most beautifulplaces in the world and we have
rented out the entire boutiquehotel and we have activities
planned and it is just going tobe so exciting.
We've actually met some of theviewers who are coming.
(33:53):
We were in China and we metfour who are actually going to
be there and you know we're soexcited about that, so that
part's going to be a lot of funfor us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I love it.
You're you're doing some verycool.
You're not just traveling,you're doing a lot of cool stuff
beyond that enabling others todo that, supporting others to do
that, before we wrap the peoplethat are on the edge the people
(34:25):
that want this so badly but aremaybe suffering from that or
paralyzed by that, the what if?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
the fears, the questions, any final pieces of
advice that you would share withthose people.
You got to do it.
I mean, we were in New Zealandand I had been teetering back
and forth Should I go bungeejumping?
And I don't love heights.
But I said you know what, if Idon't go bungee jumping at the
birthplace of bungee, I willregret it for the rest of my
life.
And so I ended up doing it andit was an exhilarating
(34:50):
experience.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
He had a high for like five days it was really it
was.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You know, sometimes you got to get out of your
comfort zone and it's easy tosay, no, I don't want to
downsize, I want the security ofnot jumping off a bridge or not
selling my home.
But in the end, you know, takethe leap of faith.
But in the end, you know, takethe leap of faith.
You know and go for it.
Life is short and you know, youdon't know how many good years
(35:17):
you have.
You know, whatever your dreamis, pursue it aggressively.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, one of the things we didn't touch on today
but was the amount of learningthat we're doing.
You know, just at every turn,at every day, we're never
walking down the same street weare.
I think that's a thing forretirees.
They oftentimes you know youfinished your career, you've
(35:44):
lost a lot of your friendsbecause they're not in your work
.
You're not in your work lifeanymore and sometimes you can
get depressed with this.
This all my life will ever be,and I we're showing it's not all
that your life has to be.
Changing your environment isone of the best ways that you
can change your outlook and theysay, just rearrange your
furniture.
But goodness, you can also gotravel and that gives you a
(36:06):
different perspective.
It certainly makes you feelgrateful and blessed and just
all of the good things fortravel.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
You meet people, you just yeah, I mean we miss some
of our friends from our oldneighborhood and hanging out
with them.
They follow along with us, butwe have met so many people
online, as you know, with theYouTube channel, the new
relationships and new learningand things that we never even
dreamed of.
So you know, the sky's thelimit on where we could go from
(36:36):
here.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, it reminds me of something I think about a lot
, which is there.
There's never an option that iswithout risk.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yes, Doing this.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
There's risk.
There's risk that you gosomewhere and you need to learn
something and you have hiccupsalong the way.
But the risk of not doing it isthe risk of regret and the risk
of a life where you look backand feel like that profound
weight of I can never go backand do that again.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I don't think we have any regrets.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
No there's no regret I?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
I, if I died tomorrow , I would have no regrets.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, I love it.
Well, you have so manyresources.
Do you mind sharing with thelisteners?
Again, I'll put all these inthe show notes, but where can
people find more if this issomething that they really want?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Well, we really want them to hit subscribe and follow
along on our journey and, youknow, send us notes and tell us
where you're from and be a partof our community on Facebook.
Those are those two things.
And then join us on a trip.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, youtube, facebook, and join us on a trip
or just reach out to us.
We, you know, one of the thingsthat we try to do as much as
possible is we answer every,every comment.
If you send something to us onFacebook or YouTube, we believe
if, if you've taken the time towrite us a note, then you
deserve a response, so we do ourvery best to reach back out.
(37:53):
So if you send us an email orreach out to us on our website,
we will do our best to get backto you.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I love it.
Well, john Bev, thank you somuch.
This has been great so manycool.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
This is beyond just travel.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
What you're doing is very cool to see and thank you
for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Thank you Thanks.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Once again, I'm James Canole, founder of Root
Financial, and if you'reinterested in seeing how we help
our clients at Root Financialget the most out of life with
their money, be sure to visit usat wwwrootfinancialpartnerscom.
Hi, john Hi Bev, thank you for joining me today.
Hi Hi, thanks for having us.
I'm very excited for thisconversation.
We talk a lot.
I talk a lot about retirement,and retirement not just being
this thing that you go to togive up, to settle down, to kind
of just drift quietly into thenight, but it should be this
season of adventure, of joy, ofpurpose, of doing everything
(00:22):
that you want to be able to do,and you two are excellent
examples of that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You are the Retirement Travelers.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You have a wonderful YouTube channel.
