FULL-TIME TRAVEL 2.0!
Yesterday we left Granada, our home for the last year and a half, with nothing but two carry-on sized suitcases and two backpacks. After 5 years of life in Spain, we’re back to full-time travel!
We travelled full-time from 2014 to 2020. I still remember that day in July of 2014, after years and years of planning and saving, us getting on that plane from Montreal to Prague. We were 47 and 46 years old and it was one of the most exciting days of our lives, finally leaving the city where we had lived for 25 years, our 9 – 5 jobs, our families and friends. We had no idea how long we would travel or where it would lead us. In fact, we had a storage locker full of our stuff just in case we decided to call it quits after a year. I also had a condo that I had rented out (not sold) just in case…
It hadn’t taken long for us to realize we had done the right thing. Life on the road, the freedom of being a nomad, suited us. In those 6 years we mostly “slow travelled”, usually using a city as a base for a month (but sometimes 2 or 3 if we really liked a place). Our slow travel bases over those 6 years: Prague, Bangkok, Nong Khai, Budapest, Brasov, Kyoto, Cape Town, Hua Hin, Lisbon, Krakow, Split, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Lviv, Kyiv, Seville, Padova, Chiang Mai, Brno, Lecce, Antalya, Rovinj (our favorites were Prague, Split, Lviv and Cape Town. The first 3 of those cities ended up being places we regularly came back to over the years). And when we weren’t based in one of the above cities, we’d be exploring different regions: “train-ing” it from Chiang Mai to Singapore, trapsing around the Balkans (we’ve seen every Balkan country except for Albania) and spending 5 weeks in Morocco. And Mexico was a place I regularly went back to because of my mom. I would often visit and have some side adventures, including a week spent taking the El Chepe train from Northern Mexico, through the Copper Canyon, to the West Coast of Mexico.
Along the way, we sold the condo in Montreal. We couldn’t see ourselves ever moving back to our previous lives.
We knew at some point we would have to stop travelling and plan for the future. So we decided in late 2019 that we’d work on getting Permanent Residency in Spain. So it was that in 2020 we got ourselves a Spanish non-lucrative Visa and settled down in Spain…which ended up being lucky timing considering the worldwide Covid shutdowns.
The last 5 years haven’t been easy. We’ve longed to travel again. One of the things we realized is that we weren’t ready to settle down. We felt trapped living in Spain. But if we were going to get our residency, we had to commit to living here for 5 years. More on Permanent Residency in Spain.
Finally, it happened. In October of last year our application for Permanent Residency in Spain was approved. It means that we have a base in Europe that we can always come back to but with the freedom of being able to travel as we wish.
It meant that we were going back to full-time travel! We’re calling it full-time travel 2.0.
Some memories from full-time travel 1.0 (2016 – 2020)
How we are going to do it differently: Our “Full-time Travel 2.0 Manifesto”
2014 seems like a lifetime ago. We’re older, our mindset has shifted, and the world is a different place. Over the last 6 months, with full time travel on the horizon, Lissette and I sat down and talked about how we wanted to do things this time around.
I call the following our Full-time Travel 2.0 Manifesto (because I just like the sound of the word “manifest”. The “o” just gives it a revolutionary ring 😊)
We’ll splurge more
When we left Canada in 2014 we really had no idea what our future was. Full-time travel was a big risk at the time: we were in our mid-40’s. We had decent money but we had to make it stretch. We weren’t travelling for a year, the way we travelled had to be sustainable indefinitely.
We planned our itineraries based on our budget, stayed in Airbnb’s, and were frugal about eating out. Money didn’t dictate all our decisions – we spent 5 weeks in Japan and took those expensive flights to South Africa – but we were always careful with our money and made sure to balance more expensive destinations with inexpensive ones.
This time around we won’t do that. We’re pushing 60 and, unlike on our first go round, know that we won’t be doing this forever. Both my parents died in 2025 and it’s put a new light on things. So we’ll be going to places that were previously outside our budget (I’ll get to those in the next section) and we’ll spend money on “experiences”, including taking more tours than we did in the past. We want to sit back and enjoy things a bit more this time around.
Spending money is not something we do well, we’ve always been prudent. We often feel guilty splurging on a restaurant, the truth is we often feel happier eating “at home” in our Airbnb while watching something on Netflix. So I’m writing this down to remind ourselves that we have to splurge more on ourselves. We don’t know how long we’ll be able to travel as we do and we’ll have to get the most out of it.
New Destinations
One of the most important things we agreed upon is that we won’t return to previous destinations. There’s too much of the world that we haven’t seen.
