How to Travel Full Time as a Nomad

As we got closer to retirement age and started to discuss the lifestyle we would enjoy, we went through many ideas. As a Physical Therapist, Tim could have (and still could) become a “traveling therapist” working contracts at different hospitals and clinics in places we’d like to live for awhile. Some other professionals also have this option and become professional, working nomads of this type. Some nomads buy an RV and travel the country (or even the world!), with or without a remote job, taking their accomodation with them. We considered moving to Florida or Texas. We read “International Living” magazine and considered moving abroad permanently to one location. In the midst of researching all these options to decide what was right for us, I followed several blogs by passengers on world cruises. Many couples spend 3 to 4 months every year on a single cruise that travels all over the world. This became a dream for us someday, but how to reconcile that with these other choices of where and how to live?

Around this time we also started watching Kara & Nate on YouTube, a young couple traveling all over the world as digital nomads. This led to finding other YouTube channels and an awareness of the many people that do this permanently. I also stumbled upon an article about a couple who were on a DIY world cruise with lots of land travel along the way…using repositioning cruises and land stays to tailor their experience to their own preferences. I believe they did it on about $100 a day. We read a book about a couple who lived in AirBnB’s full time (see “Your Keys, Our Home” book below).

All of a sudden, the entire world was opening up to our imagination and we could see a financially feasible way to make it our retirement reality. We started watching, reading and learning, discovering the benefits of being “slomads” who live economically for longer periods of time moving around a region, rather than being tourists. We started getting our own financials in order, joining Facebook groups of nomads where we could learn all the details we needed to know about how to transition our life and get ready to explore the world. When the housing market boomed in our area of California in the spring of 2022, we saw our chance and we took it. We sold our home and got rid of as many possessions as we could, then moved into a temporary apartment for a year while we got rid of everything else, digitized our photos, and prepared ourselves and our adult kids for our nomad launch, which took place at the end of July 2023.

Getting ready for this life transition required a lot of learning, preparing, positioning and work. Here are some books, websites, blogs, YouTube channels and Facebook groups and pages that can really help you learn. We owe a large debt of gratitude to those who have come before us and left this trail to follow and we’re happy to save you some time by listing those we’ve found most helpful (trying to keep it short though, so as not to overwhelm you!). Some of these people have books and websites and Facebook groups.

Great Nomad YouTube Channels

• Taste Life With Us and CheersWithUs! (our own channels)

• Brian and Carrie

• Rhett and Clair

• Nomad Life (Eat Walk Learn)

• Finding Gina Marie

• Retirement Travelers

• Full-Time Travel Life

• Alexander Ayling

• The Flying Finneys

• Global Geezers

• Slow Travel Chronicles

• Ten Degrees Warmer

• The Roaming Rountrees

• Explore Tayo!

• Mark and Billie Travels

• Jumping Places

• Joel Friend

• Ian and Anna

• Lauren & Reece

• Marshall & Sabrina

• Our Freedom Years (no longer producing content but great library, including traveling with dogs)

• Go With Less (they don’t produce much any more but good older content)

• Grounded Life

• Slow Travel Chronicles

• Snail Travelers

• totraveltoo

  Not Nomads but great content and inspiration:

• SideTripLife

• Paddy Doyle

• Daily Drop (on travel/cc hacking)

• Chews to Explore

• Wolters World

• Frequent Miler

• Daneger and Stacy

• Lost LeBlanc

• Kara and Nate (especially older content)

• Wattstraveling

• Tim and Fin

• Nora Dunn

  On Cruising

• Cruise Through Retirement (our channel)

• Tips for Travellers

• CruiseTipsTV

• Island Hopper TV

• EECC Travels

• Port Monkeys

• Emma Cruises

• 30 and a Wake Up (cruises full time)