You got tons of resources whichwe're going to touch upon in a
little bit.
I'm going to link to them inthe show notes below, but do you
mind just sharing a bit aboutyour journey.
How did you come to be known asor become the Retirement
Travelers that you are today?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, it has been quite a journey.
I would say, let's see, let'sgo back.
I retired at the end of 2019.
And we hadn't really thoughtabout retirement travelers at
that point.
We knew we wanted to travelsome and at that time Bev said
you know, let's, while we travel, I could probably blog and, you
(01:03):
know, write some blogs as wetravel.
We weren't thinking full time,maybe a couple months, a year
kind of thing.
And I said naively, why notjust start a YouTube channel?
How hard could that be Famous?
Last words, and she came upwith the name Retirement
Travelers and that was how itwas kind of started, back at the
(01:24):
beginning of 2020, again beforeCOVID.
So that's where the idea wasstarted.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, yeah, it was that simple.
And after we got started withit, I mean we can get into that.
But yeah, the idea was never.
We never had the plan to beworld travelers.
We never had.
Well, we always wanted totravel but we never had the plan
to be YouTubers.
I mean, the idea of that wasjust so foreign and you know, we
(01:55):
didn't really know anybody thatdid anything like this.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And yeah, and then we had a trip to Europe planned
for March of 2020.
And we were going to go for acouple of months and do some
blogging and just kind of feelour way through.
We had no idea what we weredoing and then COVID hit and
that was something that hasreally impacted our lives,
everyone, everyone.
(02:18):
But she said, hey, I don't wantto just sit here during COVID.
Why don't we buy an Airstreamand at least go see our country,
while we can't travelinternationally?
So within a week of COVIDshutting everything down, we
were up in Tampa, we bought anAirstream, we already had a
truck and we hit the road in Maywith a goal of we didn't know
(02:40):
how long COVID would last, butwe said let's just go see all 50
states and all the nationalparks in the lower 48.
And we took off and that's whatwe did, and that was kind of
the birth of RetirementTravelers.
We did a little bit of.
We started YouTubing.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I started blogging at the same time and we realized
that we were really bad at it.
We were bad at all of it.
We didn't know anything.
We were so, so green and justdidn't have any clue.
But it was really good becauseas we, as we kind of got our
bearings I mean, it really tookus two years to kind of get a
footing for really what wasgoing on we weren't very
(03:18):
consistent on our channel, butat least it taught us some
things and we started learningthat we were way over our heads.
So we backed off of the blogand decided let's just focus on
YouTube.
Later on, after we startedtraveling abroad, I looked at
John one day and I said you know, this wasn't my dream to be a
(03:41):
YouTube editor, it was my dreamto be a blogger.
So we put the YouTube on holdfor about eight months.
We just didn't film anythingand we worked on our website to
try to create a blog.
And then we went back to Asiathe next trip and John said you
know, let's just give it onemore go.
And the one more go was what weneeded and that just kind of
(04:03):
started us going in the rightdirection.
So we still blog, but it iskind of a little bit of a
backseat.
We wanted it to be bigger butwith AI and all of Google
changes we don't really see afuture for blogging like we see
with YouTube.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
The other funny thing that happened while we were
gone.
You know, we were still paying,you know, our HOA fees and
everything in our neighborhood.
While we were in this Airstream, which was about maybe 220
square feet, we realized that wedid not need a big house, that
we were quite happy, you know,out there exploring the world
together.
We didn't need a big home andlots of stuff.
(04:45):
And that first year on the road, first of all, we had never
even spent a single night in anRV before we just jumped into it
.
And by the end of that year webegan thinking you know what we
could do this.
We don't need a home, let's goout and explore the world.
For 10 years, you know, we weretired at 55 and the average
(05:07):
age in our community was 70 or75.
And we said, why?
Why spend the next, you know,35, 40 years doing this?
Why not go see the world?
We can always come back here in10 years.
So that kind of got the ballrolling that you know, let's,
let's just sell it all and go.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Will you paint that picture for us, because you know
it's not just.
We got an airstream andtraveled the lower 48 and came
home and took a couple trips ayear.
What has travel looked like forthe two of you the last five
years in terms of frequencywhere you've gone?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We have traveled mostly full time.
We do come home for a couple ofmonths at a time.
