by Joe Hearn | Oct 30, 2018 | Pursuits, Retirement, Travel
Greetings from Hong Kong! The trip has been great so far. The flight from LA was a bit of a marathon (I slept for eight hours and still had time to watch four movies), but the payoff has been worth it. The city is a super interesting mix of people, cultures and activities. In many ways it is one of the most developed cities in the world. The public transportation system is the best I’ve ever used, the cityscape is jaw dropping and the restaurants and shopping are top notch. In other ways it feels a bit exotic. You can haggle for goods at local street markets, buy unusual food at street stalls or spend hours just exploring the endless streets and back lanes.
There is so much to do, that three months wouldn’t be enough to do it justice. That’s good news though, because no matter how long your itinerary, you’ll have plenty to fill your days with enough left over to warrant a return trip. I only had three days, so I hit the ground running. I landed about 8 in the morning, went through immigration, picked up my pre-purchased train pass from the MTR counter and headed into town. The airport is on an island outside the city, but the train whisks you from that island to Kowloon and then to Hong Kong.
I found my hotel with no trouble, but it was too early to check in, so I just dropped my bag (“Excuse me sir. Is this your only bag?”) and went out to grab some food. My brother-in-law is a pilot and told me about a local chain called Tim Ho Wan that has good food at a reasonable price. As luck would have it, there was one nearby, so I walked there and managed to order a tasty lunch by pointing at things on the menu and hoping for the best. The food was good, but I also ended up having company. The restaurant was crowded and I was sitting by myself at a small table when a woman and her daughter walked up and asked if they could sit with me because there were no other seats. That’s not something you’d expect in the US, but it was great. The woman was originally from Hong Kong, but they now lived in London and were just back visiting her mother. They were kind enough to help me plan out my day and gave me some recommendations for things to see and do.
I eventually got checked into the hotel and spent some time in the upstairs lounge catching up on work and communicating with clients, friends and family back home. That done, I went out for more exploring, the highlight of which was probably the Temple Street night market which is block after block of stalls selling everything from electronics and paintings to souvenirs and street food. I’m traveling light, so I didn’t buy any souvenirs, but the atmosphere was great.
My big activity on Day 2 was a hike called the Dragon’s Back that I booked on Airbnb. I met my guide (an ex-pat from Australia named Alex) and fellow hikers at the Shau Kei Wan MTR station and we took a bus outside the city. The hike follows a jagged ridge line that looks like a dragon’s back for about 5 miles and it ends at a little beach town called Tai Long Wan (Big Wave Bay) where we had a cold beer and a swim in the South China Sea to cool off. It was a fantastic experience. Thanks to Rory, the founder of Wild Hong Kong and our guide Alex for offering such a unique adventure.
Today I’ve got some work I need to do in the morning and then this afternoon, I plan on visiting Victoria Peak (great views of the city). Tonight I’m going to the horse races at Happy Valley where races have been held since 1846. I’m told that it’s THE place to be on Wednesday night. From there, I’ll hop the train to the airport where I’ll catch a midnight flight to London and then another flight to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. I’ll pick up a car there and head west to Normandy (I saw Paris on a previous trip) where I’ll be staying in the town of Bayeux. I hired a guide to take me on a tour around the beaches, cemeteries and other sites related to D-Day and World War II. It should be fun. Thanks for following along.
Be Intentional,
Joe
by Joe Hearn | Oct 26, 2018 | Travel
Planning
Tomorrow I get on plane and start a 25,000-mile journey around the world (I’ll share my first stop at the end of this article). The purpose of the trip is to have a little fun and to hopefully inspire and encourage each of you to be intentional and proactive with your own plans and dreams. With that in mind, I thought it would be good to start with something practical. What’s the process I use for trip planning? How can you use it to plan exciting trips before and during retirement? Here’s the process I use:
Start early
Each year, around this time, I sit down to plan our travel for the coming year. Starting early is often a must if you want to make reservations at popular places. It also gives you time to digest trip expenses and coordinate logistics (e.g. time off work, childcare, dog sitter). And don’t underestimate the benefits of anticipation. Booking early also means months of excitement and anticipation for you and your travel companions. Can you book a trip last minute? Absolutely (see also Travel Roulette). But booking early often means more availability, more time to pay, less stress and more anticipation.
Mindset
Repeat after me: “Planning a trip takes effort and it will cost me some money.” Taking a trip is awesome, but planning a trip takes effort and a willingness to spend money, make decisions and even take a few risks. Those things introduce friction into the process that cause many people to quit. Push through this resistance by acknowledging ahead of time that the planning will have its challenges, but it will be worth it.
