Adventure One Overview: Three Months in Europe (Aug-Nov) - Euro Adventure 2023

While spontaneity plays a role in adventures, our first foray into retirement travel involved a planning process, which in hindsight, included multiple missteps!

Once we’d spent a month in Hawaii (see ABOUT US), and had a firm retirement date, we started talking about “living in Portugal for three months as home base from which to travel Europe” (Visitors are only permitted to remain in Schengen -essentially the EU - for 90 out of every 180 days, without a qualified visa).

Following a two-week reconnaissance trip to Lisbon and Porto in May 2023, and failure to find a suitable long-term rental, we started mapping an alternative plan. Still three months, still Europe, but multiple locations.

We thought pulling suitcases across ages-old cobblestone streets would be too hard, so we opted for backpacks and packing cubes. We’d never spent any time hauling multiple weeks of clothes, shoes, and toiletries (about 35lbs) around on our backs, but how hard could it be? We live in Colorado; we do day hikes in the Rocky Mountains. We’re physically fit. We can certainly haul our clothes around Europe for three months!

Initially we mapped visits to Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Ireland meaning we would spend 10 days in each country. When we realized doing so would have created our typical urge to see and do everything in an entire country, running from city to city, exhausted, our 70-hour work weeks didn’t sound so bad. Instead, we re-envisioned our first adventure, but failed to rethink “we can haul our clothes around Europe on our backs”!

Chris finished working on Friday, August 4, my official last day was Monday, August 7, and we boarded a plane for Barcelona on Thursday, August 10, for a three-month adventure. I know I was trying to put distance between “career” and “retirement,” forcing a mindset shift, proclaiming we are done with this stage of our lives! But I may have acted in haste (Chris disagrees):

I didn’t have time to research or stand-up a platform or website for this blog (my retirement passion), requiring me to write daily posts on my iPad.

• As a last-ditch attempt to provide housing stability for one of our children, we purchased a rental property in July. NOT THE BEST TIMING! The four-unit HOA is loosely managed by three first-time owners with haphazard meeting minutes, documented rules, or payment processes. Along our journey, we struggled to participate in HOA calls, pay for overdue maintenance needs, or receive reimbursement for work we covered on behalf of the HOA.
  

• COBRA materials were not sent until four weeks after our departure, requiring printing, signing, and resending paperwork.
  

• When meeting with our financial advisors prior to departure, we requested a lump sum of money be deposited into our checking as we had not yet created a budget nor confirmed expenses in retirement.
  

• Our children knew we were leaving for three months, but we didn’t have contingency plans in place in the event something went wildly wrong with any of them.
  

• While the list in my head goes on, Chris reminded me, no one died…

Our final working travel plan kicked-off with four days in Barcelona, a 15-day sailing cruise, ending in Venice, followed by a few days sightseeing there and then perhaps on to Rome on September 2. (SIDE NOTE: Earlier this summer, our good friends got married in Bermuda and booked a transatlantic honeymoon cruise from London to New York, departing October 22. )

After I purchased our airline tickets home from Amsterdam on October 29, Chris, with his new “the world is our oyster mentality,” realized our friends’ cruise cost much less than the airline tickets, confirmed our friends’ permission to join, and opted to participate in their 13-day wedding celebration, rather than fly home. Being open to anything changes the direction of your life!

The night before our departure, enjoying a final dinner and drinks with neighbors, our amazing and generous friend asked for our United Airlines confirmation number and instantly upgraded our outbound flight to first-class using his MileagePlus Points. By the time we arrived in Barcelona on August 11, for three months of travel, book-ended by cruises, amid an unprecedented southern European heat-wave, we were grateful for this incredible opportunity, and in retrospect, so naive (more about that in WHAT WE WISH WE KNEW…).