When we're home Sometimes it'ssix weeks.
Now we're trying to get to abetter pattern and a better
consistency because ourgrandkids are growing up and we
still want to be a part of theirlives.
So balancing family with travelhas been something that we've
(05:59):
learned that we can do, but thathas taken a little bit of an
adjustment period for us.
But we travel mostly.
We're trying to see it all.
I mean we really are trying tosee it all.
One of the things and we back upagain one of the things that
happened to us is that when Iwas around 40 years old maybe a
(06:22):
little younger than 40, I wasdiagnosed with multiple
sclerosis and with a diagnosislike that and I'm doing very
well, but with a diagnosis likethat it makes you reevaluate
everything about your life and Idon't know that tomorrow I will
walk.
So you know there is someurgency to our method of madness
(06:44):
.
Let's go see as much as we canwhile we're the healthiest.
We really are in our go-goyears.
You know, when you retire youhave go-go years, slow-go years
and no-go years and we are inour go-go years, we're the
healthiest we will ever be.
We know that 10, 20 years fromnow we will not be as healthy as
(07:04):
we are now, and there's nomagic cure out there that's
going to change that fact.
So right now is the time for usto go and go big and do as much
as we can, and so that hasplayed into our life as well.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So we've been to 107 countries so far and all 50
states.
So you know we are veryaggressive with.
You know the sense of urgencythat she talked about, not only
with travel but with our YouTube, with downsizing.
You know we don't want to haveregrets, that said we were
procrastinating.
You know we see that a lotactually with viewers that write
(07:43):
to us and that they're a littletentative with wanting to take
that step of downsizing ortravel.
I don't know if I can do it onmy own that kind of thing.
So we try to encourage peopleand give them confidence that
they can downsize or travel ordream bigger in retirement.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Our motto is the CS Lewis quote you're never too old
to set a new goal or dream anew dream.
And we truly believe thatRetirement Travelers for us was
a new dream.
John had a great career and hewas amazing at his career and I
was a stay-at-home mom to fivekids.
So as we age, and then when hecalled me and I think you were
(08:30):
in New York or Pittsburgh at thetime and he called me and he
said you know what?
They're offering me a package,what do you think about retiring
?
And I'm like let's do it.
And before he got home I had atrip planned.
Before he got home I had a tripplan.
So it was that much that thatexcited.
But one of the things thatwe've we've kind of seen in our
(08:50):
in our plan is that you know, Iwas a stay-at-home mom all those
years I still had a dream.
Someone said to us in ourneighborhood well, bev, the
corporate world missed out onyou and you know I, they didn't
miss out on me, but my kidsbenefited by me being around.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
But at the same time, I still had a dream and I
benefited.
You did benefit.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
But we had, I had a dream.
So when I said let's, let'svlog, I didn't imagine YouTube,
but it's still the same thingand it's still a goal.
It is still learning.
We're overwhelmed sometimeswith the amount of learning that
we've had to do, but at thesame time, our roles have kind
of switched and I'm the creativebehind the brand and John is
(09:37):
the workhorse.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Throughout my career.
She was my rock and dideverything at home and supported
my career, which was verybeneficial to our family.
We were very aligned and nowthe roles have kind of switched.
She's the creative genius ofretirement travelers and I
support her.
But we're very aligned in whatwe do.
We're a team, we are theultimate team and it's kind of
(10:04):
sad for us.
We hear from so many viewersthat one wants to travel and one
doesn't, one wants to do thisand the other doesn't, and that
misalignment, you know, forcouples in retirement is a big
issue.
So we feel very blessed thatwe're fully aligned with what
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I'd love to dig deeper on that, and real quick.
Before I do, everyone should gocheck out
retirementtravelerscom.
I'm looking at your site rightnow.
Everything from trip planningstrategies, cheap business class
tickets, our travel costs, howto pack travel, health insurance
, money in base so everythingthat you could possibly need to
know go toretirementtravelerscom.
Go to the Retirement TravelersYouTube channel.
(10:43):
There's a hundred videos thatwe could take a deep dive on.
But go check that out foryourself, because it is pretty
incredible to see what the twoof you have done.
I want to talk about a couple ofthings.
One was that you touched uponthe sense of urgency.
I think that so often people,even once they retire maybe
they're not retiring as young asyou did, but at 60, at 65,
there's this sense that I've got20 more years, I've got 30 more
(11:05):
years, I've got 30 more years.
