Don't Live Your Life Full of Regrets
Live the life you were meant to live NOW!
I don’t think my husband and I are rare for having big dreams and wanting to see them come true. I think many people have big dreams and want to experience amazing things. Traveling full-time is one of those dreams for us — a dream we had for over 10 years before we were able to make it a reality. We couldn’t just keep living day after day, working a regular job, trying to build up retirement savings in the hope that we could live our dream someday.
There’s no guarantee of the future.
Many people feel you have to wait until retirement to make your dreams come true, but what if you get there and it’s too late to live them? What if you don’t even make it to retirement age? There are too many ‘what ifs’ in a scenario like that for us, so we decided to live our dream now.
Is it hard? Yes, sometimes it is tough! Is it worth it? It is 100% worth it! The things James and I have experienced over the last four years, since we began our nomadic lifestyle, have been incredible, and I can’t imagine going through life without them.
We have traveled to all 50 states, at least 60 different National Parks, and almost 20 different countries, and while we had traveled quite a bit before, much of that has been accomplished in the last four years since we went full-time.
We’ve seen some fantastic things like Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, the Grand Canyon, Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, the Alaska wilderness by train, Sedona, Cape Cod National Seashore, Normandy Beach, Paris, and the Netherlands, where we have family and family history… I could go on and on with all the fantastic places we’ve been. I can’t even imagine living in one place and never experiencing all these beautiful places.
Along our travels, we’ve had many people tell us they’re amazed at what we’re doing. They can’t even imagine selling everything and taking off to travel full-time. Some of those people can’t imagine it because they have no interest in it, and fair enough if that’s the case. But many people can’t imagine it because they want to live as we do and don’t believe they can.
I’m here to tell you that you CAN do it! It might take some creativity to make it happen in your life and circumstances, but it can be done if you dream of it as we did. As I mentioned, it took us over 10 years to make it a reality, so it’s not like you can snap your fingers and do it in most cases. But if you figure out a way to make money from the road or figure out how to save up enough to support yourself for a specific amount of time, you can take off and live your adventure!
I was inspired to write this after reading an article by another nomad I recently started following. She shared this quote from a man with regrets:
“Boy did I live my life backward. When I was young I wanted to do what you are doing, but I was determined to work hard just so that I could retire. I hoped that once I retired, I would be able to do all the things that I had wanted to do my whole life. But now I’m too old to do those things.” he said regretfully.
This is EXACTLY why we are living our lives this way now. We are 52 and 53 years old, and we’re not getting any younger. There are already things that are harder to do at our age, especially for me. We don’t want to wait until we are even older and unable to do the things we love. The time is now.
One of the things we’ve been super thankful for is the support of our families. They’ve all been excited for us to get out and see the world, to live our dream, and they’ve encouraged us to do so. What a blessing that is!
So if you find yourself thinking that you’ll begin your adventure when you retire, please reconsider. We’re not promised tomorrow. Even if you can’t do it full-time like we are, go out and live your adventure however you can. Don’t just sit and wait for the right timing. Make it happen so you can experience amazing things now.