Where?
Throughout the year I jot down ideas and save articles related to places that look fun or interesting. When I sit down to plan, I whiteboard a bunch of potential ideas and then we talk about them as a family. We highlight several ideas depending on what we’re in the mood for, our budget, time frame and type of trip (e.g. outdoor, city, learning, relaxing, strenuous, group trip, etc.).
Basic Research
Once we have a list of places, we start doing some basic research. What is the best time of year to visit? What are the main things to see and do there? How many days do you need to do what you want to? What do available flights look like? What lodging options are available?
Initial bookings
Once I’ve done the basic research and have the broad outlines of a trip, I try to get the big things settled. For me, that usually means airfare and lodging. Once those are booked, the trip is real (woohoo!). And by getting them done early, you can take advantage of more availability (especially if you’re booking tickets with frequent flyer miles) and lower prices. As I mentioned earlier, it also gives you time to digest expenses.
Organize
Once you start booking things, it’s important to get everything organized and outlined into a day-by-day itinerary. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is by using the TripIt app. When you get confirmation emails from airlines, Airbnb, rental car companies, and the like, just forward them to TripIt and it instantly creates a new trip for you and organizes all the details into an easy to read itinerary. I can’t say enough great things about this app. There’s a free version, but the paid version is totally worth it if you travel often.
Deeper research
At this point, I usually buy a few books to start doing deeper research about the place we’re visiting. If we’re going to a city, I like the City Guides from Lonely Planet. If we’re casting a wider net, I’ll get the country book by Lonely Planet or Rick Steves and I’ll also usually get something from Eyewitness Travel because the pictures help to give me a sense of the place. I’ll also use the internet to visit tourist bureau websites, blogs, and travel sites like Trip Advisor where thousands of other travelers have written reviews and talked about their favorite things to do at the place I’ll be visiting. As I find things that look fun or interesting, I’ll book them or make reservations and forward the details to TripIt. This includes things like walking tours, restaurants, sites we want to see, activities we want to do, etc. I leave room for flexibility and serendipity, but I try to give the trip enough structure so that we’re making efficient use of our days. Once everything is planned and the departure date nears, I figure out what to pack
Packing
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller
What type of trip? The first step to packing is to think about what type of trip you’re taking. What’s the weather like? What types of things will you be doing? Packing for a ski trip is different than packing for the beach. Packing for a destination wedding is different than packing for a camping trip. Think about what you’ll be doing, what the weather will be like, what kinds of clothes and gear you’ll need and plan accordingly.
Pick a good bag. Your luggage should match your trip. If you’re hiking the Grand Canyon, invest in a quality backpack. If you’re taking a quick weekend trip to celebrate your anniversary, a simple weekender duffel will do. If you’re planning a three-week cruise, get yourself some sturdy luggage with a bit of capacity.
Lay it all out. Lay everything out that you plan on taking and look through it with an eye on paring it down to the essentials. Do your outfits mix and match? Can you pare back bulky items, like shoes? Are you taking things that you can just as easily buy at your destination? If you take too much stuff, it’s stressful. If you don’t take enough, it’s stressful. Really think through what you’ll need and what you’re likely to use and try to strike the appropriate balance between not enough and too much
Pack it efficiently. Once you have everything finalized, pack it up. The goal is to get the maximum amount of stuff in the minimum amount of luggage, without exceeding the 50-pound weight limit that most airlines impose. That means use packing cubes, compress, roll instead of fold, etc. In other words, pack that bag like it’s a clown car.
What I’m taking
One of my inspirations for this trip is the pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly. She approached her editor in 1888 with the idea of turning the fictional account of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days into reality and writing dispatches along the way. All she took with her was the dress she had on, an overcoat, a few changes of underwear, some toiletry items and 200 British pounds. Everything she packed fit into a small handbag. Here’s what I’m taking:
- The clothes on my back (shirt, jeans, belt, shoes, watch)
- A 25-Liter Patagonia Black Hole Backpack
- Two shirts, two pairs of lightweight pants, socks and underwear
- A few toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, floss)
- A lightweight vest and a hat for cooler weather
- My MacBook and phone so I can connect into my office and communicate with clients and people back home.
