My office at the Neptuno coffee shop in Torre Del Mar, Spain
I’ve often been asked how an ordinary woman who earned an ordinary income manages to live all over the world. Traveling long term is my specialty. I’ve often written on the topic as a guest writer for various travel websites and on my own website, Creative Paths to Freedom. After over a decade of writing about long-term travel, I recently retired my website, but I haven’t stopped traveling, nor have people stopped asking me questions. Thus, I started this website, Books by Teresa Roberts, where continue to write about writing, including travel writing.
There are a few common ways to live abroad.
Finding legal work in another country that promises a visa or expatriating and seeking residency are well-known possibilities. I’ve met both types of individuals. I'm acquainted with hundreds of expatriates. Most are Americans and Canadians who expatriated to Mexico or Brits and Germans who expatriated to Spain. Some have become dear friends of mine over the years. I've taken care of their homes on occasion or stayed in their guest houses.
However, there’s a third option which has caught on in the last 20 years because of the Internet.
Me on the Isle of Gozo on my first year abroad after early retirement
I’m referring to being a digital nomad. Nomads don’t live in one place. They take their work with them and move about, but often choose to stay in an area for the time allowed them on a passport without a visa. That can vary from country to country. In many countries a nomad can stay for 90 days. Canada allows Americans to stay for six months and so does England and Mexico, but 90 days is most common in Europe.
Digital nomads carry their computers with them.
Their office is wherever they find themselves for the next three months. I was a digital nomad for a while. I had an online writing business. I wrote blogs posts, web content, resumes and other writing projects that people hired me to do. World coffee shops often served as my office.
However, my situation was still very different from any of the above.
With careful planning, I was able to retire at age 54 from a career as an educator. I then sold everything that I owned and lived everywhere but nowhere for almost four years. Everything means my house, cars, and 98% of my worldly belongings. I have to say, it was like being sixteen again but with money in my pocket. When you only own a very few material belongings, it's freeing. Even now, although I own a small home again, I find ownership to be a burden. I chafe at the bit. I loved living without a car, too. Europe provides great public transport. I soon grew accustomed to having the money spent each year on a car in my pocket instead.
Because I started collecting my pension right away, I had an income but I lived super frugally in order to make it stretch as far as possible.
I lived like a local not a tourist. I ate where the locals ate, shopped where they shopped, and used buses and trains. Thus I was able to not only live on my income abroad but save money, too. It's hard to believe I know but it's true. In fact, when I moved back stateside, my cost of living went up. It was actually cheaper for me to live everywhere but nowhere. Because I have mastered the art of traveling light, when it was time to move on to another city or another country, I just threw my few belongings in a carryon suitcase and I was on my way to the next adventure.
During that time, I started an international house-sitting business which helped to defray the cost of travel.
In between house sits, however, I rented apartments short term. I often took on assignments that lasted for months. When you lower your overhead, life becomes simpler, too. No car payments, gas, car insurance or repairs as well as no house payments, insurance or house repairs made Teresa a very happy nomad. I didn't need the car and my house was being provided in exchange for my services. I often took care of pets and provided security for the owner's house while they were away. Once again, however, because I had a pension, I didn’t actually have to work nor did I have to house sit. Nonetheless, I enjoyed creating opportunity because the entire nomadic experience was a grand experiment on my part. I was testing the waters and then writing about it. People all over the world were always asking me how I was able at such a young age to live the life I was living.
Me seventeen years later still enjoying long-term travel
Eventually, I redesigned my travel style.
I leased an apartment in Spain where I returned every year in the late winter. The cost was so low that I could use it as a base and travel to other cities in Spain or other countries in Europe during my two or three month annual stay. The man who owns my apartment is from Belgium. He inherited the apartment from his father, but Mr. Tamene is still in the prime of his working years, so he only gets to use the apartment once or twice a year. We have an agreement that it’s mine for as long as I want it. It’s a lovely little sixth floor, two-bedroom apartment across the street from the beach. Until COVID, I’d been returning to my little home-away-from home for six of the sixteen years that I’ve been a long-term travel enthusiast. As soon as international travel becomes an option again, I’ve assured Mr. Tamene, that I’ll be back. As I’m writing this article, an Irish woman is living in the apartment for the winter in my place. I hope she’s enjoying it as much as I do.
What has been so nice about having a base to return to every year is that everything is familiar to me.
Friendly faces, homey restaurants, buses and trains, neighboring villages, and shopping greet me as though I’m a local citizen. That makes it easy to navigate daily life. I can take a bus or train to other parts of Spain any time I choose to do so. And I do it often. After sixteen years of returning to Spain, there are still places left to explore. I live about forty-five minutes from the Malaga airport where I’ve been flying in and out of for years. I’ve also taken many trips from Malaga to other European countries where I’ve spent a week or so and then returned to my apartment in Spain. Flights between European countries are quite inexpensive. All in all as a maturing long-term traveler, this works well for me.
I feel very lucky to have had so many adventures, but I must add that the economic philosophy that guided my long-term travel continues to influence my choices now that I own a small home stateside again. That philosophy can be summed up in one short sentence ...
I live debt free with the lowest overhead possible.
That makes it possible for me to still travel longterm. It's the basis of my entire way of life whether passing extended time abroad or back home. I've been living a debt-free life for a long time. It's the only way that I was able to retire so early and travel so extensively. Keeping my overhead low means that I don't need to have a huge income and consequently even though I live on my pension, a pension that took a hit because I retired so early, the money is mine. I don't owe anything to a bank. That's a kind of freedom that I wouldn't trade for all the "stuff" in the world. It make my lifestyle possible, whether I'm on the road or in my little home stateside. Yes, now I have a car again, but no car payments and little house but no house payments. I also live in an area of the United States where the cost of living is a tad lower. These were all deliberate choices, although admittedly I gave up things as well.
You can't have it all.
Well, at least I can't have it all. Jeff Bezos can have it all, but I'm clearly just a retired public school teacher/administrator so I have to make choices. One used car rather than two cars, a smaller home rather than a big home, fewer toys and less collecting of stuff is a trade off for fewer headaches and more personal freedom. Clearly, my lifestyle isn't for everyone, but to all of those people who wonder out loud how an ordinary woman on an ordinary income managed to retire at age 54 and live everywhere but nowhere
THIS IS MY ANSWER!
I have no regrets either. It has been a big adventure from start to finish with few role models along the way. And, although the Internet has opened the door for younger people to live a nomadic lifestyle, I was grappling with living everywhere but nowhere about twenty years ago when blogging was starting to catch on and people were beginning to see that their office, the computer, was portable. I was a bit of a pioneer. We live in a time period when new options offer a broader range of personal choices.
If you, too, dream of being unshackled to roam the planet, there has never been a better time than today.
