Key Takeaways
- We have such a large community and I love sharing everyone’s story. I think highlighting a variety of perspectives and experiences helps inspire so ma
- After her husband had a health scare a few years ago, they decided to stop waiting, finally sell their stuff, and head on the road. As more and more a
- Nomadic Matt: Hi Donella! Thanks for doing this. Tell everyone about yourself! Donella: We have been raising children and grandkids for the past 30 ye
We have such a large community and I love sharing everyone’s story. I think highlighting a variety of perspectives and experiences helps inspire so many of us! This month we’re featuring Donella and her husband.
After her husband had a health scare a few years ago, they decided to stop waiting, finally sell their stuff, and head on the road. As more and more adults consider a “nomadic” retirement (especially here in the U.S. where it wasn’t always so common), I wanted to interview them and have them share their advice.
Route for Less: Hi Donella! Thanks for doing this. Tell everyone about yourself! Donella: We have been raising children and grandkids for the past 30 years in South Florida. Now at 58 years of age, and with my husband retiring at 65, we decided to sell our home and take off to see the world.
I was a divorced single mother of two when I first met my husband, who was working in the construction of the hospital where I was employed. He hesitated for five weeks before finally getting the courage to ask me out. When he did, he said, “If I like you, I am going to marry you!”
That was his proposal, and a few months later we were married. He has been a marvelous provider, father, and grandfather these past 30 years.
Fifteen years into our marriage he suffered renal failure, and the doctors did not expect he had enough life left in him to get a transplant. They asked me to prepare for his funeral, which I did. It was a nine-year journey until we got a call late one night in 2008 that they had a kidney available for him.
Since that time you would never know by looking at him that he had ever been sick a day in his life. It was truly a miracle!
How did you get into travel? For several years now, I have had the urge to travel, which has been a dream of mine before marriage and children. My husband was never keen on the idea until one afternoon last year he said, “Let’s do this!”
The next day I began to sell, donate, and give away (almost) EVERYTHING so that the day we moved we wouldn’t need any trucks. I called a realtor, and our home sold within 24 hours for more than we were asking. We were able to drive away with everything we owned in our two vehicles. My husband was a bit shocked how quickly it all happened once he agreed to go!
Did you and your husband take a lot of trips before this big one? Over the past 30 years we only went to visit family in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Delaware, though we also explored areas on the way, such as Savannah and Charleston. I visited Texas often to see my brother, Puerto Rico to see our son, and California to see our daughter.
We are going to continue to visit family as we explore the country and travel abroad but take more time to see things that we have only read about. We have learned so much about the world in travel blogs, and we want to experience that.
Tell me about your current trip. After you sold your house, what happened? Where did you go? As soon as our house was sold we found a beautiful beach bungalow in Juno, Florida, directly across from the beach. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine ourselves being able to live so close to the ocean. We saved just enough things to use to live here.
We’ve basically done what we learned online from the nomadic community: live with less and enjoy your surroundings. Our lease here is only until the end of the year; in the meantime, we are getting our van prepared for full-time camping around the country next year.
This past March we took a long trip to Andalucia in Spain, which was the first time my husband had ever traveled to Europe.
We went to enjoy but also to look into living there the next time we visit. We will do basically the same thing: find a small space so that we are able to take the time to travel to other countries as well.
What inspired this current life change? My daughter told me that my granddaughter was talking about traveling when she grew up. In an instant, it brought back all the memories of my own plans at that same age. That rekindled the spark in me from my own childhood.
Traveling was the way I grew up with my own parents, who were nomads in the ’50s and ’60s. I grew up in North Africa, Europe, Britain, and the United States all before the age of 10. My father continued traveling the United States until he passed away.
My mother continues to travel the US and Europe while residing in Spain. It’s in my roots, and I long to visit new places and revisit other places that I have seen as a child. Sharing this with my husband seems like a dream come true.
Did people say you were crazy when you said you were setting off to travel the world? We were surprised at how man