- An Anker charging block
- A Field Notes journal and pen
- One paperback book (Meditations by Marcus Aurelius)
- My passport, credit card and some cash
I’ll buy anything else I need as the trip progresses. That includes clothes, which I will buy as needed (probably just a shirt here and there) and then donate when it’s time to change. That might sound expensive at first, but it will almost certainly be cheaper than the baggage fees I’d pay if I were checking luggage on ten different flights. It should be a fun and interesting experience and I’m looking forward to talking with you along the way.
The first stop is…drumroll…Hong Kong via Los Angeles. I’ve got some fun things planned, including a visit to a famous street market, a hike called the Dragon’s Back, and plenty of food sampling. I’ll talk to when I get there. Until then…
Be Intentional,
Joe
by Joe Hearn | Oct 19, 2018 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits, Travel
A few years ago, my family and I took a one month mini-retirement to Ireland and England. Before that trip, we applied for two British Airways Visa cards (one for my wife, one for me). Each card gave 100,000 frequent flier miles for signing up and meeting a minimum spend. We used some of the miles on that trip, but most of them have been sitting unused (dumb!). I recently got an email that said the miles were about to expire, so I did what most people would do. I booked an 18-day, 25,000-mile trip around the world. I’m leaving soon and I’d love to have you follow along.
A bit about the trip
I’ll keep the specific destinations under wraps for now, other than to say I’ll be leaving home and flying west. My itinerary has 10 flights and I’ll be spending time in 4 countries (plus two more for connecting flights). That’s waaaaay more stops than I would normally recommend for a trip of this length, but I’m not really looking at the trip as a relaxing vacation. Instead I’m viewing it as a bit of a combo between a work trip and a lifestyle experiment that will give me some interesting things to write about at Intentional Retirement (as well as our Facebook page). I’m able to connect into my work computer remotely and I have a phone plan that works seamlessly in 170 countries, so I’ll be communicating with clients and working a “normal” day most days. I also have some fun activities booked at each destination, so I’ll be writing about those, as well as about things like how I plan trips, how to pack, demystifying travel, spontaneity, being proactive in retirement, designing your ideal lifestyle, taking risks, finding your purpose, location independence, remote work, overcoming excuses and living an intentional life.
Why?
The expiring miles were a good excuse, but truth be told, the trip has a bigger purpose. My goal with Intentional Retirement is not just to sell books or write articles, but to help people actually make positive changes in their lives. To nudge them from apathy to action. So I hope the trip is fun and interesting, but mostly I hope it inspires you, in some small way, to get your own dreams off the drawing board.
Up next
Next week I’ll post an article or two about how I plan trips and what I’m packing for this trip (hint: almost nothing). Then I’ll hit the road. I’ll be posting articles to the site as I go, but I’ll also be posting some pictures and videos to our Facebook page, so follow along there to see the good, the bad and the ugly of how the trip is going. And if you have any friends who might be interested in following along (or who, like you, want to live an intentional, meaningful life), please email this article to them or share it on social media. Have a great weekend! And as always…
Be Intentional,
Joe
by Joe Hearn | Oct 4, 2018 | Happiness, Health
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see an article about how to live a longer life. Drink coffee. Don’t drink coffee. Eat a paleo diet. Be a vegetarian. Do yoga. Meditate. Do this to avoid Alzheimer’s. Do that to minimize the risk of prostate cancer. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy and live a long life, but what about actually having a life worth living? Isn’t that more important?
A long life is good, but only if you’re healthy, happy and fulfilled. So try to get your recommended fruit and veg, but don’t forget why you want those extra years to begin with. Is it just to be alive? To check off another year on planet earth? Or is it to actually use those years to live a meaningful life? Of course, everyone would say it’s the latter, but our actions don’t always reflect that. We procrastinate. We don’t take our plans and dreams seriously. We put things off until “someday.” How can we do better? Below are a few practical ways to add life to your years (rather than just years to your life). Each is punctuated with a quote taken from the essay On the Shortness of Life by Seneca.
Spend
Carl Sandburg once said “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent.” A few extra years would be great, but how have you spent the last 10 years? How are you spending this year? How about today? Stop wishing for more time and start actually using the time you have wisely.
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.”
Simplify
Don’t spend your precious time and money pursuing and maintaining a lifestyle that isn’t what you want. That feels pointless and toilsome. Decide what’s important to you. Invest in that. Cut out everything else.
“It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return.”
