One year of Early Retirement travel adventures…

One year of Early Retirement travel adventures…

Hi we’re Richard and Jackie from early retirement wonderlust first of all we just like to say I hope you’ve all had a great Christmas with your friends and family when we first started on this journey of our retirement we called ourselves early retirement Wonder Los because we wanted to travel Lots so

We’ve taken this down time between Christmas and New Year to look back through our Photo Stream and we thought we’d share with you month by month what we’ve been getting up to in 20123 One of the really lovely things about this time of year is having the time to be reflective and looking back at what you’ve got up to and we’ve looked back on some of our photos from 2023 and I can’t believe what we’ve packed in and although we’re really excited about 2024

It’s just the ideal opportunity to just take some time out and think about what you’ve done in the last year and we’re just going to go through month by month and have a look at our Photo Stream and try and come up with some of the highlights of the year because we’ve had

A blast in 2023 we have before we even start there is something that we realize looking through of our photos and that is when we were traveling and we traveled a lot we actually stayed to our budget a lot better so there’s a lesson to be learned there there is um

Traveling helps us keep on a budget so we need to travel more January started off really really well we had a lovely first week with our kids and their partners for the first time on a grand family ski holiday out in the French Alps we had such an amazing time with

Them and we don’t often get time to spend with all six of us together and then we followed that up by going down into the valley and we had a few days skiing from the camper van yeah and it just dipped our toe in the water of the

Potential of having a camper van in the alks in Winter and we realized in those few days that it’s eminently doable and so much so that we’re heading off out there early next year just to have much more of an extended time on the slopes so real looking forward to that yeah

Definitely and at the end of January we came back from that lovely ski break to Absolute chaos at home because the builders arrived they were amazing but boy did they smash our little cottage inside out and back to front as a consequence of that two weeks later in

February we joined my mom out in Phoenix and we had a month traveling around Arizona which was amazing it was a really interesting one because it was a place where we’d never thought that we would really want to go yeah we decided we’d go particularly to Phoenix because

That’s where my mom was and it’s a place that we definitely want to return to there was just so much there for us to explore and in February the temperatures were really mild so it was bizarre it was my birthday in February and we were

In the pool and the hot tub and the temperatures were lovely in Phoenix they didn’t quite stay that way they didn’t they lulled us into a full sense of security and then we went up to the Grand Canyon and a place called Williams and we got stranded we couldn’t even get

To the Grand Canyon for two days yeah it was I mean we we got the best possible car for that in the fact that the higher company mugged us off really by giving us a Mustang little did we know we’d be going into the snow areas and yeah after

48 Hours of being stuck in Williams we eventually made it to the Grand Canyon we did and that was totally awesome other highlights of that trip for me were going to Monument Valley real John Wayne and cowboy country that was just unbelievable and we finished it off by

Discovering our Second National Park of that trip we went to Zion National Park which is in Utah and it was just the most scenic place I think I’ve been and it just really highlighted to us how amazing the national parks were in America and at that point we didn’t know

That we’d be going back to America later in the year but I think it really sort of fired us up for that sort of travel so that was February and March again from one of our extensive little breaks we came back to a little bit more

Carnage in the dals and the builders had finished but we had two amazing Crafts People in for a good few weeks doing our kitchen and doing our bathroom so again we were living in a bit of a building site with no electricity downstairs or any Heating in the middle of winter so

We took the opportunity to actually discover what was around us in the new area that we live in the Yorkshire Dales we found some of the campsites that were open in the winter so that we could actually have showers CU we didn’t have a shower for two or 3 weeks it was

Really nice the local campsite owners befriended us got to know us offered us free showers uh when we were desperate but yeah finding the hidden places in the Yorkshire Dales and there is so much still to discover there is definitely so after all the chaos of the renovations

And we’d got the house build finished may we were able to start planning lots of little trips away and my first quest for our wedding anniversary was to go and find the puffins because I knew that the Colones started being populated again around May June time so we headed

Off to bton Cliffs um which is actually on one of our favorite coasts anyway so we headed towards the Yorkshire Dales Coast we had an amazing weekend where we went to sans’s end we went to Robin Hood’s Bay and we ended up down by bton Cliffs and flamber head which was just

Beautiful and we did finally on the Sunday morning capture on camera two little puffins they were gorgeous they were dancing and hopping around on the Rock they weren’t very happy with the other birds that were stealing their little Nest but they were so tiny but it

Was it was a quest worth doing and yeah just setting a Target to do something like that was a really good adventure and took us somewhere where we thought we’d never end up yeah also in may we had the opportunity to have our kids up

For the first time to a cottage that was actually livable so it was really nice showing them around the dals doing some of the Peaks um when they weren’t around we did dip our literally toe in the water and do a little bit of wild swimming around the

Dals which was great and then we’re headed off to one of our favorite places we headed to one of our favorite campsites which is sewe Farm in the Lake District it is in the middle of nowhere it’s really cheap and once you’re there you can’t spend any money and you have

To have everything in cash and there is no phone signal and it is just Splendid isolation with a particularly Friendly Farmer that we get get on well with but seemingly lots of people fall out with but it’s based on a working farm it’s surrounded by mountains there’s walks

