By the end of 2016 I'd visited 37 countries outside my country of birth.  It sounds like quite a lot, but I don't consider myself much of a traveler.  Perhaps I can say it's because on a business trip I was busy and tired, but I suspect it was because I'm out of my comfort zone in a different country which often has a different language.

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I decided that I wanted to change that, and many people who choose early retirement have travel in their plans.  After all, travel can't be out of my comfort zone any more that quitting work, surely. 

 

Since retiring, I've run a marathon in Prague and Boston as well as a trail race in Germany. I've spent four months travelling in Asia and Australia and another three months in California, Costa Rica and Colombia. We've cycled the Route des Grandes Alpes from Lake Geneva to Nice on the Mediterranean and tested out a campervan with a trip to Germany. There's no doubt that some of the travels put me out of my comfort zone, but it also excites me, and at last I feel I'm doing some real travelling.

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We've also bought a small apartment in the French Alps and spent our first winter season there. Life is pretty good.

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Travel often isn't the cheapest thing to do though, so it will be interesting to see how it figures in our cost to retire.

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If you want to see my blog posts with a travel focus click here or to see all my previous blog posts, travel as well as other topics, this is the place to click.