We left North America today (10/3/23).  We are floating in the ocean on our way down under. 

Although we officially launched our nomad retirement over two months ago when we left our former life behind--with only a small pension income and our savings, owning nothing but the stuff in our rental car--we still had some boosters going. 

When the rocket of our life left the launch pad, it was in a two-month car rental, to states we were familiar with near family we loved.  We still had our reliable Verizon phone plans as a security blanket and were even lugging our all-in-one Dell desktop to finish up “projects” the easiest way possible.  We had our favorite coffee mugs and our trusty handblown wine glasses that have gone on most all our travels.  We had the ability to activate our Cobra health plan if needed.  We had a bag of our favorite coffee and tea bags with a pitcher for iced tea.  With a rental car, after all, we had room for comfort items.

Now those booster rockets are off.  We are in the second phase of our nomad launch, adrift (okay we’re on the sea, not in space, but still….) without the things that made us feel secure.

• No more Verizon or cell plan.  We have Google Voice and WhatsApp for texts and audio and video calls.  We are using e-sims for the time being. It was a big, scary change due to our phone and computer dependency but it’s working out great!  We’re using a VPN to help us access U.S. sites (still have Netflix and Hulu so far, fingers crossed).  Our 2-factor-authentication codes are coming through fine.

• No car!  We turned in our rental in Seattle on September 25th and took a train, a bus and a walk in the rain back to our hotel.  Living in rural California, where there is little public transportation (and none that’s convenient), we’ve been car-dependent all our lives.  We have a lot to learn but, so far, it’s gone great!  We really enjoyed using public transportation in Vancouver and having such a walkable city. We only used Lyft twice—once for ease with luggage and once because the situation was unsafe (see our Chinese Moon Festival video on the YouTube page).

• If we have a medical crisis, we’ve got travel insurance. For minor things we pay cash (which we’ve basically always done with our high deductible coverage). It can’t be much worse than our old plan! 

• It turns out I can live on any coffee in any cup, and wine in any glass.  Who knew?!  Just kidding, I’ve always been fairly flexible.  Well, only if needed in extreme circumstances.  I must say our TSA-approved corkscrew did make the cut because we’re tired of buying a new one every time we travel.  We’ll see how far it can go in foreign airports. I’ve been a lifelong iced tea addict so switching to mostly just water was worrisome—but thankfully it turned out to be a practically unnoticeable transition!

• We purged our luggage twice and cut our clothes in half, ditched all kitchen items and most “just in case” meds and extras.  We’re down to a carry-on and 2 backpacks each plus our snorkel gear with fins.  We plan to purge again at the end of this cruise, and again after New Zealand.

When we watched a SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral in January, I learned that some rockets have side boosters that fall away after guiding the rocket into its trajectory.  After that second phase of booster fall away, there’s some main core that guides the rocket a little further then also falls away.  (Hey, if you’re a rocket scientist, just leave me with my simplistic understanding please!). 

Although nomads do this lifestyle launch in many ways, I’m glad we’ve gone the more gradual booster route. As we leave the Western World next March, flying from New Zealand to Indonesia then SE Asia for the following seven months or so, it will be like that main core booster leaves us. English will no longer the primary language and food and customs will become even less familiar. 

Then we will truly be adrift.  We can’t wait!