But what you said was soimportant of not all those years
are created equal.
You're never going to be ashealthy, you're never going to
have as much energy, You'renever going to have the vitality
that you have today.
So how do you, how?
One, how can people create thatsense of urgency?
And then, number two travelingis an amazing goal and for some
(11:26):
people, that's exactly what theywant to do, and it sounds like
that was you.
How did you learn that, knowingthat that it won't always be
travel for everyone?
It will be other things forother people, but what was the
point at which you two felt likethis is what we want to do with
our retirement years once we'rethere?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I think for us it started when we were children.
We were both.
We both had very differentupbringings I mean not really
that different upbringings, butI grew up in Arkansas and John
grew up in West Virginia.
I grew up and our family hadwhat we called a farm.
We really didn't have very manyanimals, just a few donkeys.
But my family, my dad, decidedwhen we were dad, decided when I
(12:07):
was seven years old, that wedidn't need a television, and he
threw away the television andsaid we have all this land out
here and you guys need to getout and go do it.
So I think that played a reallybig part in who I am today,
with creativity and with justthe dream of having a dream.
(12:28):
I couldn't see someone elseliving a dream.
I had to dream myself, and oneof the side effects of that was
that my brother and my sisterswe read everything we could get
our hands on and we lived inthis little community had no
library.
My parents the only lie I everheard my mother tell was to the
librarian in the nearby townthat we lived there so we could
(12:51):
get a library card.
We just didn't have a libraryback then in that area and so my
parents filled our world withbooks and I heard wonderful
stories, and so John's familybrought in you knowin Colombia.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And we spent a month with my sister who was down
there and it kind of my parentsreally stressed education and
you know it's a big world outthere.
Even growing up in a smallrural town in West Virginia they
had that vision for their kids.
So that kind of got me startedwanting to travel and I've
(13:51):
always enjoyed travel.
It's just as you're raising afamily and working that cuts
into your travel time a littlebit.
But yeah, we've always had thatpassion for travel.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
So that passion's always been there.
Was there a fear of you knowyou went for lack of a better
word.
All in, you sold your home.
You've seen 100 plus countries.
You've seen all the states.
Was there a fear of doing thatbefore you actually went?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
So here's kind of how this transpired for us.
And after we had gone one yeararound the country with the
Airstream, we had planned to oneto do an interior loop and one
to do an outer loop of thecountry, which is a good route
to take if you're looking fornational parks, and so we had
(14:36):
done the first loop.
After we got back then westarted thinking well, how could
we travel?
We had gone to our financialplanner when we had to set up
our retirement plan and we hadhad a discussion about how much
travel do you want to do?
It was something that we didand in that planning we said to
(14:58):
ourselves and to them we thinktwo months is kind of a rational
idea of keeping the lifestylethat we had and still giving
ourselves a couple of months totravel a year.
But then we kind of startedthinking after that first year
of travel and realizing that wecould live with a lot less, that
we might could go travel more,but we couldn't stay in the home
(15:20):
that we were in.
And it wasn't that we couldn't,but it was that it would have
been silly and it would havebeen a waste of money for us to
stay there, because it was anexpensive neighborhood and had
club dues and things like that.
So we decided you know, I satdown one day and I just figured
out how much does it cost us tolive here every single day.
(15:43):
And even my friends in theneighborhood when I told them,
you know, it costs us this muchto live here and to live in this
home, and they're like I nevereven sat down and figured up
what our daily cost is.
So when we figured that dailycost, I said to John I said,
look, we can go travel the worldon this amount.
(16:03):
We can always come back.
A house is a house and itwasn't like we had raised our
family there.
So when we looked at thatnumber and we said we could sell
it, we could come back in 10years or whatever and we could
buy again.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
The other thing we realized was how much of not not
only cost, but our mental youknow, mental and emotional
energy was spent on oh, is ahurricane going to come?
What do we got to do with thisboat?
Or our house insurance, allthese things that end up, you
know HOA, you know stuff, allthe things that occupy our minds
(16:39):
.
Wasn't necessarily, we thought,the best thing we could be
doing in our retirement.
It wasn't the healthiest, itwasn't the healthiest thing
versus you know what othercultures could we go?
You know experience around theworld and what can we learn?
We've learned so much bytraveling to all these countries
and you know we tell people.
(17:00):
People ask us questions nowbecause we're doing our China
series.
But my goodness, we've learnedso much.
