I was talking with my husband the other night about our future retirement plans (he has about 15 years to retire, I have about 17). I know I am early, but I like planning ahead.

I told him I would love to leave home for about 6 months and live someplace else (perhaps Europe or some other place) just to get a way from home and explore other cultures, history but at a much slower pace.

Has anyone here considered doing that, or have already done it?? Where did you live or would you consider living?? How much planning would be involved in doing that and I how expensive do you think it would be, or could it be very affordable???

I have a friend who I used to work with, and she is retiring very soon, and plans to relocate to Paris for a year! She has been traveling back and forth to Paris for more than 10 years and absolutely loves it, and she is very fluent in french.

Some of our members have done this. You might want to look at our blog page for quite a few blogs from members who have done or are doing this (scroll down to see them). Also, another of our members, Cristina, runs the Expats in Italy forum, where you can find much information about living in that country.

- Roz

I have always fancied to do this during retiremnt. I have three more years to go to make it 20 years of teaching...

My original plan is to have my three children live on different continents and I go visit each one of them about 4 or even 3 months of the year.

They can visit me the other three months if we go quarterly. I figured since they lived with me for a long time, they can reciprocate my putting me up 3 months out of each year...

Ok, even if not different continents, I can put up with Paris, Barcelona, and Argentina... and I can have my home in California and the one my parents own in the Phillipines. Doesn't this sound like a great plan... If only my children will go along with my plans...SIGH

quote:

Originally posted by louise71594:
How much planning would be involved in doing that and I how expensive do you think it would be, or could it be very affordable???

Planning starts with legal. Visas etc. Then on to housing which may be needed for the visa so a bit circular.

Cost can be cheaper per day then a short vacation. It's the same plane ticket but spread over more days. Longer rentals tend to be cheaper per day then short ones.

No matter how much you plan something will pop up. So plan for that to-)

We are actually doing this very thing this year. We decided to live in Europe for half of 2008.

We couldn't choose one location so we decided to live in Paris for three months in the spring/summer and then Venice for the other three months in the fall/winter.

The other half of 2008 is spent in San Francisco working to pay for it all.

We are enjoying living here in Paris in a two-bedroom apartment in the 9th arron. We have been here since the last week of April.

So far we have spent last week in Colmar visiting that part of France and also going into Germany (Trier & Freiburg), Luxembourg City, and Basel Switzerland. Next week, we will spend six days in Brugge Belgium, another favorite city.

We chose to do it this way to eliminate having to deal with visas, etc. It also coincide with work schedule.

Another excellent webiste to visit is

www.expatinterviews.com

As you would guess from the name, it gives you an insight into the experiences of a lot of different people.

We have lived in a small rural village in Bavaria for the last 3 years and love every minute of it!

We decided a few years ago that once we retire we wanted to be able to spend at least 4 months a year in Italy, enjoying life there and using our base there as a jumping off point for travel to other areas more readily accessible from Europe than the US. To that end we bought and restored a small "hovel" in a wonderful town just north of Rome that we can visit only sporadically until we can afford to retire and enjoy it more regularly. The cost was not that great, in the grand scheme of things, since we bought in an off-the-beaten-path area, but our retirement will have to wait a bit longer until we have it paid for. Our periodic trips over keep reminding us that the current financial sacrifices are worth it, and we find it hard now to remain in the present and not dream of the Italian adventure that awaits a few more years down the road.

We're about 10 years away from such wonderful options and my choice is to house-sit. That way I can hold onto my house here in the USA but, hopefully, have the option of living in Europe for some short segment of time each year if I can find a house-sitting gig. My suggestion would be to keep the house sitting forums on your Favorites and see how you feel about this over time. Most, from what I gather, expect you to house sit, pet sit, and do random lightweight chores periodically to keep the home/estate up until the owners return. Sounds ideal to me

I built a smallish house in Abruzzo four years ago for about 1k euros/sqm. I can retire in four years and my plan, which looks extremely doable, is to visit there three times/year for about 5 weeks at a time. The tax on homes in Italy is very low; utilities are not too bad if you have wood heating and conserve a bit. I would pick a smallish town with good public transportation. Health insurance would be a consideration. If I did not have so many ties to Italy I would consider Spain in Europe, Mexico closer by (you can have a palace there for what some are spending for a pile of bricks in Italy).

Thanks you guys for all the great tips, suggestions, stories, etc. Its an idea right now, but I have always thought about doing something like this and if all goes well, I plan to. Thanks for the great website links too, especially the expatinterviews site. Its very informative with tons of articles.

My husband and I are sitting in an apartment in Paris, right this minute, doing exactly what you're thinking about. We'd somehow both missed a student "year abroad" back in the day, visited Europe a lot, and ached on our last nights in Paris when we just didn't want to go home. Well, last December, after major downsizing, we sold that home. We put our remaining possessions in storage and moved to Paris in January, 2008.
We're paying some of our (considerable) expenses here with the interest on the sale of our old house. (We miss family and friends but do not miss our house or possessions one iota.)

