My decision to retire was a hard one for me. After working since I was 13, my work had become an important part of life. I had several “false” starts, one was just before the stock market went to pot in 2007-08. Since it was a major hit to my nest egg, I postponed my retirement a few years. But last year I was pretty determined to retire in March of 2013, and again it was postponed. I waited until October 1, 2013 and finally made the plunge.
During the last year, I spent wondering what I would do during my retirement. Work? Well maybe some later as a consultant. I was considering buying a new home in Arizona near my family and moving from Orange County California. I was born and raised in California, but I was ready for a fresh start, a life “re-start”.
After much consideration, knowing my nest egg wouldn’t allow me to travel as much as I wanted to, a friend mentioned traveling in an RV. What a great idea, I love the outdoors, camping, photography and there are so many things I want to see all over our county. It also allowed me to visit with long stays in other areas where my family lived. Arizona, California, Montana and Oregon. With this in mind, my retirement dream changed radically.
Months of researching, reading blogs and shopping, I now find myself anxious to take delivery of my new fifth wheel. In the meantime, I am preparing to move out of my current home of ten years. This will require my selling or giving away of most of my worldly possessions.
My move will first take me to Hamilton, Montana. That will be my homebase going forward. My sister has agreed to be my mail service. A time consuming job that I am thankful she took on. I will go there in early December of this year (2013) to establish my “home base” and get my Drivers License. Then after the first of the year I will purchase my truck in preparation to take delivery of my fifth wheel in February 2014.
I guess that’s the plan, so now I will get to work with all the details of downsizing and finalizing my move.
More to come…Gary
Categories: Preparation, Retirement
Retired Vagabond 
Welcome to the world of RVing. Like anything in life, there’s a transition. If you have family in Montana and Arizona you’ll have a blast traveling between the two places. We have a daughter in Denver and son in Phoenix and follow the weather while enjoying visits 🙂
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Welcome to the nomadic lifestyle. Hope you enjoy it as much as we have. There is so much beautiful country to see out there. Hope to meet up with you sometime down the road.
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Thanks LuAnn, I am really looking forward to it. I hope it’s even half as fun as I think it will be and yes, maybe our paths will cross someday.
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Congratulations on your decision to travel on an RV. Life on the road is easy, simple with some doze of challenges. But overall it is a great life!
Thanks for stopping by our blog, as you may know already we were also from CA but on the northern side. Sold everything and now enjoying living on the road.
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Thanks Steve and Mona Lisa. I have been following your blog and many others, living my dreams through your adventures. Looking forward to getting on the road in February 2014.
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suggestion: One thing you want to do is with your gravitar picture. Link your word press to your gravitar pic. If you go to other webpages and comment people can find your page too.by looking at your gravitar page.
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Thanks for the suggestion, I will check it out.
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If you need money while you travel, consider workamping. I am working as a workamper for Amazon this year as are 150+ others. Some pay wages others just a camp site. Amazon does both for their CamperForce. there are alot of opportunities out there! Ajoyfultraveler.wordpress.com
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Some people only work a few months out of the year and then take the rest of the year to travel and have fun. Look up on the internet about workamping. Cool works is one website, workamping.com is another. etc. Good luck out there!
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I have seen that on some of the blogs. I am not looking for work now but maybe down the road.
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If you are going full time consider registering your cars and things in South Dakota. There is a postal service that will send you your mail and everything! Most full timer’s rave about it.
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I spent time researching and I agree with you, that looks like the best place to set up your domicile. My choice of Montana is due to family living there and I will be spending a good amount of time there each year.They are going to forward my mail as needed. Thanks again for your comments.
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