We did a 3,000-mile trainjourney through China and the
learnings that we had on that.
There's no way we could havelearned just, you know, living
in our golf community.
So it's, we enjoy the learningaspect of it.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I think that this is an important thing to touch upon
is this wasn't just a recklessthrow everything to the wind and
hop on the next plane out?
There was.
When I say a financial plan, Idon't just mean what do you do
with your money, I mean what's?
How do you allocate your time,how do you allocate your
emotional energy, how do youallocate the skills, the talents
that you have?
And you took a lot of time, itsounds like, to really think
(17:41):
through how do we do this in avery not just financially
responsible way, but also in away that we're not going to look
back with regret one day.
We can always get another home.
We can always get the other.
You fill in the blank we're notalways going to be able to get
these years back, so let's moveforward and take advantage of
that.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I think it starts with knowing that you have a
great partner.
And for John and I, we verymuch love each other and there
are times when I'm like get out,he's like get away from me,
because we're together all thetime, but for the most part we
have a very loving relationshipand I trust that he's going to
have my back and I have his back, and whether we're traveling or
(18:24):
whether we're home, whatever.
I think that's where I think,when we sat down together and
said you know we could do this,said you know we could do this,
I knew I could trust him to be abig part of it or be all in.
When he said I'm ready, let'sdo it, it took him about a week
to decide.
Oh, when I said let's just sellit all, that was definitely my
(18:46):
idea and it took him about aweek of thinking.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
It wasn't immediate, it took a few days, but then we
did it it.
It took a few days, but then wedid it.
Our style is to think about it.
We are thoughtful about things,but we don't hesitate after
that.
Once we make a decision, we gofor it, and then we're all in.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
But we have good basis, our foundation is strong,
and so we worked really hard toearn that money and we don't
want to ruin our retirement.
We're not being careless.
We in fact selling our home wasthe smartest thing we did
because it freed up besidesmentally a home.
(19:29):
It freed up not the money fromthe home to spend, because we
set that aside to invest so wecould come back to it and it was
our safety net.
But it was the being out ofdebt before retirement was so
important.
We could not have done this ifwe had a mortgage.
We couldn't do this if we werereckless and we were
overextended on things.
(19:50):
We were completely out of debta few years before retirement
and we worked really hard onthat.
So our decision to go wasalways founded in keeping our
financial future sound.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, go ahead, john.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I mean and playing.
That's why we met up with ourfinancial advisors.
We wanted a long-term strategy.
None of this was short-term.
We were aggressive with urgencyto go see and do things, but we
always had a long-term planfinancially that we felt very
good about and run ideas throughthem so that we didn't do
(20:29):
anything silly yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, one of the things that I would encourage
listeners to do that I'm hearingthat you did is that sense of
approach retirement from theblank slate mindset of the
thought of not having a home inretirement.
You work your whole life to payoff a home and then you just
sell it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yeah, it was a dream home.
It was our dream home.
It was the one thing we hadworked so, so hard.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It had a perfect view on a river, you know, on a golf
course community, and we lovedit.
I mean, it was a, it was a.
We called it Disney World foradults.
It was a great neighborhood,but it was.
It was expensive and and itwasn't necessarily challenging
us the way that we, you know, wewanted to do in life.
So, you know, people people nowask us about you know, are you
(21:14):
giving up time with your kids?
What we really gave up withthis world travel was we gave up
our golf community in Floridaand we're still spending as much
time with our kids andgrandkids probably more now than
when we were living in a golfcommunity in Florida because our
kids aren't near there.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Right, yeah, so you.
So you put the time and thoughtinto what is actually most
important to us, and we have afinite amount of attention and
time that we can give to family,to travels, to the golf
community, and all are great,but maybe the golf community is
the bottom of the list in termsof the priorities we look at
there.
What is the right decision?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, I've played golf since I was a child, so I
am passionate about golf and youknow that was a big part of my
life, throughout my entire life,and you know.
But I also had a dream.
So, you know, was the dream tobe a YouTuber?
No, not really, but I mean thedream is to to live a great life
(22:12):
and I feel like that we'redoing that.
I mean, it's not all easy.
Everything that we come acrossisn't just rosy and perfect and
you know, we're in countriessometimes where it's very
challenging to travel in, but italways makes me think I thank
the good Lord for all that wehave and that we have each other
(22:33):
and we have a great family andthat's our core.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to once again redirect people
to your YouTube channel, to yourwebsite, to understand kind of
how and the where, where totravel, how to travel, some of
the tips and tactics.
