latin jazz
Well-Known Member
She works for WB?
World travel
- Thread starter infection
- Start date
Yep
latin jazz
Well-Known Member
Interesting. I used to work for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) but now I'm in consulting living in Spain. My wife now does work for IDB but remotely. Moving around gets tougher as we get older (we miss so much our lovely flat in Mexico City). Life in international development/consulting. We are considering retiring really early to finally settle down.
Does your wife work in Water and Sanitation? I might send you my resume
We don't have kids and like traveling so it's pretty easy for us and I can work remotely. It's a good job and good benefits but living in developing countries has it's downside and some really struggle with that. She works in transportation. We are considering retiring after one or two more rotations and buy some property in south east Asia or somewhere and do some small rental thing and consulting work. We'll see though. I'm very excited about Cambodia though.Interesting. I used to work for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) but now I'm in consulting living in Spain. My wife now does work for IDB but remotely. Moving around gets tougher as we get older (we miss so much our lovely flat in Mexico City). Life in international development/consulting. We are considering retiring really early to finally settle down.
Does your wife work in Water and Sanitation? I might send you my resume
latin jazz
Well-Known Member
We are in our early 40s and in a similar situation (no kids). We decided to come to Spain for a few years. Pay or benefits are not that great here, but we live by the beach and can't complain too much.
The transportation division at WB is massive. With your wife's pension and no kids, there is no need for big investments. As you mention, just some consulting to keep the mind busy.
We also like traveling but it's becoming harder. I travel for work to the Middle East at least once a month. Traveling for work sucks.
We are planning on visiting Japan, Norway and Canada this year.
SE Asia it's great. I went to Cambodia 25 years ago. It was a mess then but now it should be great. Food was amazing, like in most places in SE (except Phillippines...I lived there). Just don't be that couple who end up retiring in Bali or Chiang Mai
Work trips can be rough, especially that far of travel. Though usually we turn most work trips to a vacation at the end of it as well. I'm early 40s as well. We do have an option to live in DC and then she would travel to the countries for work regularly, but that's rough to me. I would rather be in the country and DC is not a city I like.We are in our early 40s and in a similar situation (no kids). We decided to come to Spain for a few years. Pay or benefits are not that great here, but we live by the beach and can't complain too much.
The transportation division at WB is massive. With your wife's pension and no kids, there is no need for big investments. As you mention, just some consulting to keep the mind busy.
We also like traveling but it's becoming harder. I travel for work to the Middle East at least once a month. Traveling for work sucks.
We are planning on visiting Japan, Norway and Canada this year.
SE Asia it's great. I went to Cambodia 25 years ago. It was a mess then but now it should be great. Food was amazing, like in most places in SE (except Phillippines...I lived there). Just don't be that couple who end up retiring in Bali or Chiang Mai
I have no interest in retiring in either of those places. My plan is to do a lot more scouting for places I want to be. It's really hard to get a feel for a place without spending a decent amount of time there.
I've often thought New Zealand would be a good place to retire, its basically permanently the 1980s, everything closes at 8pm, you can still buy good fish and chips everywhere. Quiet, peaceful, in short boring.
latin jazz
Well-Known Member
Same here. DC was also an option but we didn't see ourselves there (and in the current situation, no thanks). Healthcare in US sucks (and many of the places we have lived). We probably end up spending our 60s in Peru or Mexico and our 70s here in Spain, where healthcare and overall quality of life is great.
My wife wants a farm for rescue dogs. I want a donkey and an alpaca haha. So maybe a little house in the Peruvian Andes and a flat in Barcelona.
Hit me up if you come to Spain
I thought it was a little expensive plus I don't like you have to drive everywhere, but other than that it seems nice!
Housing is more expensive than here when you factor wages in.
Catching up a little bit here. Last April we went to Thailand. We flew in to Bangkok and spent the first couple nights there. This was the longest flight we've ever done. I believe we left in the evening for San Francisco and then spent overnight in the airport until our early morning flight. We flew China Airlines (which is actually a Taiwanese company) and connected in Taipei, then flew another 5 or so hours to Bangkok. When we woke up the next morning, we had booked a day tour to Ayutthaya, which is a little over an hour north of Bangkok and had been the old capital before Bangkok.
While we were up there, we ran into this guy wearing a Malone jersey. I think he maybe said he was from the Czech Republic.
Some time on the Bangkok side of the trip, we went out for Indian food, which is a tradition we have anywhere we travel. Interestingly, the best Indian food we've ever had is actually in Utah. Maybe we're bias.