Start
One of the biggest unintended consequences of “planning for retirement” is that it trains us to procrastinate. Yes, it’s important to save for your future, but that doesn’t mean ignoring your present. Life is meant to be lived. If you’re trading the very best of your present for some uncertain future, you’re doing it wrong. Plan for your future. Make the most of your present. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
Be Intentional,
Joe
by Joe Hearn | Sep 17, 2018 | Mini-retirements
Mini-retirement defined: With traditional retirement, you save the good stuff for that 20-year period at the end of life. The idea of mini-retirements takes some of that 20-year period (say 5 years), breaks it up into 1-3 month chunks and spreads it out over your working years. A mini-retirement is longer than a vacation, but shorter than retirement. It may involve part-time work, depending on the length of time away.
I recently received this email:
I’m not usually one to write a note like this out of the blue, but I somehow feel compelled the day after my wife and I booked one-way tickets halfway around the world. I just wanted to say a simple thank you for being inspiring to me for the past few years …And now we’re only a couple months away. I started reading your site after the newspaper had your column about mini-retirements. Since then we have talked about trying something like it. Now, both age 51, we are taking leaves of absence for 8 months and moving into rural New Zealand. I have secured a job there with less time commitment (and less income) than my current job, and my wife has a work visa so she will have the ability to find something once we arrive if she is inclined. This is a bigger chunk of time than the mini-retirement you wrote about. But we are both lucky enough to have employers who have agreed to allow for a longer leave and hold a spot for us — though we decided it would be worth it even if we came back and had to look for work. I don’t want to make this a long story, so…just to say–I know you put a lot of time and heart into your writing. Please know that you have fans out here who appreciate your insights. You are inspiring us to learn and grow, and to be intentional. Kia Ora!
As you might imagine, I responded right away. First, I just wanted to thank him for the kind email. Seriously, my heart grew three sizes that day. Second, I wanted to ask him if I could interview him for Intentional Retirement. My articles about mini-retirements are some of the most popular at the site, but even so, I think many people still dismiss the idea of mini-retirements as “fun to think about, but that would never work for me.” We can all learn something from someone who had all the same excuses we have, but made it work anyway. Pay particular attention to the answers to question 8 below. As someone who has helped people plan for and live in retirement for more than 20 years, I can tell you that the answers to that question are full of lessons, takeaways and insights (both financial and non-financial).
Just a quick note. In the Q&A that follows, I edited portions of the answers for length and also removed the names and other identifying information because the person wishes to remain anonymous.
1. Tell me a little about the mini-retirement you have planned.
My wife and I will be taking 8 months off our current full-time jobs to move to New Zealand where we will live and work in a small community. I will work there as a general practice physician, and my wife plans to work part-time remotely with her current employer. I will say I’m having a little trouble with using the term “mini-retirement” for this endeavor. Maybe there’s not an official definition of the term, but I think of mini-retirement as period of time without working at all. That said, when we read your pieces on mini-retirement that came out a few years ago, it helped nudge this dream into a plan for us. As far as terminology, maybe “trial semi-retirement” fits better since we will both be employed, and afterward, we plan to return to our current full-time jobs.
2. What prompted the trip? Why not just wait until retirement?
At 51 we are both still healthy and active. We want to do this while we can still enjoy many of the outdoor activities that New Zealand offers. We are empty-nesters and our kids are getting settled into their lives, but no grandkids yet. It may be harder to do this in a few years when we may have even more family ties to keep us closer. Our kids are young and active too, so it is also a great opportunity to bring them along for a visit in the middle of our stay to share the experience with us before they have families of their own.
3. Were you and your spouse on the same page from the beginning or did it take some convincing?
We were totally on the same page because we really enjoy travelling together and learning about the world away from home. When we go to a new place, we like to get outside the tourist areas. We try to immerse ourselves in the local culture as much as possible, though opportunity is limited during the traditional one-week vacation time. This is our chance to go for a longer period of time and immerse into the culture.
As a physician, I see a lot of advertisements about practices that need some extra temporary help. We have talked for a long time about the possibility of trying some of these locum tenens positions. These are short-term positions usually because a doctor is temporarily absent, or it may be after someone retires and the practice is searching for a replacement. The most challenging part for us was finding the time to go that would work for both of our careers while also making sure it worked with our family’s life.