What I want to spend a bit oftime on now is lessons learned.
You know, as you look back onthis, having spent a few years
doing this, are there lessonsthat you would share with your
(22:59):
younger selves?
Are there lessons that youwould share with people who are
kind of on the fence of?
I kind of want to do this.
It doesn't even have to betravel specific, but just to
what you said, bev, of living abig life, living fully, what
would you share?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Well, the biggest lesson for us, probably to our
younger selves.
Well, the biggest lesson for us, probably to our younger selves
, is that stuff doesn't matter.
And I look back on our livesand we have a big regret.
And that big regret is that wedid not take our children and
travel more.
And you know, that's one thingwe want to do with our
grandchildren.
That's kind of our legacy planis to take our grandchildren and
(23:36):
show them the world.
But had we been at 40, 45 yearsold, even 50, if John had been
able to take a year off and takethe kids on a big, long trip, I
think it would have been reallygood for all of us and for them
.
So when we meet young peopleout on the road and they say to
us I want to be like you when Igrow up, what do I need to do?
(23:58):
And our answer is always livesmall so you can live big and
don't let lifestyle creep comein.
We bought houses.
Every time we moved, john gottransferred, we bought a bigger
house, even after the kids lefthome.
We would, he would get atransfer or promotion.
(24:18):
And when we moved we alwaysbought a bigger house and we
should have gone down in size.
And we look back on that andthat was we would be.
Even you know that would havechanged a lot had we done that.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So that's our younger side.
Yeah, the bigger houses, thebigger houses.
Uh, we didn't need.
And then the whole thought ofthe uh snowboarding.
Uh, it just was a, it's a fineit's a fun lifestyle, but it's
financial.
If you can afford it, great, butit is not a.
We don't think it's a greatfinancial decision to have two
(24:53):
of everything and be paying forstuff that you're not living
there.
So we're just too frugal to dothat kind of living.
It sounded great and at thetime it sounded great, but we
know now that that's just notfor us.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
The other lesson that we've learned and this is
probably one of the biggestlessons outside of the travel
was the importance of downsizingyour life and when we think
back about the impactful thingswe did besides being out of debt
and being financially securebefore we made this big decision
, before we retired, it's thedownsizing.
(25:30):
We've done a couple of videoson downsizing and I recently did
one on the channel about thedifficulties of downsizing.
But one of the things that I'velearned through this process is
that people don't take the timeto do this.
They plan for their future.
They say, oh, I've got my willin place, I have my trust set up
(25:53):
, I have all of that done at theattorney, I've gone to will in
place, I have my trust set up.
I have all of that done at theattorney.
I've gone to my financialplanner, I have planned my
retirement and they have all ofthat set up.
But what they have not thoughtabout is the importance of
downsizing, even if you're notgoing to go travel.
When one spouse dies, the otherspouse gets the entire job to
(26:13):
themselves.
When one spouse dies, the otherspouse gets the entire job to
themselves.
And if that spouse cannothandle the process because
almost everyone downsizes and ifthey don't downsize, they leave
it to their children, and wehave heard from so many,
especially women, becausedaughters are usually the ones
that deal with this, whetherit's daughters or
daughter-in-laws.
But downsizing your things andgoing through a house full of
(26:37):
stuff is a burden you do notwant to leave on your spouse and
you don't want to leave it toyour children.
And having gone through thatprocess of downsizing, we know
what it's done for us, but wesee what it does for other
people, and that's our biglesson.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, and we went through a process.
I don't know if you've heard ofSwedish death cleaning, but
it's basically it's preparingall of your assets and
documentation and everything sothat your children don't have a
big burden.
It's preparing and you know,our advice is to do that earlier
(27:14):
rather than later.
You know, we it's part ofsimplification.
We wanted to simplifyeverything.
So if we get hit by a bustomorrow, our children, it's
basically one phone call.
Everything is digitized,everything is in order.
There's not going to be.
Yes, there's the emotionalgrief of losing your parents,
but there's not the I've got togo clean out a house.
(27:35):
I don't know what their, theirfinancial situation is.
We have taken care of all ofthat and we feel it's kind of
it's it's our gift to ourchildren to not leave that
burden to them.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
It's truly our love letter to them.
