As we near the one-year mark, we have been reviewing and tweaking our travel plans to make sure we’ve accounted for everything. As we mentioned early on, much of our plan is dependent on where the Kid chooses to go to college. Right now, it looks like she is strongly considering staying in town for college, which dovetails really well with some other developments in our nomad plans.
We’re not retiring yet
As you may also remember from our early posts, we will not be retiring when we start this nomading journey. Steph has a remote job and recently got the “all clear” from HR to travel and work from anywhere. When we started this plan over a year ago, Gene was working part time doing historical research and we determined that this work could travel with us as well.
The only constant is change
About a year ago, Gene was looking for some part time work during the spring and summer months. He found an ad for a job that sounded interesting and used some of the same skills he had cultivated as a brewer. He got hired and quickly found his groove there. The job was gratifying and the ownership was smart and took care of the employees. We settled in for him to make some extra money for a few months and have some fun doing it.
That escalated quickly
Within three months, Gene was the 2nd in command and a few months after that he was promoted to Operations Manager. His job consists of driving around all day checking on employees in the field, resupplying them as needed, fielding phone calls, and handling repairs. It is a job that plays into every one of his strengths and he has excelled at it.
But this job doesn’t travel
This new job has become a year-round commitment and something that Gene has found a real love for. It also pays pretty decently. But it does not allow for remote work, at least not during the spring and summer months. So, we had two options: quit the job when we start traveling or tweak our travel plans to ride it out for a few years. Because he really does enjoy the work (and he has a boss who truly appreciates him), we decided we would ride it out while the Kid is on college.
What that means for our travel plans
Obviously, this impacts our travel plans somewhat. We do still plan to sell this house in 54 weeks. What we do after that will depend on what the Kid’s college plans look like. If she stays in town, we will likely buy a house that serves as both her college housing and our landing place when we are in town.
So we will be in town for 7-8 months of every year. Our new travel schedule will run from sometime in November to sometime in March each year. Outside of that time, we will be in Kansas City for Gene’s job and to visit the kids and our friends.
We plan to do this until the Kid graduates college (remember, we wanted to be here for college summer breaks anyway). When you find a job you love, you should ride it out for a while. And you know Gene loves this job if he is willing to forego three months of beach time each year for it!
What do you think of us tweaking our travel plans? Would you do the same in our shoes?
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