4. How did your employer respond when you talked with them about it?
I can’t imagine any employer is very happy about an employee asking for 8 months off, but both our employers have been gracious about this. When we decided to set this plan in motion, we both felt it was the right time. If our employers were not able to hold our positions until we returned, we would deal with the job search when we returned to the U.S. Fortunately, both employers feel we are valuable enough to hold our positions for us. There will obviously be some changes since our duties have to be covered while we are away. We know we will come home to find the job we return to is different from the job we left. Looking through an objective lens, the duties we are both doing now are different from what we were doing 1-2 years ago as things naturally evolve. Ultimately, we knew this would be an adjustment with some potential regrets, but a greater regret might be not going. Neither one of us wanted to say later in life, “I wish we would have taken off on that adventure.”
5. What were the toughest hurdles to overcome or logistics to work out?
One of our biggest challenges will be missing friends, family, and our pets. We talked about taking our dog to New Zealand. Unfortunately, the hoops to jump through for a dog to go were more onerous than for us humans to get work visas. Also, she would have to spend a long time in the plane cargo hold and quarantined after arrival. We decided that it would be too hard on her even though we would like to have her there.
We bought our kids airline tickets as their present for the holidays, so we’ll get to see them for a while at Christmas, and we also have some friends planning to visit. Also, communication is much easier now with social media and video chatting, so we’re hoping that helps us stay close electronically.
As far as work challenges, I feel a lot of guilt leaving for that long with the expectation of returning to my current position. In doing so, I am asking my co-workers to cover for me for such an extended time that I’ll never really be able to pay it back. My wife has already hired her replacement for a job she loves and knows that her position will be different when she returns. Those are the most difficult personal and career challenges.
6. How did you pick your destination(s)?
Years ago, we started discussing trying a locum tenens job as a “someday” thing to do in later years prior to retirement. Mostly we considered staying in the US, but noticed a few positions were available internationally. New Zealand is among the few countries that will accept a US medical license as means to obtain a permit to practice there. Rural New Zealand, like much of rural America, has a shortage of primary care doctors. The practice I will be joining has used temporary doctors for years, but all the while they continue to search for someone to take a permanent position. So, there is the sense that I’ll be helping fill a need in the community there, while also integrating as a local New Zealander more than a short vacation would allow.
7. Anything special you need to do or plan to do with your house while you’re gone?
Fortunately, we will have family who will live in our house in the US and take care of our pets. Their availability to house-sit for the year really helped us choose when to take this time away. Before we secured a house sitter, we were asking ourselves other questions such as, “Is it time to downsize and sell our house?” but “What if it doesn’t sell or sells too quickly?” We also considered renting it for a year and the uncertainties of a being a landlord from overseas.
8. What are two or three things that you hope to see come out of the trip? This could be something you learn, a particular experience, a relational outcome, or whatever.
Mostly, I hope this is an amazing life experience for us. I look forward to the chance to learn about a new country and really get to experience the culture. I hope to learn about the healthcare system and bring back a new perspective for myself. I hope to return refreshed and recharged with a new appreciation for my job, and maybe there will be some things to share and integrate within our office.
We hope to continue to grow as a couple. The good news is we really like spending time together! During this experience, like we also expect in retirement, we will spend even more concentrated time together. As we watch retiring couples, that seems to have its pros and cons. We’ll find out what it’s like to start fresh in a new place far away from home. We’ll learn if combining travel and work like this is something we might want to do again down the road or if it will be something we do only this once.
We will live in a more minimalistic way than we do at home where we have accumulated 30 years of stuff. We will each be taking only one piece of luggage plus a carry-on for an 8-month trip, so soon we’ll see what it is like to live without most of our possessions. We will also both take a significant pay cut for the time we are gone, so we will find out how we manage living within a lighter budget.
Financially, this is a giant step backward in terms of saving for our eventual retirement. Overall, we have prepared fairly well for the future. We’re not in the category with some of the early retirement enthusiasts out there, but we currently have saved about 20x expected annual spending with a goal of between 25-30x by age 60. Depending on how our perspective on expected annual spending changes after this experience, we may adjust the numbers or time frame a bit. But it’s all a work in progress. Regardless, we should get there if we continue to work full time and save as we have been.
To use some of the terminology from your writings, this is our version 1.0 of retirement for this decade. We are certainly not done with our years of employment, but this is one iteration of what we are doing in our 50’s to prepare for that time. For now, all we know for sure is that we choose to control this particular slice of our time and money in this way while we are healthy enough to enjoy it.
9. Any advice for others who are considering a mini-retirement.
Ask me that after we get back…
Hopefully, I’ll have an opportunity to check in again with them over the next 8 months and let you know how things are going. Meanwhile, if you’d like to read more about mini-retirements, here are a few articles from the one I took a while back:
Be intentional,
Joe