And our daughters have said tous you can't imagine what this
has done for us to know We'llnever have to do that to us.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
You can't imagine what this has done for us to
know we'll never have to do that.
I'm glad you say this becausefrom the outside it looks like,
wow, john and Bev, they're doingso much.
That's, how do you manage themental burden of all that all?
And what you're saying is thatthe mental burden was having to
deal with the what ifs of thehurricanes and the insurances
and the big house, and bysimplifying this, it's allowing
you to be fully present and dowhat you want to do.
(28:15):
That's not to say there's not alot you're still doing.
You're running a YouTubechannel, a blog, you're
traveling all over the place,you have family in different
parts of the country, but theburden of that is less than it
would have been with the quoteunquote traditional path.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
I mean, retirees have different goals and a lot of
retirees have no desire to gotravel.
But even outside of that youcan get your life in order.
And you know it's very famousthat people leave their.
You know they don't get theirwill in place and they don't
take care of their finance.
You know they don't do thatpart of life but downsizing and
(28:52):
just we know John's mom has goneto assisted living and the
family had to downsize for that,and you know, and his dad died
young and so those kinds ofthings happen and you need to be
prepared for them.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah, so I'm curious to hear what's next.
You spent the last five, sixyears traveling all over has
that?
Does the travel bug get out ofyour system at a certain point,
or is it more alive than ever?
And what's next?
For the two of you, it's morealive than ever.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I mean, I can't even believe that, because I mean,
certainly we are used to travel,so we don't land at an airport
anymore and say, oh no, webetter line up this and we
better have a map to the subwaystation and we better have every
duck in order, but we stilljust love it.
(29:47):
I mean, the key to good travelis being organized, and one of
the things we did a couple oflast year is that we created a
series called Travel SchoolRetirement Travel School and the
very first lesson is organizingall of the details.
And for us, we don't justtravel, you know, a couple of
weeks out of the year where wecan keep all of our things in a
(30:10):
folder.
We're planning a trip.
Every week of the year, evenwhen we're home, we're planning
a trip.
So we have a lot of details tokeep track of.
So organization is reallyimportant.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
And again down, simplifying all we have is two
backpacks.
We tease people.
We have two backpacks, sevenshirts, seven shirts and and our
golf clubs, cause we're notcrazy, and that's it.
I mean, that's literally all wehave.
We last year we bought a usedcar, but we went three years
with no car and people just findthat how did you, how did you
(30:46):
do that?
And and but wasn't that, wasn'tthat difficult, you know, it
makes you think differently, soyeah, and but wasn't that,
wasn't that difficult, you know,makes you think differently.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
So, yeah, no, but we really are excited.
What's next for us is that weare going to continue to travel,
but, but in terms of YouTubeand what we, what's next for us
here is we are vlogging, kind ofwent back to vlogging.
We feel like we've said how topack.
We feel like we've given youall the tips and all of our
thoughts on that.
So we're really traveling andwe're really vlogging.
We want people to see us gothrough a subway station in
(31:19):
Korea and say to themselvesSouth Korea, by the way.
We want them to say, well, ifthey can go through a subway
system and get where they aregoing, I have the confidence
that I can at least get a taxiand get to my hotel.
So we're excited that we canshare our.
You know, if we can share, giveyou confidence that you can do
(31:41):
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
We also want to encourage people.
You know we talk to so manypeople our age that it's either
they go on a cruise or they goto London, paris or Rome and
we're trying to tell peoplethere's a lot more to the world
than just big touristy places.
In fact, we kind of enjoy thenon-touristy places so much
better.
You know, being in a city wherewe're probably the only
(32:06):
Americans there, we like thatand really enjoy interacting
with local people there, and youknow that's what we enjoy and
that's what we're going to domore of in the future.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
So for us, when we look at what's ahead for the
retirement travelers, we arevlogging, but we also have
realized that one of the biggestthings that we really feed off
of is our community, and so westarted a Facebook community,
because we've always givenadvice and how we do things, but
we haven't provided our viewersan opportunity to ask questions
(32:42):
except in the comments.
So we created a Facebookcommunity called Retirement
Traveler Senior Travel Communityon Facebook, and you can go
there and share your pictures,you can ask questions.
There are so many people thatare on the platform that are
good travelers and they willlend their advice to that, and
(33:03):
so that's a big part of oureffort.
Today We've kind of niched downto community, our vlog, and
then group travel.
