Early-retirement wannabe

hugheskevi

Quick update on travel plans, as things are moving along nicely.

My wife and I have both had requests for 2 years of unpaid leave accepted. At first we didn't plan to return to work, but now we do. Although a large part of that is linked to deciding to rent out our house rather than sell it. So now we plan to return, but only for maybe up to a year whilst we settle back into Western life and sell our house. We may well sell our house and then go for a few months around Europe whilst buying a new place, just to avoid the hassle of chains.

We have booked flights out to Anchorage, leaving on 8th September. There were no good options, so it is an 18 hour flight, with a 4.5 stopover at Seattle and arriving into Anchorage at 1am...

We will then have a week to go up through Alaska in a hire car, visiting Denali National Park for a couple of days as well as visiting some kennels with Alaskan Malamutes - that seemed appropriate given the Malamute is the State Dog of Alaska, and we have looked after an Alaskan Malamute for 6 years now! Although about a 750 mile round trip.

I've also confirmed a cruise to take us from Anchorage down to Vancouver, which is for 7 nights. Bizarrely, that is cheaper than the Alaska State Ferry, despite the State Ferry being massively subsided by State Government and not including a cabin, food or drink.

From there we jump across the border to Seattle, and pick up a car to do a huge 5,000 mile road-trip in a massive circle around the Western USA all the way down to Phoenix and then back to Seattle, getting back in early November.

 

After that I'll need to see how things are going and what we want to do, but at the moment I'm thinking we will take a side-trip by flying to Boston and go down through New York, Philadelphia, Gettsyberg and Washington to Norfolk, and then take a quick flight to Miami to see Florida. After that we will fly Phoenix - which we will have visited as part of the road trip - and resume overland travel, catching a bus to the Mexican border.

 

The other big tweak I've made to the plans is to largely cut out the Caribbean. We will fly over to Cuba from Cancun as another side-trip, but other than that I now don't plan to go around the Caribbean. Combined with the change to see the eastern coast of USA early in trip, we will now just keep going south, and once we reach Ushuaia we will fly over to Malaysia. I think this is a good improvement, as it is surprisingly difficult/expensive to get around the Caribbean - it seems more set up for people to fly into one island and stay there, not go island-hopping. I'm not very disappointed though, as we will be going to quite a few islands just off the mainland, off Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Panama and maybe Nicaragua and Colombia - that should be plenty enough beach life and far less touristy than the major Caribbean locations.

I have a detailed plan up until the end of the big road trip through the west, then it will all be much more flexible. Thinking that I'll aim to spend about 15 months in total getting from Alaska to Ushuaia, or maybe slightly more. The constraint is that Ushuaia is best seen in summer (ie Nov - Feb) so I'll flex how we see Chile, Argentina and Brazil to ensure we get to the extreme south at the right time of year, flying back up to Buenos Aires to see whatever we skipped if necessary.

Most of the things required to sort out our house for renting have now been done. Still lots of things to buy, both for house and travel, but that isn't very difficult. House will be put on the market at the end of the month, available from late August.

Starting to think about tech and other things for the holiday, some early favourites are:

• Gaming laptop - Asus Tuf, rather a luxury, but it will see a lot of use in evenings and days we spend relaxing so happy to spend more for performance. My wife will just take her Lenovo Yoga laptop she has already.
  
• Mobile phone - Xiaomi POCO M4 Pro,I spend a lot more time at laptop than I do phone, so not bothered about high end phone, this should do the job for day-to-day use, dual physical SIM where necessary and some photos. My wife already has a similar phone and will use that.
  
• SIM card - USA is a rip-off for SIM-only, so probably will buy 20G of data on an e-SIM for $89 and use two of those for us, using local SIMs later in the trip when we get down into Central America.
  
• GoPro Hero 10 - I plan to use this as main way of recording trip, primarily for personal record but I'll upload to YouTube a couple of times a week. The GoPro seemed about the best choice in terms of space, cost and ease of use.

Very pleased that Virgin increased their interest rate to 1.56% on first £25,000 of savings, as I needed to diversify from only have Chase accounts holding most of the funds we will use for travel. Plan is to have three sets of saving - my Chase saving, wife's Chase saving and a joint Virgin Saving Account. Meanwhile rental income will go into a Starling account, so we should be well covered with multiple options in the event of loss, theft, down-time, etc.

