I refer to the countdown as the amount of time left before Tami and I quit our jobs and travel fulltime. The clock sits at about 18 months. The two boys will graduate from college in May 2016 and Ally will graduate high school in May 2016 too. All the kids want to take a family vacation to celebrate (their way of telling me they want a free get-a-way), and then 3 months later we plan to quit our jobs. A date had to be picked and we chose August 2016. Now since we are not independently wealthy we really have to plan this thing out. We hope to have a decent amount of money saved to start the trip, I’m thinking 50k should be a good amount to start with. We will still have our 401k and Tami’s pension for later, but obviously we need to plan on making some money on the road. We are open to this being a short term chapter of a couple of years, or a life long change in our life to be full time travelers. I imagine we will love the open road and seeing the US, so money will likely be the determining factor on when the party ends. We are currently looking for businesses to buy, and are particularly interested in businesses that support a traveling lifestyle. A bonus would be a business that specifically caters to the traveling lifestyle. We are currently looking at several businesses that meet this criteria and hope to find the right fit for us. The other plan is to use our experience in human resources and education to do some consulting while we travel. Tami is great at the STEM initiatives and all kinds of curriculum writing and training. I can consult on any human resources topics from employee relations to benefits to safety and everything in between. The clock is ticking and we are focused. The countdown continues.
On a side note, we are taking a awesome trip to the northeast in May. We will go to Philadelphia, New York City, Cape Cod, Nantucket, and then Boston. Looking forward to that!
Eric