T-minus 10 days to departure

Over the last few weeks we have been focused on selling both of our cars, donating extra clothes and household items, and getting in for a variety of doctor’s appointments that we’ve put off far too long.

On August 14, we leave our rental apartment in Sarasota, Florida and start to make our way North. Last Summer, we sold our four-bedroom home and purged many of our belongings. Moving from a 2800-square foot home with a two-car garage (full of stuff, not cars) to a 1200-square foot apartment (with virtually no storage space) provided an opportunity to eliminate what we had accumulated over the years while raising two children. Somehow, we still managed to hold on to too much stuff.

We have spent the last three weeks eliminating more stuff and organizing the “essentials” into several heavy duty storage bins. We have listed the contents of every single bin on a google sheet so we know what we already have, and what we need to purchase in the next 12 to 18 months.

As we make our journey North, our first stop will be Tallahassee, Florida, where we will move our daughter Madison into her apartment before she begins her junior year at Florida State University. We will store our heavy duty bins in a nearby storage unit for one year. What happens after the year is up? Our plan is to do a secondary purge of our bins and arrange to have our remaining possessions shipped on a slow boat to Vietnam, where our next boat is being built and where we plan to take delivery in Spring 2024.

We will depart Tallahassee, Florida and make our way to Cambridge, Massachusetts where we will get our son Tyler settled into his freshman dorm at Harvard College. Mark and I depart from Boston to London at the end of August with only one checked bag and one carry-on bag for each of us. We will spend the month of September in England visiting family, and the month of October in Albania. Why Albania??? Trust me, Albania wasn’t even on my radar until I started following some YouTubers who retired early to travel the world. I learned about slow travel, how to carefully evaluate Airbnb rentals before booking, how to work remotely, and so much more.

Since we have 18 months until our boat is ready, we have decided to focus on slow travel and exploring the world by planes, trains, and automobiles. So…where are we headed after spending over 10 weeks in Europe? We haven’t decided yet, so leave a comment or drop us a message with your suggestions!