Hello! It’s been a while since I’ve posted. We have some catching up to do.

This is a travel lifestyle blog. What does a travel lifestyle look like? It depends!

Travel as a nomad without a home base is one way, but there are many ways it can be done,

Travel is different depending on whether one is an empty-nester, working remotely, richer, poorer or retired.

The way one travels depends on their individual circumstances. Meet You in the Morning has shared many different travel experiences through the years.

Our 2015 version, which we’ll call Nomadic 1.0, we were in our mid-fifties, empty-nesters, and taking advantage of being in-between jobs, or semi-retired. We got rid of everything except a box of old taxes, a box of photo albums, a box of Christmas things, a box of some household things, some boxes of clothes, my husband’s tools and our Breville espresso machine. By not having big overhead expenses we could afford to travel. Those 16 months and 20 countries are documented on this blog.

Nomadic 1.0 came to an end in 2016 when we got the good news that we were “expecting” our first grandchild.

We came home and settled down because we wanted to be hands-on grandparents. We rented, we worked jobs, we even traveled 1-3 months at a time. But we consciously didn’t allow ourselves to accumulate too much in the way of belongings or put down deep roots because the call to abandon it all again and travel full time would certainly return.

Nomadic 2.0 began in September 2021 when we followed our grandchildren to Washington. We gave up our Portland apartment and jobs, got rid of most things (again) but kept a car. We wanted to take advantage of a period of time when we didn’t have to pay rent so we could afford to be temporarily nomadic again, but we knew we would be back.

Nomadic 2.0 lasted 8 months. We traveled around Mexico for 2 months, then returned to the US for 7 weeks, after which we spent another 2 months exploring Mexico before once again returning to the US when we took a week-long trip to Kentucky. (That’s a story for another time!)

While we were retired and living a nomadic lifestyle I came to one major conclusion. My life needed purpose and that purpose was to be a grandma to my young granddaughters. As much as I love to travel, I missed them, they wouldn’t be young forever, and I didn’t like being away from them such long periods. We would return home and settle down where they lived.

I follow lots of travel bloggers/vloggers online, both young and old. Eventually they all burn-out and desire a place to stop and recharge for a period, a place to call home.

We are Nomadic No Longer because we we bought a home!

We love our condo and have had fun buying lots of new things and furniture and decorating. We are no longer just “camping out” but putting down roots. We are thrilled to have a large enough place where our family can visit and each one has a place to sit in the living room as well as around the dining room table! We have a guest bedroom and can have the granddaughters sleep over.

It’s a good thing we ended up locating ourselves just 1.1 miles from where they live because this grandma may be very busy, very soon. We didn’t know it until after we bought our place, but we are “expecting” again; our granddaughters are going to be big sisters to a baby brother!

Is This the End of Retirement Travel?

Absolutely not! It’s the beginning of a new chapter!

We used our savings to buy a condo so we won’t have to deal with house maintenance, snow removal and yard care. We hope our overhead expenses will stay low and that we will eventually benefit from increased home equity. In the future, should we wish, it is possible to rent it out – or we may look into offering it as a short-term rental.

We don’t know what the future holds in the matter of travel. In the meantime, learning about Spokane is fun and there are many nearby locations to explore. International travel is opening up again finally. A trip doesn’t require months on end, in fact, planning just a 2-3 week trip sounds so exciting!

May 2023 Update:

We have listed our condo as a short-term rental managed by Vacasa because we have some upcoming travels scheduled soon.