All starting to get quite exciting now, it has been 15 years since my last major trip, and a lot has changed in that time. I doubt there will be any internet cafes on this trip!

tigerspill

hugheskevi, This looks amazing.  I wish you well in your planning.
I hope that you keep us up to date on your ongoing planning and trip diary when you set off?  Maybe a new thread on this?
Can I ask a personal question - how much do you expect the whole trip to cost?

hugheskevi

tigerspill said:

hugheskevi, This looks amazing.  I wish you well in your planning.
I hope that you keep us up to date on your ongoing planning and trip diary when you set off?  Maybe a new thread on this?
Can I ask a personal question - how much do you expect the whole trip to cost?

I'll be setting up a YouTube channel to document the trip, I'll add links to it on this thread once it is up and running with the first video or two - I plan to add two videos a week to it. One of the things I plan to do is to keep extremely detailed expenditure logs and include them in the videos and as links to spreadsheets, as I wish more people would do interesting travel so want to show how accessible it can be (at least once we get south of USA) - I get so frustrated at the obsession most younger people have with going to the same common and very dull 'Instagrammable' locations rather than taking advantage of a literal world of possibilities. Very few of the existing YouTube channels show much detail about costs, so I'm hoping it might be of use to anyone stumbling across the channel - I naturally like to record costs diligently, so it isn't a burden to do it.

As to how much it will cost, I don't really have a clear idea. I've tried to work it out based on short trips in developed countries and how much we spend there. I've also looked at the expenditure of a few others who have done this sort of thing, but they seem to spend a lot less than I am planning for. My expectation would be that £100,000 will cover the two years, and that is for my wife and myself covering absolutely everything. That sounds a lot, but I expect to get about £40,000 in rent during that period from our house, and my wife and I spend about £30,000 p/a just living in the UK anyhow. So it is more about loss of earnings rather than cost of trip.

As of today we have:

• £76K in cash, which will be augmented by a further £39K of salary (after tax) before we go, and then a bit under £2K of rental income each month (but there will be expenses from this, and maybe voids). I'm hoping that this will be sufficient for the trip and cover everything up to the time we return to London and get back to work and start getting a salary again.
  
• £328K in ISAs. This is intended to fund period between age 47 (when we return) and age 57 when DB, DC and later State Pension kick in.
  

If the cash runs out on the trip, we just dip into ISA money. Then when we return, we'll go back to work for a fairly short period in order to earn enough to smooth out income up to age 57 - I think we will only need about another £60K or so to smooth our income to be the same as we will get from our DB pensions after 57, but obviously that could change a lot in either direction over the next two years. That is a nice way to derisk things, as just working a bit longer if necessary will fix any volatility before moving house and everything being both more predictable but also with a much shorter time to age 55 when we get DB pension with uncapped CPI increases.

So far, costs incurred for the trip (covering both myself and wife) are:

• £886 for a 7 night cruise from Anchorage to Alaska (a further £187 in tips due at end of cruise) - I think this is amazing value for an all-inclusive Alaska cruise.
  
• £775 flights from Dublin to Anchorage - not an ideal route, and expensive but the best there was.
  
• £378 for vaccinations (another £117 to go) - mostly rabies
  
• £823 travel insurance - for 18 months
  
• £258 for 4 nights accommodation in Anchorage

That is for Alaska which will be the most expensive part of the trip and will cover over 2,000 miles of travel. I still need to book car hire, car insurance, more accommodation, a transfer to cruise terminal and various activities, which will then cover the first couple of week away, and I'll book further things after that once we are on the road.

RetSol

Quick update on travel plans, as things are moving along nicely.

Wow. Congratulations, @hugheskevi. 

Are you planning to stay in touch with us to keep us on the straight and narrow, as you do at present?  If not, it will be perfectly understandable, but we will miss your expertise! 

Reading about your plans makes me realise how content I am now to enjoy the area of north London where I live in particular and the UK in general.  I used to travel a lot but international travel does not float my boat these days. 