The next day we flew down to Krabi. Originally we were going to squeeze in a couple days up north in Chiang Mai but because it was the burning season and can be limited visibility, we ended up deciding against that. Probably the most popular places people would go for beach stuff would be Phuket or Koh Samui. Krabi is on the other side of the bay from Phuket and is less touristy and less congested, so we opted for that. We ended up spending a week there in an AirBnb right on the shore, though it was kind of shallow and rocky so we had to go elsewhere for actually getting in the water, though we'd walk along the beach. Our first activity was taking a boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands, which includes Maya Bay, which is the location from the movie from like 2001 called The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's become over-toured in recent years and they even closed the bay for a couple years. You used to be able to boat into it and swim but they only allow you to wade in the water now. I had booked an early morning tour so that we could avoid the crowds that develop as the day goes on.
Boat stop included a few more islands on the south part of the bay.
This boat trip to the Phi Phi islands is the farthest I've ever been from the US. My dad had thought he'd been farther when he was on the south part of New Zealand but this is indeed a bit farther than that.
One of the next days we went zip lining, which was the first time for all of us. I was surprised how adventurous all our kids were about it, especially our youngest as she was just shy of turning 6 but wasn't afraid at all. I can't remember how many lines they had but we were there for a couple hours. The second to last line was the long one, where you spend probably 35-45 seconds on the line. Everyone went alone except our two youngest, just because of how small they are they didn't want them to get stuck in the middle of the line so they went with guides.
This is the view from the end of that line and if you zoomed in, you'd see someone coming down.
This is our middle child but he was the youngest of the ones that went down solo.
The guide went first and used my phone to record this. It's a video screenshot. I wish he had done landscape and gotten more on the left of this what it looks like with the open valley and all the limestone cliffs.
This is the view from the back yard of our place by the pool. It's hard to appreciate scale in this, but those limestone cliffs and landscape in the background behind the palm trees is part of Krabi near Ao Nang, but to the left are the Phi Phi islands. The one on the far left that's small is the island that had Maya Bay.
I'm limited to 10 pictures per post so there's more in the next post...
While we were up there, we ran into this guy wearing a Malone jersey. I think he maybe said he was from the Czech Republic.
Some time on the Bangkok side of the trip, we went out for Indian food, which is a tradition we have anywhere we travel. Interestingly, the best Indian food we've ever had is actually in Utah. Maybe we're bias.
The next day we flew down to Krabi. Originally we were going to squeeze in a couple days up north in Chiang Mai but because it was the burning season and can be limited visibility, we ended up deciding against that. Probably the most popular places people would go for beach stuff would be Phuket or Koh Samui. Krabi is on the other side of the bay from Phuket and is less touristy and less congested, so we opted for that. We ended up spending a week there in an AirBnb right on the shore, though it was kind of shallow and rocky so we had to go elsewhere for actually getting in the water, though we'd walk along the beach. Our first activity was taking a boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands, which includes Maya Bay, which is the location from the movie from like 2001 called The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's become over-toured in recent years and they even closed the bay for a couple years. You used to be able to boat into it and swim but they only allow you to wade in the water now. I had booked an early morning tour so that we could avoid the crowds that develop as the day goes on.
Boat stop included a few more islands on the south part of the bay.
This boat trip to the Phi Phi islands is the farthest I've ever been from the US. My dad had thought he'd been farther when he was on the south part of New Zealand but this is indeed a bit farther than that.
One of the next days we went zip lining, which was the first time for all of us. I was surprised how adventurous all our kids were about it, especially our youngest as she was just shy of turning 6 but wasn't afraid at all. I can't remember how many lines they had but we were there for a couple hours. The second to last line was the long one, where you spend probably 35-45 seconds on the line. Everyone went alone except our two youngest, just because of how small they are they didn't want them to get stuck in the middle of the line so they went with guides.
This is the view from the end of that line and if you zoomed in, you'd see someone coming down.
This is our middle child but he was the youngest of the ones that went down solo.
The guide went first and used my phone to record this. It's a video screenshot. I wish he had done landscape and gotten more on the left of this what it looks like with the open valley and all the limestone cliffs.
This is the view from the back yard of our place by the pool. It's hard to appreciate scale in this, but those limestone cliffs and landscape in the background behind the palm trees is part of Krabi near Ao Nang, but to the left are the Phi Phi islands. The one on the far left that's small is the island that had Maya Bay.
I'm limited to 10 pictures per post so there's more in the next post...
Thailand is one of my favorite places I ever visited for work. The best food of any of the places I've visited and the people are so nice. I'd love to go back and visit for pleasure.