It’s the financial aspect of a journey like ours that leaves most people scratching their heads in wonder – how can it be possible to pay for a multi-year family vacation? Although I don’t claim to be an expert in planning long-term family trips, I guess I am somewhat of an expert seeing as how we’ve now been traveling full-time as a family for three years so far and plan at least another year on the road.
There are many ways families finance a long journey. Some spend many, many years diligently saving. Others take early retirement. Others sell everything and use that money to finance their travels. We did none of those.
John and I worked as teachers for many years and always saved a large part of our income for retirement. When we taught in international schools, housing was included as part of our contract so we saved what we would have spent on housing, plus more. We were very conscientious of the fact that – since we worked overseas – we would not have a pension of any kind. It was up to us to save for our old age. Although we don’t have huge amounts of money stashed away, we do have some.
When we decided to take off and travel with our children, we decided to spend some of our retirement money. We figure we will have to work a few more years before we can retire, but we will have a bucketload of memories. We will have had time with our children – now, before it is too late.
The way we see it is that we only have one chance at parenthood. Our boys are now 12 and they will never be 12 years old again. If we don’t spend time with them now, we will lose the opportunity – and that is something we didn’t want to do. Kids grow and change and become adults with lives of their own. Before we know it, Davy and Daryl will have left home and married wonderful girls and have children of their own – and then it’ll be too late for us to spend this kind of time with them. If we were going to do it, it had to be now.
And so – we made the decision to go for it. Life was too short not to. No, we didn’t have “enough” money. No, all the pieces didn’t magically fall into place. But we made it work – because it was priority for us.
Traveling the way we do is fairly cheap. We spend, on average, about $1500/month for the four of us. That translates into about $50/day. I’ve broken down our expenses here.
The bulk of our expenses are covered by the rent from our house. Before we left, we packed up everything and have rented out the house. We own the house outright and are not making payments – so the income from the rent pays around 50-60% of what we spend.
We also get some money from our website, articles I write, donations, or sponsorships. Whatever is left at the end of the month comes out of our retirement account.
There are some who will call us foolish – to spend our retirement now is sheer folly. Perhaps that’s true. But I know that I don’t want to be old and gray someday, sitting in my rocker saying, “I wish I woulda…” I want to be sitting in that rocker (or teaching in my classroom since I won’t have the luxury of sitting in the rocker) saying, “I lived life on my own terms. I headed out, took risks, spent a few wonderful years traveling with my children, and have no regrets.” To me – that’s what life is all about.
I think you and your husband have nailed it right on the head! You only live once and you definitely only have one childhood (though I would like to believe you can extend it…) so might as well be doing something you love together! I just found your site but will start keeping tabs on your journey, happy travels!
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Oh my gosh, Nancy…..I think I am now an even bigger fan than I was before. I absolutely loved this post. You’re philosophy and outlook on life is very similar to mine and your words have given me confirmation that I’m on the right track.
I’m sending this to my Wife right now so she can read it.
You are the best.
Darryl
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Ah HA! Knew you must be teachers…had a gut feeling all along. Welcome to the club. It is wonderful that you were able to have this adventure together. Safe journey back to join your husband and kids. Hope the airlines take a lot of luggage! Lorna
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Nice! I really enjoy that you are taking the time to do this with your family. I hope to one day do something similar with my future children
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AMEN!!! We have the same family philosophy! In fact, we just last night returned from 3 weeks of traveling through Europe with our always homeschooled girls (ages 12 and 14). I have followed your blog since before you started on your trip and enjoy very much your photos and stories. If you’re ever in Houston, we’d love to have you stay with us.
-Catherine-
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Thanks all! I hope more families can hit the road – it’s a wonderful experience for the whole family!
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Nancy, to start with: the last thing you are is foolish!
Although I have found that kids are wonderful at any age (ours are 23 and 21 now and they are still great!), yours are now at a very special age: they are old enough to have a decent conversation with, they start forming their own opinions, they are ‘adults in the making’. Yet, they are young enough still to want to be with you all the time, to learn from you, to be 100% part of family life. Soon, in the next year or 3, that is going to change: they will want to be more ‘themselves’ and less ‘part of you’. That is an obvious and neccesary process. So your epic trip (of which I read at least twice a week) is almost the ‘end of an era’ when it comes to this phase in the relationship with your boys. You would have been SO sorry if you had not done this. And being teachers, you can – as you say – always work a bit longer to supplement your retirement savings.
From a selfish point of view: I dont look forward to the day you get to the end of the trip, I will miss my regular read then!
