Increasingly, Retirees Dump Possessions and Hit the Road

[summer]

www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/business/increasingly-retirees-dump-their-possessions-and-hit-the-road.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostEmailed&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

SOME call themselves “senior gypsies.” Others prefer “international nomad.” David Law, 74, a retired executive recruiter who has primarily slept in tents in several countries in the last two years, likes the ring of “American Bedouin.”



They are American retirees who have downsized to the extreme, choosing a life of travel over a life of tending to possessions. And their numbers are rising.



Mr. Law and his wife, Bonnie Carleton, 69, who are selling their house in Santa Fe, N.M., spoke recently by phone from a campground in Stoupa, Greece, a village on the southern coast of the Peloponnese. He explained that they roam the world to “get the broadest and most radical experience that we can get.”



They recently decided to fold their tent. “Hey, we’re getting to be too old for this,” said Mr. Law about camping out. But they intend to continue what he termed their “endless holiday” in a more comfortable and spacious recreational vehicle.

Between 1993 and 2012, the percentage of all retirees traveling abroad rose to 13 percent from 9.7 percent, according to the Commerce Department.

About 360,000 Americans received Social Security benefits at foreign addresses in 2013, about 48 percent more than 10 years earlier. An informal survey of insurance brokers found greater demand by older clients for travel medical policies. (Medicare, with a few exceptions, does not cover expenses outside the United States). While many retirees ultimately return home or become expatriates, some live like vagabonds.

Lynne Martin, 73, a retired publicist and the author of “Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the World,” is one. Three years ago, she and her husband, Tim, 68, sold their three-bedroom house in Paso Robles, Calif., gave away most of their possessions, found a home for their Jack Russell terrier, Sparky, and now live in short-term vacation rentals they usually find through HomeAway.com.



The Martins have not tapped their savings during their travels, alternating visits to expensive cities like London with more reasonable destinations like Lisbon. “We simply traded the money we were spending for overhead on a house and garden in California for a life in much smaller but comfortable HomeAway rentals in more interesting places,” Ms. Martin said by email from Paris.



On her blog, Barefoot Lovey, Stacy Monday, 50, a former paralegal and mediator who lived in Knoxville, Tenn., wrote: “I used to dream about all the places I would go as soon as I was old enough to get away. But then ... life happened.” On May 1, 2010 — like many itinerant baby boomers Ms. Monday can quickly recall the date her journey started — she embarked on her dream trip. She “crisscrossed the U.S. three times” and visited Mexico, Ireland, France, Italy, Morocco, Spain and many other countries.



“I sold everything I had,” Ms. Monday recalled earlier this summer from San Francisco before she headed to Las Vegas, Dallas, Memphis and Knoxville. “I paid off all of my debt. I have no bills and no money.” She estimates that she now spends $150 a month — sometimes less if she is saving up for a flight — and earns a modest income through “odds-and-ends jobs,” as well as the tip jar on her blog.

To stick to her tight budget, Ms. Monday volunteers for nonprofits and organic farms in exchange for room and board or finds free places to stay through Couchsurfing.org. The company puts its membership of people 50 and older at about 250,000.



Ms. Monday monitors ride-share boards at Couchsurfing and Craigslist for free or inexpensive transportation, and she travels light. “I get away with a couple pairs of jeans, a pair of shorts, a skirt and four or five shirts and a pair of pajamas,” she said.



When she answers the ubiquitous question, What do you do? Ms. Monday notices that most women respond with encouragement, while many men are less supportive. “They say: ‘You should be home. That’s not safe. You are old.’ I get that from a lot of the men,” she said.

Hal E. Hershfield, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies the influence of time on consumer behavior, observes that many “pre-retirees” still assume retirement is a “decrepit, sitting on a porch, maybe playing golf, ice-tea type of life.”



But current retirees are “changing the way they think,” he said, “because they are still healthy and sort of young at heart.” In the last 50 years, retirement “wasn’t this period that we spent years and years in,” Mr. Hershfield continues. “It really, truly was the end of life.”



Galit Nimrod, a research fellow at the Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Aging at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, says an extended postretirement trip can assuage a sense of loss from ending a career. Travel can “act as a neutral, transitional zone between voluntary or imposed endings and new beginnings” and “serve as a healthy coping mechanism,” Dr. Nimrod said by email.



Gary D. Norton, 69, acknowledges that he felt “afraid of retirement” when he left his job of 34 years as a science professor at a South Dakota community college.



