Now & When

In early 2023 Denaige and I decided (rather impulsively) to sell our house and go travelling. It wasn’t the romantic travel-for-a-year plan that you may think. While we included at least 1 intercontinental trip in the plan, our intent was to experience living like a local in different locations. It also was an attempt to experience living a bit unconventionally for a while since Denaige and I have always had regular jobs and owned a house together—both which tend to impose limits on your lifestyle.

At the time we decided to pull up stakes, we were both technically unemployed. By selling our house (and not buying a replacement) it released us from those obligations and the conventional lifestyle that came with it. There was none of the typical burdens like mortgage payments, utilities, or maintenance. But also, there was none of the security of having a home to eat, sleep, and live in. And, at the time, inflation was high and interest rates were climbing. So, paying for replacement food and shelter (in a short term time frame) was going to be expensive. While, we both had a comfortable amount of money saved, it still required a plan.

There was a lot of discussion before we decided on a strategy. At first our options felt almost limitless. We had managed to save a lot of travel reward miles, which enabled us to travel almost anywhere in the world and stay in some hotels for a week or two with very little cost. Of course, there was also those responsibilities that we couldn’t escape… What would we do with all our stuff? It’s one thing to plan a move from one house to another… it’s totally different to plan to put the “regular” part of your life on hold.

We didn’t have an exact timeline.. other than our departure day (July 15, 2023). Would we travel for 6 months? A year? Longer? We also didn’t know where we would end up. Without a crystal ball, we knew we needed to purge the stuff we didn’t need and pack up the stuff we thought we’d need when we stopped travelling. Additionally, since we were travelling for an extended period of time we needed to pack more than a few suitcases to live out of while we travelled. The outcome of all these considerations was an open-ended plan for at least 1 year and it looked something like this…

• Liquidate most furniture, household items and store the items we are not taking with us in the Jeep
• Travel to at least 1 international location that we would consider living in for at least a month.
• Spend more time with family (travel to BC and Manitoba are a must)
• Spend winter in Nova Scotia
• Renovate Ft. Saskatchewan property in ~Apr 2024
• And then ???

With the big milestones in place we started to plan the details like booking flights, storage units, ordering moving supplies, etc. Everything was completed well ahead of schedule except the “and then” part. Despite it being more than a year away the question came up frequently… Where are we going to live? Sometimes the topic came up subtly, sometimes it was discussed with anxiety, sometimes with general curiosity. And the answer never really came. Denaige wanted a commitment… i.e. “we will move into address X on date Y”. I wanted to leave things open ended and focus on the present.

Finally, one day instead of saying, “between now and then” with “then” referring to the time we would move into our future abode I said “between now and when” because we just didn’t have a date picked. For us, between now and when is the balance of commitment and flexibility. We know where we’re headed, but we are planning to be flexible on the timeline. And now, we’re making history.