We are planning our first grouptrip with our community to
Victoria Falls in April and wehave a few spots left.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Very, very, very excited about that.
You know, a lot of people haveasked us and that's it's new for
us, but we think that's part ofour future.
You say what's next in travelcommunity, as Bev said, and we
want to meet you.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
We want to meet people that are out there who
want to go travel but maybe nothave the confidence to go to
Victoria Falls on their own.
It's one of the most beautifulplaces in the world and we have
rented out the entire boutiquehotel and we have activities
planned and it is just going tobe so exciting.
We've actually met some of theviewers who are coming.
(33:53):
We were in China and we metfour who are actually going to
be there and you know we're soexcited about that, so that
part's going to be a lot of funfor us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I love it.
You're you're doing some verycool.
You're not just traveling,you're doing a lot of cool stuff
beyond that enabling others todo that, supporting others to do
that, before we wrap the peoplethat are on the edge the people
(34:25):
that want this so badly but aremaybe suffering from that or
paralyzed by that, the what if?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
the fears, the questions, any final pieces of
advice that you would share withthose people.
You got to do it.
I mean, we were in New Zealandand I had been teetering back
and forth Should I go bungeejumping?
And I don't love heights.
But I said you know what, if Idon't go bungee jumping at the
birthplace of bungee, I willregret it for the rest of my
life.
And so I ended up doing it andit was an exhilarating
(34:50):
experience.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
He had a high for like five days it was really it
was.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You know, sometimes you got to get out of your
comfort zone and it's easy tosay, no, I don't want to
downsize, I want the security ofnot jumping off a bridge or not
selling my home.
But in the end, you know, takethe leap of faith.
But in the end, you know, takethe leap of faith.
You know and go for it.
Life is short and you know, youdon't know how many good years
(35:17):
you have.
You know, whatever your dreamis, pursue it aggressively.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, one of the things we didn't touch on today
but was the amount of learningthat we're doing.
You know, just at every turn,at every day, we're never
walking down the same street weare.
I think that's a thing forretirees.
They oftentimes you know youfinished your career, you've
(35:44):
lost a lot of your friendsbecause they're not in your work
.
You're not in your work lifeanymore and sometimes you can
get depressed with this.
This all my life will ever be,and I we're showing it's not all
that your life has to be.
Changing your environment isone of the best ways that you
can change your outlook and theysay, just rearrange your
furniture.
But goodness, you can also gotravel and that gives you a
(36:06):
different perspective.
It certainly makes you feelgrateful and blessed and just
all of the good things fortravel.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
You meet people, you just yeah, I mean we miss some
of our friends from our oldneighborhood and hanging out
with them.
They follow along with us, butwe have met so many people
online, as you know, with theYouTube channel, the new
relationships and new learningand things that we never even
dreamed of.
So you know, the sky's thelimit on where we could go from
(36:36):
here.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, it reminds me of something I think about a lot
, which is there.
There's never an option that iswithout risk.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yes, Doing this.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
There's risk.
There's risk that you gosomewhere and you need to learn
something and you have hiccupsalong the way.
But the risk of not doing it isthe risk of regret and the risk
of a life where you look backand feel like that profound
weight of I can never go backand do that again.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I don't think we have any regrets.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
No there's no regret I?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
I, if I died tomorrow , I would have no regrets.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, I love it.
Well, you have so manyresources.
Do you mind sharing with thelisteners?
Again, I'll put all these inthe show notes, but where can
people find more if this issomething that they really want?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Well, we really want them to hit subscribe and follow
along on our journey and, youknow, send us notes and tell us
where you're from and be a partof our community on Facebook.
Those are those two things.
And then join us on a trip.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, youtube, facebook, and join us on a trip
or just reach out to us.
We, you know, one of the thingsthat we try to do as much as
possible is we answer every,every comment.
If you send something to us onFacebook or YouTube, we believe
if, if you've taken the time towrite us a note, then you
deserve a response, so we do ourvery best to reach back out.
(37:53):
So if you send us an email orreach out to us on our website,
we will do our best to get backto you.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I love it.
Well, john Bev, thank you somuch.
This has been great so manycool.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
This is beyond just travel.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
What you're doing is very cool to see and thank you
for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Thank you Thanks.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Once again, I'm James Canole, founder of Root
Financial, and if you'reinterested in seeing how we help
our clients at Root Financialget the most out of life with
their money, be sure to visit usat wwwrootfinancialpartnerscom.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.