Our Roving Retirement Formula
By Susan Barnes

We are frequently asked, "This international roving retirement thing that you two are doing... Just how does it work?" It's a loaded question, and one for which we have yet to settle on a singular response. After living a roving retirement for a few years now, one would think we have the formula set. Truth be told, our formula keeps evolving.

When we were planning our retirement, my husband Don and I envisioned selecting an international locale and renting a furnished apartment there for six to 12 months, before repeating the process in our next chosen country. The timeframe per location would be dictated by the visa time limits for which we qualified. Renting for a period of several months would reflect favorably on our budget, as we could negotiate a lower rate for a longer stay. We would use our apartment as our home base from which to both take a deep dive into the local culture and explore the broader country, our two primary travel goals.

And so our adventure began. It was fall, 2016. We settled into a modern, two-bedroom apartment in Quito, Ecuador, giving us time to delve into this capital city's rich history and colorful Andean culture. On our first foray, we splurged a bit on the apartment, paying $950 per month—two-bedroom apartments here start at $700 per month.

The modest size of Ecuador and its well-developed, affordable public transportation system made multi-day trips to the beach, the jungle, and even the Galapagos Islands, feasible and affordable. We went, we saw, we experienced. We were sure we had the roving retirement formula sorted.

Then we arrived in Spain. Almost immediately, we realized that our formula would need some tweaking. A much larger country with deep regional influences from ancient Romans, Moors and Greeks, we would need to move around if we wanted to experience all that this diverse country had to offer. Armed with a tourist visa that allowed us to stay for up to one year, we decided to split our time equally among four distinct regions, giving us reach into Spain's vast geographic and historical wonders, plus first-hand experience with its cultural diversity.

In three locales, we would rent furnished apartments in cities central to our chosen regions: Alicante on Spain's alluring Costa Blanca, Malaga on the stunning Costa del Sol, and San Sebastian in the Basque country.

Susan and Don experienced local life in Alicante, Spain.

By choosing the shoulder season in each location, we would negotiate rents that kept us on track financially—we paid between $700 and $1,000 per month. In the fourth region, Andalusia, we would test a new living arrangement: housesitting. And so for a second time, we went, we saw, we experienced. One year later we celebrated the success of our revised formula. It had worked splendidly. We had memories to last a lifetime.

Buoyed by this success, we were eager to repeat it on our next adventure in New Zealand. However, while researching our trip, we discovered that the iconic way to see New Zealand is by campervan.

Campervan? This would be a total deviation from our formula, but we were anxious to give it a try. Just one thing, we were not certain that we wanted to spend the full six months, the length of our visa, on the road in a camper. So once again, we adapted the formula—find housesits, each for about one month, in three different regions across New Zealand's two islands. Then, rent campervans to slow travel from one housesit to the next, checking out all that the country has to offer along the way.

We're now in the midst of our New Zealand tour and it has been amazing. We have experienced two awesome housesits and are on our second campervan experience. Campervanning gives us flexibility to set our own pace, stay longer in places that catch our interest, and keep the budget in check. It allows us to go beyond popular tourist locations, experiencing less-traveled destinations and even remote locations.

New Zealand is the latest stop on the couple's roving adventure.

Pricewise, it's comparable to renting an apartment, albeit one on wheels. Housesitting gives us the chance to really explore a locale, while providing downtime in which to plan our next camping adventure. We're seeing, we're doing, we're experiencing. We couldn't be happier with our current formula.

Where we go next is yet to be determined. One thing is certain, wherever it be, our present formula will need some adapting. Which takes us back to the question of how a roving retirement works. When asked, we have stopped trying to give a singular answer. Instead, we now offer up a few guiding principles: set travel goals, be open to new living arrangements, tune-in to local travel methods, and adapt plans to fit the environment at hand. It's all about being open-minded and flexible. Leveraging these, our roving retirement has been more than we ever dreamed possible.