In 2002, he and his wife, Avis M. Norton, 67, a retired farmer, sold their house, bought an R.V. and started volunteering full time for two nonprofits: Nomads on a Mission Active in Divine Service, or Nomads, and RV Care-A-Vanners, an initiative of Habitat for Humanity.



The couple typically rebuilds houses damaged by natural disasters, projects that usually last several weeks. Mr. Norton, who now specializes in drywall finishing, and his wife, who studied carpentry, say they cherish the chance to give back to society while seeing the country. “Now what we’re doing is so satisfying and fulfilling, even though we have some health issues, we say we don’t want to quit,” said Mr. Norton, who estimated that he and his wife had repaired damaged homes in 28 states.



The chance to volunteer on international conservation projects and the opportunity to live like a local inspired Danila Mansfield, 58, and her husband, Chris Gill, 64, to sell their house in San Jose, Calif., last year. They got rid of nearly everything they owned — the exceptions being two suitcases, clothing and a pair of guitars (Mr. Gill’s prized Gibson ES-335 electric guitar is stowed at a friend’s house, but he totes around a travel guitar) — and do not even rent a storage space.



The purge of possessions was “a little nerve-racking” at first, but ultimately “hugely liberating,” said Ms. Mansfield, who is currently in South Africa. She and her husband plan to volunteer on game reserves to protect endangered species and then study great white sharks.



So far, their travels have surpassed expectations. They drove from San Jose to Florida over five months, before cruising to Europe. High points included meeting a judge at a bar in Amarillo, Tex., who invited them to visit his drug court, catching crawfish with locals in Louisiana’s bayou country and making new friends in Austin, Tex., who invited the couple to stay with them in South Africa.



But Ms. Mansfield has also hit bumps in the road. In Galveston, Tex., and New Orleans, an acute respiratory illness required three visits to urgent care centers. “It was really dragging me down,” she recalled. At one point she cried for home, but then managed to brighten her mood. “I kept telling myself, ‘This is home,’ ” Ms. Mansfield said. “Where I am is home.”

[sushi]

In Australia they call them silver nomads. It's not complimentary.

[summer]

Aug 31, 2014 4:08:29 GMT -5 sushi said:

In Australia they call them silver nomads. It's not complimentary.

Why do they have a bad reputation?

[omgzombies]

I'm too cynical, all I can think is what happens when they are too old/ill to travel, and hope that they're establishing relationships with a care team to address health issues as the come up and b) saving enough for medical care/elderly care later in life. I don't mind the idea of downsizing to travel, but if you have no debt and no money and $150 budget a month, how are you going to pay for the round the clock care that is often necessary as you become older? Move to a smaller home, and sell all your extra stuff, fine, KOKO. Sell your house, all your possessions, and spend every cent on travel = piss poor planning.

But then we've been dealing with a lot of parental care issues, so this stuff is depressingly on the forefront of my mind these days.

[ringstrue]

My mom can't even prevent herself from getting a damn cold at a rest stop. Whenever she travels to see family she always brings a bug with her. Wtf mom wash your stinkin hands!!

[lasagnasshole]

I could do the vacation rental hopping thing.

But camping? I don't camp at 32. No way in hell am I camping at 72.

[aMrsin09]

Aug 31, 2014 4:27:15 GMT -5 summer said:

Aug 31, 2014 4:08:29 GMT -5 sushi said:

In Australia they call them silver nomads. It's not complimentary.

Why do they have a bad reputation?

Up here at least it's because they swear they add to the local economy, yet they stock the caravan with 6 months worth of stuff down south where it's cheaper, and then bitch from here to high hell when they can't get free sites to park the caravans. We're talking like less than $50 a night at the official parks.

And then they spread the word and black list the towns that don't give them free spots.

Sent from my SM-G900I using proboards

[ChillyMcFreeze]

Who retires at 50? What do you do for the next 30, 40 years??

[irishbride2]

Aug 31, 2014 7:09:17 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Who retires at 50? What do you do for the next 30, 40 years??

There is someone on MM whose life revolves around retiring really early. I think their goal is 45? Or maybe earlier?

[lasagnasshole]

Aug 31, 2014 7:09:17 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Who retires at 50? What do you do for the next 30, 40 years??

Oh, I can think of plenty of thing I'd do. 

But it the early retirement crowd is, by and large, completely fucking insufferable. 

[ChillyMcFreeze]

Aug 31, 2014 7:17:46 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Aug 31, 2014 7:09:17 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Who retires at 50? What do you do for the next 30, 40 years??

Oh, I can think of plenty of thing I'd do. 

But it the early retirement crowd is, by and large, completely fucking insufferable. 