Life changes.  And so do we. 

hugheskevi

RetSol said:

Are you planning to stay in touch with us to keep us on the straight and narrow, as you do at present?  If not, it will be perfectly understandable, but we will miss your expertise! 

Reading about your plans makes me realise how content I am now to enjoy the area of north London where I live in particular and the UK in general.  I used to travel a lot but international travel does not float my boat these days. 

Life changes.  And so do we.

I'll still be regularly popping into MSE. I'll be taking a lot of tech with me on the trip, as I remember a lot of dull evenings from the last few times I did went away traveling, way back between 1999-2007. Mind you, it will be competing with Football Manager, so it may depend on how my team is doing! Very much looking forward to a routine of sight-seeing, moving along, running for exercise and gaming for fun.

One of the big benefits of this for me personally is to break the usual routine. The last six months have been quite productive, getting house ready to rent out, planning, changing financial accounts, etc, whereas I would usually have an enjoyable but repetitive routine of work, running and general lazing about. Even over the last few years it has been good starting to get ready - decluttering house, planning where we might want to move to live when we return and such-like. It ends up being a complete life reset, which will eventually result in us retiring to live exactly where we want after a few amazing years of travel.

My views are also shaped by having a long-term plan to travel - even looking back at my first post on this thread in November 2010 I said:

The plan is for both myself and my partner to pension off all higher rate tax income and make full S+S ISA contributions each year. To achieve that, a reasonably high mortgage is maintained, which will either be paid off when I retire and go travelling, or if inheritance happens in the mean-time.

That really has shaped everything mentally - I've always been working toward a big travel trip, viewing working as a means to an end, even if was rather a lengthy means!

RetSol

It ends up being a complete life reset, which will eventually result in us retiring to live exactly where we want after a few amazing years of travel.

I wish you all the best and look forward to continuing to hear from you on MSE! 

tigerspill

hugheskevi said:

tigerspill said:

hugheskevi, This looks amazing.  I wish you well in your planning.
I hope that you keep us up to date on your ongoing planning and trip diary when you set off?  Maybe a new thread on this?
Can I ask a personal question - how much do you expect the whole trip to cost?

I'll be setting up a YouTube channel to document the trip, I'll add links to it on this thread once it is up and running with the first video or two - I plan to add two videos a week to it. One of the things I plan to do is to keep extremely detailed expenditure logs and include them in the videos and as links to spreadsheets, as I wish more people would do interesting travel so want to show how accessible it can be (at least once we get south of USA) - I get so frustrated at the obsession most younger people have with going to the same common and very dull 'Instagrammable' locations rather than taking advantage of a literal world of possibilities. Very few of the existing YouTube channels show much detail about costs, so I'm hoping it might be of use to anyone stumbling across the channel - I naturally like to record costs diligently, so it isn't a burden to do it.

As to how much it will cost, I don't really have a clear idea. I've tried to work it out based on short trips in developed countries and how much we spend there. I've also looked at the expenditure of a few others who have done this sort of thing, but they seem to spend a lot less than I am planning for. My expectation would be that £100,000 will cover the two years, and that is for my wife and myself covering absolutely everything. That sounds a lot, but I expect to get about £40,000 in rent during that period from our house, and my wife and I spend about £30,000 p/a just living in the UK anyhow. So it is more about loss of earnings rather than cost of trip.

As of today we have:

• £76K in cash, which will be augmented by a further £39K of salary (after tax) before we go, and then a bit under £2K of rental income each month (but there will be expenses from this, and maybe voids). I'm hoping that this will be sufficient for the trip and cover everything up to the time we return to London and get back to work and start getting a salary again.
  
• £328K in ISAs. This is intended to fund period between age 47 (when we return) and age 57 when DB, DC and later State Pension kick in.
  

If the cash runs out on the trip, we just dip into ISA money. Then when we return, we'll go back to work for a fairly short period in order to earn enough to smooth out income up to age 57 - I think we will only need about another £60K or so to smooth our income to be the same as we will get from our DB pensions after 57, but obviously that could change a lot in either direction over the next two years. That is a nice way to derisk things, as just working a bit longer if necessary will fix any volatility before moving house and everything being both more predictable but also with a much shorter time to age 55 when we get DB pension with uncapped CPI increases.

