It was six or seven years ago. I was running some numbers and making projections and told Leena that we were on track to retire early. Sometime in our mid-50s looked reasonable. We’ve long planned on traveling extensively in retirement, and likely not having a permanent base. Leena countered: Why don’t we take a few years off in our 40s and travel? Like many things, travel will get more difficult as we age.
So that became the plan. We decided to let a few timelines play out. Leena was at a promising startup (GlobeSherpa) and had some equity, and we wanted to see if that might pay out. It did; they were acquired in July of 2015 and Leena got her final payout from the acquisition at the end of 2016. We still had Milo, and we weren’t going to leave while he was still around. Milo passed in April of 2016. That left one final carrot. If I stayed with Nike through August 30, 2017, I’d earn my 15-year sabbatical (five weeks) and qualify for early retirement (the primary perk is employee pricing for life). The plan has become reality.
We did a final project on the house in the spring – new roof and gutters – and listed the house in June. We got an offer in early August and closed on Monday, September 25. We had a lot of downsizing to do after 16 years in the house! We had a “shop our house” party and invited Portland friends to come by and make an offer on most anything. There were many runs to Goodwill, and a couple of runs to the dump. We lined up a short-term rental for our last couple of months that’s worked out great. It’s a small ADU with a kitchen, small sitting area, full bathroom and a loft bedroom. We moved stuff over as we neared the closing date and made a final trip the morning of the close. Then we took a Lyft to the airport for the two-week Europe trip (the last two weeks of my sabbatical).
We’ve both given notice to our employers that Friday December 1 will be our last day. And we’ve booked our one-way tickets out of Portland for Monday December 11. The first stop?
Fresno!
It’s all led up to this exciting destination! We’ll spend two hours there, then fly to LAX and on to Sydney. We’ll likely spend a week or two in Sydney and then head to Bali. From there, the plan is intentionally open-ended.
We first talked about traveling for a year while chasing the sun. But then we realized that returning to Portland in December was heading into six months of rain. So the plan is for about a year and a half on the road. As we explore, we’ll “settle down” for a month or more at a time in certain spots. We’re not in a rush, and traveling to new spots every few days or even weeks would be pretty exhausting!
If your plans include travel and would like to meet up, get in touch and let’s make some plans! We’ll be posting more often here as we explore and make decisions on destinations.