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You will find echos of that same sentiment;) all over our blog. My boys are now 13 and 14. We are just wrapping up a year abroad (including 3 months of cycling from Amsterdam to Paris). So nice to find you!!!! Way to embrace them now!!!
thought you would enjoy me sharing your sentiments:
here: http://www.familyfrolics.com/2009/02/this-family-frolics.html
and here: http://www.familyfrolics.com/p/bucket-list.html
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We get asked this as well (together with: “how much does that bike cost?”).
I now often reply by asking/telling: “do you have a car? We do not. For the price of your car we can probably cycle for 10-20 years all included, it is just a matter of choices”.
I know people that get a new car every 2-3 years and spend $100 on a few drinks, but complain that they have no money to travel
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We share the same philosophy and even have gone as far as to spend some of the money that we would be putting into the kids’ college education into global education (travel) now. When they get to college, we’ll figure it out, hopefully by thinking in alternative/global ways. Thinking outside the box is one of the most important lessons we can teach them, and you’re living out that lesson now. Love it!
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It’s funny, but I’d be willing to bet that the people most likely to criticize you for spending your retirement savings now are the same set that have little-to-no retirement savings in the first place.
Us savers know that life is a series of prioritising decisions. You’ve chosen to have a couple years of retirement now, instead of a couple years of retirement later. That seems like a fair tradeoff, and it’s a lot easier to enjoy your time off when you have the health and fitness to do things.
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Perfectly said, Nancy. Echoes most traveling families with which I am familiar, including our own.
So let me just add this thought: Society developed a concept of “work and save till you retire, play and spend until you die” when life spans were considerably shorter. Part of our enormous Hard Stop on the economy is that demographically, we can not pay for all the people who retire in their late 60′s and live for another 25 years on Social Security and Medicare. No level of taxation will finance these two programs. I don’t want that to be true, but it is a mathematical absolute, not a philosophical one.
As a result, people our age should realistically assume (1) we will never collect either Medicare or Social Security and (2) we will not retire at 70. My husband and I assume that will have to finance our lifestyle and medical expenses quite literally until we drop dead sometime in our early 90s. So, there is no such thing in our future as retirement. If you plan well, work hard, save when you can, spend sparingly when you can’t, live life large with a smaller footprint (e.g. look at you go, girl!), then it is quite possible to take extended, mid-life sabbaticals rather than a single block retirement tacked on at the end of life. It then becomes both responsible and admirable to take some of that time while children are at just the right age for exploration and discovery. I believe that other good sabbatical opportunities are immediately before or after you get your first post-graduate degree, when the children leave the nest and you and your partner need to figure out your relationship post-kidlet, and any time the economy goes so bad that you are laid off and it becomes nearly impossible for you to find a well paid, satisfying job in your field.
Nancy, this requires an entire blog post of my own. Thank you for the inspiration… I’m just getting started on this thought
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This is so wonderful to hear all you other travelers chiming in! I agree with you all!
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Thnks for this post! I am glad to have found your blog. My long time dream was to bicycle for years with my family (stilljust very young child and one on way-s o bit too early),my husband still is not convinced. I will have him read here!!
Keep on LIVING life!
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We were inspired by you and we are now doing our own trip! We will be gone for 15 months and look forward to spending every minute with our kids…our daughter is 19 and heading to University, she will be with us for almost 3 months until we rent her an apt at the other side of the counrty! We will be homeschooling our 9 yr old and getting to know him so much better than we do now…work and school gets in the way of everything!
We also will be renting out our house to help “fund” our way and the rest is from savings and and a small disability pension.
Can’t wait to hit the road in one month!
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Your boys will have good independent adults lives, but at the same time will stay close to you–you’ve shared way too much for them to just “wander off.” You’ll get the same kind of commitment you gave back … in some form or another!
Also, I still want to believe that your journalistic skills will have been developed to the point you can continue to play and write about it–and make money. Doors are opening a crack, at least.
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to live your life now! In fact, I think it would be foolish to waste the years you have. Not only are you spending time with your boys, but they are getting the experience of a lifetime! Not to mention, you never know what might happen tomorrow, it’s good to do what you want today.
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Thank you for being an inspiration!! My boyfriend and I are planning our World Tour, we keep saying we’re doing it before we have kids, but now I know we can do ANOTHER trip after the kids come too!! Keep on living your dream!!!
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Ah Nancy, what an inspiration for parents everywhere. I’ve long admired those who made the commitment to home school. But you have carried it to its greatest optimum level. Teaching your children of the world and its history in the world-wide classroom! What a wonderful gift. I can’t imagine closer family ties than those you are creating now. You daughter’s in law will honor you!
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