Well of course I could think of ways to occupy my time, but I guess I'm wondering how you fund your retirement when you have fewer than 30 years in the workforce unless you have some sweet golden parachute or you're actually royalty.

[IIOY]

Aug 31, 2014 7:17:46 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Aug 31, 2014 7:09:17 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Who retires at 50? What do you do for the next 30, 40 years??

Oh, I can think of plenty of thing I'd do. 

But it the early retirement crowd is, by and large, completely fucking insufferable. 

I hate the oldz. We all know this. And I think gypsy oldz sound like hell on earth - a bunch of blind, deaf, no-reflexes, cheap, entitled assbags on the road with no particular purpose? Fuck that.

However.

Few things in life compare with drinking with the oldz because geezers give no damns and will get liquored up and will share amazing stories (and their booze). Get with the right group and they party all the time. I mean, you have to endure stories of bad backs and kidney stones and replacement knees and melanoma, but other than that.

[lasagnasshole]

Aug 31, 2014 7:32:21 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Aug 31, 2014 7:17:46 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Oh, I can think of plenty of thing I'd do. 

But it the early retirement crowd is, by and large, completely fucking insufferable. 

Well of course I could think of ways to occupy my time, but I guess I'm wondering how you fund your retirement when you have fewer than 30 years in the workforce unless you have some sweet golden parachute or you're actually royalty.

You make insane amounts of money when you're young or you have some financial windfall. And then you invest like crazy. 

One of the things that makes the early retirement crowd insufferable is that they so often act like being frugal and investing well is the key and they just ignore that they were incredibly lucky to land a job paying them a gagillion trillion dollars early in their careers. 

[IIOY]

Aug 31, 2014 7:32:21 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Aug 31, 2014 7:17:46 GMT -5 lasagnasshole said:

Oh, I can think of plenty of thing I'd do. 

But it the early retirement crowd is, by and large, completely fucking insufferable. 

Well of course I could think of ways to occupy my time, but I guess I'm wondering how you fund your retirement when you have fewer than 30 years in the workforce unless you have some sweet golden parachute or you're actually royalty.

Now you are beginning to grasp our national pension fund problem.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

This is also the generation that paid for college with summer job money and had 15-year mortgages. I get it now. Relics of another age.

[FloFTW]

I would love to do this but thanks to these oldz I will never retire.

[Deleted]

DH and I have increasingly talked about being semi-truck drivers when we retire. Still earn some $ while driving and traveling together. Of course this comes from me seeing a Pimp My Ride ep where they turned this couple's truck into a resort on wheels.

[nomad100]

My MIL talks about doing this but she can barely drive her little sedan on the highway without getting incredibly nervous about the traffic. DH and I laugh at the thought of her driving an RV cross country.

And I have to say my Dad is my role model for retiring. Worked his ass off and saved like crazy and lived pretty frugally (didn't up-size their house, drove their cars for 10+ years, etc.). Retired from career 1 and started traveling. Got kind of bored and missed working. Started career 2 and did that for 10 years, again saving like crazy. Decided to fully retire and now he and my mom travel the world. The joke in our family is "where are you going this month?"

[ringstrue]

I have to say I like this idea a bit more than the olds funding timeshares and other unsustainable industries.

[foundmylazybum]

My H's Aunt did this with her husband. They had a really nice RV, and towed motorcycles. They traveled all across the US. They would find a KOA and park the RV for a few weeks and then travel to different places all around on their motorcycles.

They always paid the fees at the camp sites, and definitely recommended the ones they thought were good. I actually never heard them say anything bad about a campsite. It seemed really awesome.

[krystee]

I can see selling the giant home and traveling, but I'd need at least a small condo to serve as home base and to move to when we inevitably got tired or homesick. Are these people spending every cent they have? What are they going to do at 85?

Also I'd rather work 40 hours in a cube farm than live on $150/month and someone else's couch.

[debatethis]

This really isn't a new phenomenon by any stretch. I think we're just seeing it in larger groups (or it's more public) because of all the boomers. My parents sold our house and we traveled around the country in an RV for three years when I was 14 and by and large most of the other RVers were retirees.

That said, it's quite possibly one of the most terrifying things ever to see a 90 yo person who can barely walk at a rest stop, then climb up into a 40' motor home on I-40 through western NC in the middle of a January snow storm.

[debatethis]

Aug 31, 2014 8:49:53 GMT -5 @soudesafinado said:

Aug 31, 2014 8:40:15 GMT -5 debatethis said:

This really isn't a new phenomenon by any stretch. I think we're just seeing it in larger groups (or it's more public) because of all the boomers. My parents sold our house and we traveled around the country in an RV for three years when I was 14 and by and large most of the other RVers were retirees.

