“Traveling full-time is my dream!” exclaimed the stranger after I replied, “I travel full-time” to the question, “Where are you from?” while sitting in the airplane gate awaiting a flight to Athens.
We hear this comment often when strangers ask us where we are from. Which for people living a Nomad Life, of course, is a loaded question. Today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? Do you mean where we last received our mail? Voted?
This leads us down a rabbit hole of conversation about Nomad Life, which we generally enjoy, led by our curious strangers. They ask us all kinds of questions.
Mail. Insurance. Budgets.
And once the conversation is exhausted, 95% of them say this:
“I’m envious of your life. BUT I could never do that BECAUSE….”
FAMILY.
Either they have older parents who need or will need care, or they have younger adults just launching their lives. Usually those children are between 18-24, and sometimes they’re in college. Occasionally, grandchildren enter the dialogue. These (grand) parents feel they couldn’t possibly go off, leave their family “behind” and enjoy their life traveling the world.
Then we politely sigh.
The Truth about Family
As the conversation continues, these strangers-turned-questioners have an undertone to the next path down the rabbit hole. It has three avenues:
How do we “leave” family and go off on our full-time traveling life around the world as Nomads?
and
What about taking care of our parents who took care of us?
and
Don’t we have a responsiblity to keep a “home base” for family to
Store childhood memories
Gather everyone for the holidays
Be available?
Leaving the Family Behind: The Receipts
We have family, too. Two older single parents, three children from ages 23-38. Several siblings ages 60-75 throughout the USA. Bunches of nieces and nephews and loads of cousins. We most worry about the 23 year old, but all of them are always in our thoughts.
Let’s start with the “leaving the family behind” part. When we left Denver, our immediate family lived in all four corners of the USA, literally. Maine (sister), Los Angeles (son), Florida (mother, daughter), San Diego (mother). We couldn’t be further spread apart in the USA if we threw jacks and bounced a ball.
To travel from any of these four corners of the USA from Denver is at least a 3-hour flight. But to go from San Diego to Maine is 6 hours on a good day or from Oregon to Florida is another 6 hours, at least.
How often did we see our family when we lived in Denver? Perhaps once a year, often during stress-filled holidays, and never for long enough. Jobs. Vacation days. Schedules. Life.
Since we left five years ago, every single family member except for the two parents has moved. They’re now in San Diego, Vancouver BC, Syracuse NY, Maine, and Florida. The locations have changed, but the geography still hits the country’s corners.
How often do we see our family now? Still once a year, but it’s usually not during the stress-filled holidays, our time together is intentional, and often we can stay longer due to our flexibility.
Let’s Look at the Data
I pulled up my google calendar to actually gather data on how much time we’ve spent with family members. I counted how many days with each immediate family member, then summed.
In 2018, 20 days.
In 2019, 21 days.
In 2020, COVID.
In 2021 (We launched May 2021) 23 days.
In 2022 7 days.
In 2023 30 days.
In 2024 45 days.
In 2025 60 days.
Based on the data, we’ve spent 3 times as many days with our family now than we spent before we launched. To note, I retired in 2016, so my “availability” stayed constant across the years.
It feels easier to see our family now because we must arrange our annual schedule geographically and be intentional about getting to them. After all, a travel day is a travel day is a travel day. A flight from San Diego to Maine could be the same as a flight from London to Florida, depending on weather, delays, connections.
So we book travel to all four corners of the US and enjoy time with each family member. Sometimes, we all appear in the same spots at the same time, but that’s rare.
Do we fret over “not being there” in “case something happens”? Yes, of course. But we loop back to our Denver scenario. If we hadn’t left Denver, would we make every birthday party or doctor’s appointment? No.
Nor do we make them now.
Yes, our family is healthy. But with two moms at 75+, things could change. And if they do, we’ll hop a flight to take care of whatever happens. We’ll modify schedules when we need to.
After all, Nomad Life allows us to make changes at the drop of a hat. We don’t have homes to sell or leases to break in the case of Ex-Pat Life. And like I said above, a travel day is a travel day. If we go to San Diego instead of Istanbul, our luggage still wheels in whatever direction we take it.
Taking Care of Family Members
This is probably the hardest concern in which to respond. Families often put the expectation on children that when parents get old, it’s the children who should take care of them. After all, the parents took care of the children for at least 18 years, now it’s time for the children to take care of the parents, right?
There’s no way to soft peddle an answer here, as culture, responsiblitiy, obligations and love interweave on this dynamic in ways I can’t predict for anyone. For us, we took time when our parents were younger to discuss their long-term care.
In all cases, and especially for the two single parents whom remain, they explicitedly told us to live our lives. They didn’t want us to take care of them, and they planned their elder care needs to be independent of us.
Now as we’re approaching the timeline for this elder care, we do see that even though both parents remain independent and able, their life details are becoming more relevant to us. There’s more checking in. More honest conversation. More verification of decisions. More interaction with siblings about the parents.
But none of this extra day-in-the-life care has changed our travel plans, yet. And if/when their daily needs take a turn, we’ll follow the guidelines we laid out years ago. If we need to return more often, we will. If we need to slow down, we will.
But the point is, nothing has happened yet. So instead of waiting or being there “just in case”, we’re off living our Nomad Lives.
The Home Base Guilt
If it’s not the “be there in case” guilt we get from people asking us questions, it’s the “home base” guilt that gets showered on us.
Don’t we want a place to keep as a home base for the kids to come home to? What will we do for the holidays now? What if we just need to “be there”?
When we cleaned out the house back in May 2021, we asked the kids to some grab whatever they wanted. It was awkward and hard. But Steve and I stood firm. Would we rather have the kids clean out our house after we were dead or clean it out now while we were still alive? Afterall, while we’re breathing they could ask us about things, share their joys over objects, and take ownership of heirlooms.
There was no messy Will announcing who got what. No probate to hassle with. No infighting over things. By having the family take our stuff now, not only do they get to enjoy it now, but they don’t have the grueling task of sloughing it all off later. We think we made everything much easier for our family in the long run.
As for having a place for everyone to gather? We can still do that. We get Airbnbs in whatever town we need to be, and we invite everyone over. Additionally, other family members have stepped up to be the “family” gathering place in ways they wouldn’t have if we still had our home.
In order words, family members have grown, too.
Say Good-Bye to Your Family
Of course our situation is not yours. I know that objectors could list lengthy and valid comments. It’s not that I don’t love my family, it’s that when we changed the dynamic, the family changed, too.
So for all of those curious strangers living in the rabbit hole, if you want to live your dreams, go live them.
Afterall, the truth is that Family just wants you to be happy.
Right?
Chris, I agree with *everything* you have said here. And I get all those same questions and give all those same answers. Everyone has different distance tolerances, but I try (when I’m feeling like a guilty mom or daughter) to remind myself that we’ve given our kids an amazing opportunity to expand their worlds and—let’s be real—a safe place to land should the US continue its downward spiral.
We also let our kids choose what they wanted to save when we downsized and surprisingly—it wasn’t much (at least a lot less than what we would’ve saved!). Loved letting them be a part of that.
It's refreshing to listen to you talk about this openly. I particularly like the part where you say that you had discussions a few years ago with your parents to discover their views about care/help when they get older.
I do think that you were having/are having conversations that most people defer to later (in many cases never) because of fear. Fear of confronting the inevitable. But I also think that one of the most loving things you can do for a person is to have those conversations, put your plan in place and not leave it all for someone else to clear up.
People ask myself and my sister similar questions, sometimes even more pointed as we only have each other. We have talked about these difficult questions for many years and life feels lighter for doing so.