We are incredibly happy with our experience, though I'm not sure it's what people dream about--an extended vacation. What we wanted to do was test out living "la vie quotidian"--daily life. We are both writers and spend the days working to pay for some of this. We have jumped several hurdles of the French long-stay visa process, which is a huge, expensive hassle. I've given a few accounts of each step, as have others, so you can check all that information by using the Find feature in the France forum or whatever country you're interested in. Some people choose not to do this and just stay on without the paperwork.

We couldn't have picked a worse time financially for this move with the dollar so low against the euro. However, my husband said: "So should we wait until we're in our seventies?" Point taken. We also sold our house before real estate prices tanked so much. Somehow I rationalize the expenses here by saying: "Well, housing will be cheaper when we get back." Crazy, I know. Oh, we end a lot of sentences with: "If we get back."

We've decided to extend our stay to a year-and-a-half abroad, not just a year. We're just so happy here in Paris, and we're homeless anyway, so why not? (That kind of thinking is so NOT the old me.) We will spend the summer in the French countryside to satisfy our significant longings for nature, quiet, and soft ground. (Paris is noisy! We each wore out sturdy shoes in less than two months!)

The big thing, really, among many big things, is just doing it--following through to test out your dream, whatever its scope. Many people on these boards have made much bigger leaps or permanent ones. So read the blogs--we don't have them, probably should, but came with paid assignments and need to devote ourselves to those. If you read the blogs, you'll see how it has worked out for a lot of people who went ahead and made the leap. Bonne chance.

We have done it but don´t plan on it being short term largely around difficulties jobwise and pets. Whether it is permanent or not is a different matter.

We have moved from Australia to Spain. The long term visa process was relatively straightforward for my husband to get although we have faced and will continue to face many frustrations due to our non EU status. I do not have this visa as I work outside the country 6 plus months a year and you need to live here 6 months minimum to renew the visa. I am therefore subject to the terms of the schengen visa, which is somewhat stressful if and when I want to take a long break from work.

Legally neither of us are allowed to work here.

So far, a year in, it is working well, but the major trade off is we are apart more than we would like. However my husband has effectively (and happily) retired and I do have 3 - 6 months of the year off in Europe.

Hi Louise,

Comments on the accomodation side of things.

Just a wild thought that if your weren't planning on working for the 6 months, you could buy a decent camper van ( if you're happy to live on the go ) and travel around with no particular place in mind and stay longer if you really liked a place, but move on if you wanted to. Then sell the vehicle towards the end of the trip. I believe that people do this type of travelling in Oz and it works well. That would be rather different.

On the other hand here in southern Spain you can rent a place very cheaply at the moment because there are so many places on offer. There are numerous rental sites for Europe that you can browse through and you should negotiate far better rates for a 6 month rental than they show for 1 week rentals.

I do agree that the house sitting idea could be a great idea also.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Jess

Next trip to Rome is going to be part work (hopefully very little part) and leisure. The work part will be finding an apartment in or close to centro. We hope to buy an apartment rent it 6 months of the year (summer) and live in it the other 6 months. It's sort of contrarian because we will be living in Rome during the off season and Phoenix in the other off season. But I'm not a big fan of crowds. So we hope it will work for us. We are lucky in that we have italian friends who are interested in partnering with us.

We retired early at 50 and decided to sell our home ( at our areas peak in 2005) and set off on an open ended trip around the world with our (then) 5 year old daughter.

We have been traveling in Europe ( and Morocco and Turkey) for almost 2 years now and it has been the best decision of our lives!! We slow travel about 7 months out of the year following the good weather mostly via RV ( with some stops at luxury hotels and pensions). We rent a home in a small village in Southern Spain where it is warm and sunny for about 5 months in the winter.

This has been an absolutely fantastic experience for our entire family and we also do it for very cheap. We find that we can travel the world for much cheaper than living at home and spend only 25 thousand total for a year ( family of 3).

I have lots of sources on my website about these things as we have learned a great deal through our experiences.

Monthly rentals in Spain are very cheap now in the winter, so it is something you could consider. We are in a micro-climate that gets little rain, so almost every day is sunny. It is so perfect then that it is hard to understand why the high season is in the hot, hot summer.


I would not buy a house in Spain, but renting one can be a steal these days. Get your dental work done in Spain as well. We have found it superior to that at home and soooo much cheaper.

You need to look at a lot of things as you plan ahead. Learn from others who have done it and form your own plan.

We saw the housing bust coming, so sold our home before it would be impossible to sell. We also knew we would be spending time in Europe and figured that the dollar would be in for a great fall, so we got out of the dollar pretty much. We bought enough euros and pounds when the dollar was high, so we have not been hurt by the fall of the dollar.

There are many things to look at, so try to cover it all and trends the best that you can. We spent a long time reading and studying things before we made this move. We have made a few mistakes, but the hard work of our planning has really paid off.

It is easier than ever today to do a mobile life and extended travel. It is also important to remember that travel really does not cost that much, maintaining "stuff"does. Start clearing out now and simplifying your life. You can not take it with you and it will free you up to fulfill dreams while you are young enough to enjoy them.

Making the decision is the hardest part, planning can be hard to, but doing it is really very easy and oh so wonderfully enjoyable!! Go for it!