When we first told people we were selling our home, our car, and nearly everything we owned, most of them thought we were a little crazy.
“You’re doing what?”
“But what about your kids?”
“Aren’t you too old for that kind of lifestyle?”
What they didn’t understand was that this wasn’t about escaping; it was about choosing. Choosing to be near our grandkids. Choosing to spend more time together, as a couple. Choosing a slower, richer way of living that felt aligned with who we are now, not who we were when we first bought that house or raised those babies.
We’d spent years building a life that worked for everyone else: raising kids, working hard, accumulating things. And don’t get me wrong, we loved that life. But when the kids moved out and the house echoed with quiet, we started asking different questions:
- What do we want the next chapter to look like?
- Where do we want to be, and who do we want to be with?
- What if we stopped waiting for “someday” and just did it now?
So, we got real. We downsized. We planned. We had own business that we could run from anywhere. So we left.
Since then, we’ve lived on the road, sometimes in Airbnbs, sometimes in hotels, but always with intention. We’ve traveled across countries and continents. We’ve worked hard, laughed harder, and grown closer. And best of all, we’ve gotten to show up—really show up—for our daughter and our grandkids in ways we couldn’t before.
Is it always easy? Nope. There are challenges. There are sacrifices. There are days I miss the stability of a “home base” and even more days that I wish I could split myself into multiples so that I could be with all of our kids. But there’s never been a day I wished we hadn’t done this.
Because this isn’t just about travel. It’s about freedom – the freedom to choose where we are, who we’re with, and how we live. It’s about writing a new story for midlife. It’s about realizing that when the nest is empty, it doesn’t have to be the end.
It can be a beginning.