So far, costs incurred for the trip (covering both myself and wife) are:

• £886 for a 7 night cruise from Anchorage to Alaska (a further £187 in tips due at end of cruise) - I think this is amazing value for an all-inclusive Alaska cruise.
  
• £775 flights from Dublin to Anchorage - not an ideal route, and expensive but the best there was.
  
• £378 for vaccinations (another £117 to go) - mostly rabies
  
• £823 travel insurance - for 18 months
  
• £258 for 4 nights accommodation in Anchorage

That is for Alaska which will be the most expensive part of the trip and will cover over 2,000 miles of travel. I still need to book car hire, car insurance, more accommodation, a transfer to cruise terminal and various activities, which will then cover the first couple of week away, and I'll book further things after that once we are on the road.

This sounds amazing.  I will be fascinated to keep up with your channel!
We plan to do a lot of travelling - though nothing extended like this.  But very interested to see whet you do to get ideas for our trips.  We plan an Alaskan cruise for next year, so hearing about that will be great - who did you book with?.

Very exciting!  Hope to all goes very well.

hugheskevi

tigerspill said:

We plan to do a lot of travelling - though nothing extended like this.  But very interested to see whet you do to get ideas for our trips.  We plan an Alaskan cruise for next year, so hearing about that will be great - who did you book with?.

I booked Royal Caribbean for the Alaska cruise - but that was solely based on price, neither myself nor my wife have any interest in cruising (although it will be interesting to just do this one cruise to see what it is like), but getting from Anchorage to Vancouver overland is very hard and would have involved a combination of buses, ferries and trains over a distance of 2,500 miles. Taking the cruise was by far the easiest, cheapest and most comfortable mode of transport available other than flying. From research, I think Princess Cruises is a very good provider to consider for Alaska based on research of cruising in the area I did, as you will get to go into Glacier Bay with them. Be careful to book via a travel agent, the one linked in the last sentence is usually very competitive.

I'm actually much more interested in Denali National Park and Fairbanks in the Alaskan interior to visit Firewalker Kennel than the cruise. A combination of AirBnb for accommodation, Turo rental for a car and Rentalcover.com for CDW and SLI insurance seems the best package to do a week of travel to take that area in. USA is very expensive in general and especially Alaska, but at least we can benefit massively from their annual National Parks Pass which will largely reduce costs down to accommodation, transport and food. In Alaska, it seems the cost of both accommodation and car with insurance are each about £65 per day, so £130 per day plus fuel, activities and food. Hopefully that will come down quite a bit when we get to Seattle and pick up our next car, which we will have for a month.

When I last traveled seriously back in 2006/7 the £ was 2:1 against the $, those were the days. Still, this time I set off with a partner which keeps the per person cost down, on the previous trips I had to also sort that whilst out on road.

Lifematters

I used Celebrity for a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska and couldn’t fault them really. It was the first cruise we had ever done and not my preferred method of holidaying as I like to see places from a locals perspective. Shocked at how excessive things are on a cruise  (the food for one) but I suppose you get used to that. We also used Airbnb for our stay in Vancouver which was fab.

@hugheskevi do you have your own thread on these boards? If not you should! I’m sure many would appreciate seeing your posts / updates on one thread. 

hugheskevi

Lifematters said:

@hugheskevi do you have your own thread on these boards? If not you should! I’m sure many would appreciate seeing your posts / updates on one thread.

This is the main thread I use  Typically 2 or 3 updates per year since 2010, one every April and one mid-year typically...and a lot more recently. I sometime also post on the Fireside Chats about the trip too. I don't think I'd really have enough for a single thread until the trip starts, and I think writing is less interesting than video once the trip gets underway. So the plan is is just an update on this thread every month or so.

There are already a few YouTube channels with people doing this sort of trip, as well as plenty of past webpage from diaries of people who did it in the past which can be Googled, although usually trips are folks with their own vehicle. There is even a commercial trip which has pretty much the same route we will be taking, although we plan to get boats from Peru up to Manaus and back, which will take a long time but should be a great way to see the Amazon.