All over the place and it was just a really happy bank holiday weekend it was and I think we were really lucky because actually we had really good weather as well didn’t we we had an amazing afternoon just while swimming in the little ponds up on the hills in June

We’d already got feries booked to get to Sant andere um and we were planning on doing the French Atlantic Coast we were going to maybe have a little bit of an explore in the Pines before heading up through France but while we were at sewe Farm in May someone tipped us off that

In Northern Spain there’s a really nice mountain range for hiking called the Picos Europa so we set off and found them and we had a week in the Picos and did a little bit of the northern coast of Spain and it was just beautiful and

Very much unlike us we s dipped into a few towns and cities bil BAU was amazing we also went to San Sebastian which was a a beautiful town and B a gastronomic delight yeah if you ever want a weekend away and you love your food we would thoroughly recommend San Sebastian

Because it is just a food’s delight and then we spent the rest of June making our way up through France along the French Atlantic Coast we started off just over the Border in bayit and just traveled North and we explored quite a lot of the Atlantic Islands we earmarked

Iler Ray which we’ve been to before and we absolutely love and we stayed there far too long or far longer than we originally planned but then we found other hidden gems that we didn’t even know existed so the the island of numu um is really popular with the French but

Seemingly not many other European nations know much about it no we at one point thought we were probably the only English people on that part of the island we took our boogie boards and our wet suits and we just had a blast having fun in the sea after exploring all of

The different Islands on the Atlantic coast we kept heading north and we went up to Britany we were really excited because we wanted to go back to a place called kanano that we’d gone years and years ago with the children and we were quite disappointed it didn’t help that

It was a completely stormy rainy wild and wet weekend so there wasn’t a huge amount for us to do so we didn’t stay there as long as we thought we would we just kept moving North didn’t we we did and we’re not quite sure whether we did

It in the right order because we were always heading to the poor weather seemingly rather than staying South so perhaps if we were going to do it again we might stay further south however on the way back we did find the wonder that was danan danan is a beautiful Old Fort

Town on the North Coast of Britany and there was a great air that we stayed on for a couple of nights and it’s just underneath the railway Viaduct it’s got an old medieval Town Center that we sat and had a bottle of wine and watched the

World go by in yeah and the lonely planets guide was AB absolutely spot on in the fact it said that come 6:00 at night the city just empties and you have the place to yourself and we really did after we got back home from our European Explorations we had decided that we were

Going to spend July and August actually staying in The Dales we wanted to have lots of our family and friends visiting us we had this beautiful vision of getting out into the mountains and doing lots of hiking and lots of entertaining the reality was we had an amazing time

With all our family and friends but it chucked it down pretty much every single day it was miserable it was really really miserable and it was so good to see our friends and family um and we just felt so disappointed for them but we we’ ear Mark the summer to be at home

It’s probably one of the only summers in the last 20 years that we’ve been at home in the UK and it could well be the last ones but hey towards the end of August we did finally get some nice weather didn’t we we did and we were wandering around the Dales with our

Friends and it was just amazing to see the agricultural stuff going on uh we got to witness sheep shearing firsthand and that was Unreal yeah something I’ve never seen before and you were really excited yeah um we finally got up to Bard and Mo and we wanted to do a hike

Called Simon seat and the purple Heathers it was just stunning there was just like this blanket all around us yeah beautiful purples combined with quite a few York bugs which was interesting yeah we uh we couldn’t stand around because we were getting chased by bugs

But it was a beautiful site see in my mind all I can remember is the purple Heathers all Richard remembers is the midges in September we always try not to be around home because as ex-teachers it’s always nice to be away at the start

Of term so we headed off to Aaron and we purposely decided that we weren’t going to rush this trip no we had probably just about two two weeks didn’t we on the island yeah people say that Aaron is like mini Scotland so we started off in the north which was all the highlands

And we explored the area around Lo ranza we said on an amazing campsite where the deer come and visit in the night and then we went down the West Coast which is much more isolated and we did some Park UPS on the beach and it was just beautifully isolated we took our bikes

As well cuz it’s not that hilly going round the island there’s mountains in the middle but there is actually only a figure of eight of the roads so we had some nice bikes as well didn’t we and found the most beautiful wild swimming spot looking out over holy Island that

Again we had to ourselves and I think that was on the first day of term so we had a cheeky little while swiming a beer to celebrate we did it was lovely at the end of September we went on what’s probably the most exciting trip of the

Year and it was really an unplanned impromptu trip which I think made it even better my mom’s on a quest she wants to do the 50 States of America and she asked if we would join her on an RV trip she wanted us to drive her around

Five different states that were on her bucket list so we had the most exciting trip we started off in Colorado in Denver we went up through Wyoming we went into Montana we went to North and South Dakota and then Mom flew off to do a couple more states that were on her

Bucket list and we went down to Colorado some of the highlights of that trip and there were many were the national parks we were just blown away by by the quality of the national parks and the diversity of the national parks we had a great time exploring all across those