I mentioned up top “splurging”: we’ll be spending the first half of the year in places like Avignon, Paris, Edinburgh, York and London. We have 1-month stays booked in each of these cities. We haven’t been to France or the UK, one of the reasons being that they’re expensive. We’re paying an average of CAD 5,300/mo (about $3,900 US) for Airbnbs for those 3 months in the UK, way more than what we would ever have splurged for in the past. All of these cities should make for excellent bases for exploration in their respective regions.
In the later part of the year we plan on taking a repositioning cruise from Europe to the Caribbean and from there explore Mexico’s Yucatan, taking the Maya train to Chiapas and then working our way down through Central America. I’d like to at least get to Panama City (although as of writing I haven’t told Lissette that I’d like to continue our travels down the length of South America to the tip of Argentina. I was really inspired by season 2 of Race Across the World which is produced by the BBC*)
*You can find 2 episodes of Race Across the World on the UK version of Netflix, we use our VPN to see it. Season 1: teams go from London to Singapore, Season 2: teams go from Mexico City to Ushuaia at the tip of Argentina. Seasons 3 and 4 are on Roku Channel (which you have to pay for…but you can sign up and get a 1 week free trial). Season 3 covers a race across the entirety of Canada while in Season 4 teams start in Northern Japan with the finish line being the island of Lombok in Indonesia. I love the show and it’s inspired me to do some long overland journeys (albeit at a much slower pace).
That’s our plan for this year into the beginning of next year. But much is to be booked and is still up in the air.
Paris. One of our 2026 destinations. Source.
Pre-bookings
In the past I would never pre-book an apartment 6 months in advance. For that matter, it was rare that we would plan anything in advance, we believed in flexibility (and still do).
I’ve mentioned some of our travel plans for the year above: going to more expensive destinations and using them for longer stays, I wanted to get the best deals possible while securing good Airbnb apartments. And we got some great deals by booking early: the equivalent of $1,788 CAD ($1,305 US) for a month in Avignon, $3,245 CAD ($2,368 US) for a month in Paris.
So while I don’t like pre-booking (it just strikes me as going opposite the spirit of being a nomad), I had to consider the places we are going. The rest of the year, going through Mexico and Central America, I’ll go back to keeping things flexible.
Lighter than ever
When we left Canada in 2014 we had lots of stuff with us. We just didn’t know better. We got a lot better as the years went on and by 2020 we were travelling with 2 carry-on sized suitcases and 2 backpacks.
We’ve left Granada with the same, 2 carry-on sized suitcases and 2 backpacks. But we have better travel equipment this time around and are a lot more efficient with what we’ve packed. A few weeks ago we looked at what we were going to pack and decided to slash it in half. It’s sad to give away some of our favorite Colombia and North Face shirts and pants but we had to face the fact: we both live off about 4 shirts and 3 pants each. Instead, we’ve made room for more practical items such as a comfortable duvet cover (handy when Airbnbs/hotels have scratchy sheets) and mini kitchen and bathroom kits (handy when arriving somewhere missing the essentials).
We’ve learned to travel lighter, but also more efficiently.
Below: When we started travelling in 2014. Not good.
Present and Long Term
This week we cancelled our internet. Our electricity, gas and water accounts were switched over to the owners of the apartment. For 5 years we’ve talked about going back to full-time travel…yet until just a few days ago it just didn’t sink in for me. It was only doing the above that it started becoming reality. “We’re going to travel again!”. Lissette on the other hand has had a lot of excitement and lots of sleepless nights lately. She’s looked forward to this moment for a long time coming.
Over the next 2 months we’ll be in Spain, exploring a few areas in Andalusia before going up to the Costa Brava where we’ll be discovering small towns and hiking the coastal trails of the Cami de Ronda. From there we’ll cross into France and spend a total of 6 months in France and the UK.
What are our long-term plans? We have our Permanent Residency in Spain and can come back anytime. That’s a great thing. But I’ve written about it: we haven’t fallen in love with Spain. So we’re keeping options open as we start travelling again. One thing is sure: we’ll have to come back to Spain at least once a year (as a permanent resident you can’t be outside of Spain more than 12 months consecutively) and in year 5 we’ll have to sign a lease somewhere in Spain to renew our residency. There’s a lot we like about Spain and maybe travelling will make us miss it. We haven’t given up on Spain.
But for now we’re happy and excited to be travelling full-time again.
Related: Thoughts on the freedom of being a nomad…
Related: Regrets of living a Nomadic life
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