That said, it's quite possibly one of the most terrifying things ever to see a 90 yo person who can barely walk at a rest stop, then climb up into a 40' motor home on I-40 through western NC in the middle of a January snow storm.

You just made my heart jump in my chest! All those twisty turny mountain roads!!

Yeah, it's awful, and far too common. Between September and March that road becomes "snowbird highway" for all the retirees traveling back and forth between their winter RV parks in Florida and their summer space in northern states.

[josieposy]

There's a "shitter was full" joke in here somewhere. I'm still half-asleep.

[scout8]

Aug 31, 2014 7:09:17 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

Who retires at 50? What do you do for the next 30, 40 years??

Me, hopefully!

[iammalcolmx]

Aug 31, 2014 8:21:15 GMT -5 @soudesafinado said:

I could retire early and travel but not in an RV and not across America. So I would need more money for planes and 5-star hotels. Or summer's guest suite, which I know iammalcolmx thinks is hers, but no.

I have been there more times than you!!! Its MINE! You should have heard H the first he saw their house, he goes "it's great if you like luxurious stuff and all"

[gretchenindisguise]

My parents are kind of doing this and they love it. We love it too.

They have a beach house in NC that is now their "home base" but they camp around in their airstream for 6-8 months out of the year. We have campground right in our town that they've been able to get camp hosting jobs at, they will be there from Nov-Feb this year. Being camp hosts means they have to 'work' 3-4 days a week in exchange for a free very nice campsite on the ocean. I'm due Oct 30th so it's perfect

[sillygoosegirl]

We met a couple who did this for 7 years at the beginning of their retirement. They said they stayed at a lot of long term vacation rentals and did a lot of house sitting. They lived cheaply while they were away so they would still have their savings to live on when they got back. They evidently still had enough money to buy a new bed frame that couldn't be returned without measuring to see if it would fit in their guest bedroom of the brand new condo they were furnishing... We met them when we bought that bed off Craigslist. Their story was really inspiring to us.

We also had a land lord for a while who was a traveling retiree. After a few years of looking for work and being unable to find a job that would cover her bills in a bad economy, she rented out her home to us and hit the road. She is an avid cyclist and couch surfer, and that's what she does. One of her kids works for an airline, so she gets to fly standby for free or at least really cheap, and changes continents a couple times per year. She has investments (stocks and a couple rental properties), but traveling has allowed her to live off the income they provide, instead of spending down the principle, and she is much happier now. It's not as financially sound as continuing to work would have been, but like many of today's new retirees, her retirement was not totally voluntary.

I've also heard of old people living on cruise ships because that can actually be cheaper than living in a retirement home (not a nursing home), and provides similar amount of services.

I think it's easy to overlook just how expensive a "normal" living arrangement is. Even once we pay off our mortgage, we'll be paying around $40/night to live in our house, just in property taxes, insurance, maintenance, and utilities. That's without taking into account the opportunity cost of investing the value of our home in the stock market, which is easily another $60/day (this is just earnings, after reinvesting enough to keep the principle growing with inflation). There are a lot of very interesting places in the world where you can rent pretty decent accommodations as a tourist for less than $100/night. If you like to camp, that's an opportunity for significant savings. But if you just want to see the world in retirement, it doesn't have to be that much more expensive than the more conventional choice to continue living in the home where you raised your children.

Yes, a lot of these people will be screwed financially when they can't travel anymore, but a lot of them would be screwed financially ALREADY if they weren't being creative with their lifestyles.

[IIOY]

None of these fools have listened to Fastball's The Way.

[lilibet]

My coworker's sister and her husband are doing this. They put their house on the market (it's still on the market but they gave up waiting for it to sell), bought an RV and have spent the last year or so traveling the country. They spend a week or two in one place and hunkered somewhere down south for most of the winter.

The problem is their insurance requires certain medicines be delivered through mail order and they obviously don't have a permanent address so they have them sent to my coworker and then she has to mail them to wherever they are camping at the moment. My cw greatly regrets agreeing to this but apparently when they brought it up they made it sound like it would be a very rare thing, whereas in reality it's at least one package a month if not more. And since the UPS stores in her town close at 4 she is constantly having to plan her days so she's there in time to get any packages for her sister that require signatures and then get there in time to mail any out. She really wants out of it but I know she's still feeling guilty about what they'll do. I think she'll snap soon though.

The idea sort of sounds good in theory but there are a lot of logistical things to work out. And pp's mention of the olds driving RVs down the highway in snowstorms when they can barely walk is terrifying.