Five states yeah the parks were absolutely stunning my favorite I think was the Tetons just for the views that you had from wherever you were what was yours mine was probably the Badlands which were really were the Badlands and just the most unbelievable photo opportunities and can’t really quite

Describe what they like one of the reasons mom wanted to travel around in an RV which is different to how she normally travels is that she wanted to experience small town America and we definitely got that we had such an amazing time one of the best towns that

We visited was somewhere called Bowman which is in North Dakota we seem to arrive on Rodeo weekend for the high school followed by firemen’s breakfasts the next morning in the firehouse another highlight for me was the people that we met on the road because you’re not stuck in hotels and you’re out in

Campgrounds and you’re constantly moving on on there’s an opportunity to meet so many really really interesting people and it for me it was just a highlight of the trip for me one of the really big things that I wanted to do when we were out there is see the variety of wildlife

That we were promised to find in the national parks um and it really didn’t disappoint we finally found a moose in Colorado we saw coyotes trotting along through the fields not sure they were trotting along I think they were actually chasing deer uh we saw elk and

Bull just crossing the road and honking away it was just a pretty wild place we didn’t get the opportunity to see a bear in the wild but we did go to the bear and wolf sanctuary and that was just the most amazing experience um as part of

Their upkeep the Bears get to test um expensive cool boxes if it lasts an hour with a grizzly bear then it gets a stamp of approval and we had the honor I’m not sure it was an honor but we had the privilege of watching this bear trying

To destroy a cooler that had got salmon and peanut butter inside it yeah I think it just confirmed for me there is absolutely no way that I’m camping in the wild when those things are out there because they’re very clever and they’re very aggressive and they’re very big

Probably the most plentiful animal that we saw when we were out there were the bison and I loved them they’re huge they’re fluffy they’re quite scary when they’re on mass and they tend to like causing road blocks and probably the biggest thing that came out of the trip

For us both was really just quality time with Jack’s mom and that’s one of the reasons why we early retired to make sure that we got time to spend with our family and friends it was lovely I’m not so sure mom’s converted to RV life as

Such but I think she enjoyed being with us and traveling around as well as we got into November it was time to convert from summertime camping to more winter camping and to be fair we got a little bit out of the habit I think but we had

A few little little trips to the lake district and to The Dales just to test out whether we could still cope with life in the van in winter and it went all right yeah we had a very wild and windy few days in the Langdale Pikes in the lake districts doesn’t really bother

Me the Wild and windy bit it’s only it rains and it didn’t rain that weekend so that’s all right and then moving into December we have just really enjoyed what we would consider our first proper Christmas in The Dales yes and we managed to get out quite a bit into the

Northern d which we’ve never discovered before we went up to a town called Muka we tried to stay at the infamous tanhill Inn which is Britain’s highest Pub and I think we chose the only day that it was actually closed to motor homes because

The car park was out of use but it was surprising that we had no idea that that region of the northern Dales was on our doorstep and how beautiful it was we knew that we wanted to get out and explore it but it’s really given us a

Target for next year to get out there and find a little bit more about it yeah when we were there this time it was about minus four for two of the nights it was really cold and crisp which was actually good because we could go on

Hikes and we weren’t in the bogs so we did fit in some really nice hikes but a lot of people have said it’s a good place to get back up to in spring because of the Wild Flower meows so I’m really looking forward to that y so as

You said right at the beginning we can’t believe how much we have actually packed into 2023 whether it be huge American trips or really lovely weekends away or a few nights away in more closer regions like the orales so we’re starting our plans for 2024 our

Next video is going to be on looking at goal setting and where we want to be in 2024 and then we’ll be looking to take you through some of our travel plans for 2024 because it’s fair to say we’re pretty excited about it we are we’ve got

Lots of exciting trips coming up so that’s it from us have a super New Year and we will see you at the other side y happy New Year bye see You

As we come to the close of 2023, it’s been quite a year of Early Retirement travel. Join us as we look back on our first full year of Early Retirement adventures after choosing to leave teaching at the age of 51. From our two trips to the US (one in an American RV), our winter adventure to the Alps, a campervan road trip from northern Spain up the French Atlantic coast and far too many micro adventures in the UK, 2023 has had it all. We retired to fulfil our wanderlust need and we are so pleased how it has gone so far.

We are Richard and Jackie and we live in the UK. We retired from teaching at the age of 51 in the summer of 2022. Our plans for early requirement include relocating to the Yorkshire Dales, developing our forever home and travelling the UK, Europe and eventually the world in our VW campervan Nelson.

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Many thanks,

Richard & Jackie

Timeline:
00:00 Our 2023 early retirement adventures
01:44 January- winter in the Alps in a campervan
02:42 February- Arizona Roadtrip
04:22 March & April- Cottage renovations & the Yorkshire Dales
05:16 May- UK campervan adventures in our early retirement
07:20 June- VW campervan European road trip
10:09 July & August- Summer in the UK in early retirement
11:43 September- Arrran escape in a VW campervan
12:48 October- American RV road trip to the US Rockies
16:15 November- Winter Campervan adventures in the UK
16:48 December- Christmas in the Yorkshire Dales
17:50 Into 2024…What next for our Early Retirement?