Malcolm and I sold our business and retired in 2006. In the beginning, we struggled to find our “new identity” as a retired couple. Through trial and error, we managed to get to a comfortable place where we know what we want out of our retirement years.
Defining Retirement
What we want, is to have a home base that is reasonably close to where our daughter lives, some time set aside each year for travel and adventure, and a balanced lifestyle that includes hobbies, volunteer work, friends, and family. Fitness and health are very important at this stage of life and while we do pay attention, we are not fanatical about what we eat or how much we exercise. Moderation works best for us.
Where We Live
We live in Florida where the sun shines 95% of the time and temperatures average in the 80s for most of the year. We are surrounded by water and flat terrain. Both of which provide great opportunities to get out and enjoy the outdoors.
Our home is located on the Treasure Coast of Florida, between Palm Beach and Orlando. We have access to several international airports, universities, hospitals, theaters, and fine dining establishments. Our town has a well-developed network of volunteer opportunities and an abundance of community activities.
A walkable Main Street and beautiful beaches draw seasonal tourists to our quaint little town.
About Our Blog
Malcolm and I enjoy biking, hiking, kayaking, traveling, and planning future travels. Malcolm loves to cook and I love to take photographs and write blog posts. Our posts are photo intensive and reflect our retirement lifestyle. We often include recipes, decorating tips, travel guides, book reviews, and insights we’ve gained while traveling this journey. We keep things casual and as real as possible as we invite our readers to contribute to every conversation.
Oh, the Places We Will Go…
When we are not enjoying life in our hometown, we like to travel. I prefer cruising, while Malcolm prefers road trips. After the disruption of Covid from 2019 to 2021, we are getting back on track and have a few adventures on the horizon. The photos below are from past travels and are a small sampling of the variety we enjoy.
Beyond Our Hometown
We can watch the sunrise on the Atlantic and set on the Gulf of Mexico on the same day, should we choose to do so. Coast to Coast is a short three-hour drive. The Florida Keys are a bit further, but still accessible, and the Forgotten Coast is a day trip away. Our beloved Treasure Coast provides a myriad of activities, with nooks and crannies still to be discovered.
From Tallahassee to Miami, our cities and towns are culturally diverse, laid back, trendy, eclectic, and always fun to visit. We have more State Parks than we could ever visit, although we are trying and our wetlands and preserves are teeming with nature just waiting to be discovered. This is paradise, and we get to call it home!
We hope you will follow along as we continue our journey.
Picture Retirement 
My husband and I are taking early retirement soon. It is interesting to hear about your experience, it does help that you live in such a beautiful corner of the world 😄
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We love the lifestyle and flexibility that living here provides. Thanks for stopping by and good luck with your retirement.
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Catching up with my life here in Porto and finally getting a chance to peruse your site!
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Peruse away. Stormy weather interrupted our summer plans to visit all of Florida’s Coasts, but we are slowly getting back on track. Heading to the Space Coast and First Coast next week. Lots of good stuff coming up. We enjoyed your rail adventure and look forward to reading more soon.
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Hi Suzanne & Malcolm. I am happy to have connected with what sounds a like minded couple. We too are evolving with our retirement identity. Following our retirement we escaped into 2 years of full time travel. Now, with a home base, we are keen to enjoy ongoing travel adventures. Trying to settle and travel is a contradiction in terms, so obviously we are still evolving. I love that you can watch the sunrise over water & set over water. You are so lucky. That sounds so wonderful. The other thing that caught my eye was you live near 4 airports! That is our biggest challenge, not being close to an airport. I look forward to following you blog. Until next time 😊
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Hi Estelle, thanks for stopping by. Like minded indeed. I enjoyed reading about you and your husband yesterday. Sounds like you have this retirement thing all figured out in short order. It is quite the adventure. Being near 4 airports and 3 cruise ports is a huge advantage. Thanks for following. We post on average about twice per month, so as not to overwhelm your inbox.
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Hi Suzanne & Malcolm great to ‘virtually’ meet you! It’s interesting to hear about how you settled into retirement, managing to include everything which is important to you. Thank you for reaching out. I look forward to reading more from you and following you on Instagram 🙂
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Thanks Sam, and likewise. We look forward to following your active lifestyle.
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Nice to meet other bloggers from the Treasure Coast. Thank you for stopping by my blog so that I could discover yours.
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Hi Karen, what a nice surprise to discover you are right in my back yard. I had thought you were a New Englander. Looking forward to exploring more of your posts; so far I haven’t gotten past all your wonderful recipes.
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I retired in November 2019, just in time to celebrate the holidays and welcome the pandemic. I did manage to work some travel in last year. More is planned this year.
I enjoy your blog posts and your photos. I hope 2022 is a good year.
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Hi Dan, I am glad you are the first to respond to this. Maybe you can help me figure out what went wrong. My intention was to edit the original post. When I finished the edits, I hit Publish and the original date appeared, so I assumed it would just update the post without actually publishing??? Best laid plans. Anyway, should I have just hit the update button instead of the publish button? Thanks for your help. S
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Did you open the original post to “edit” or did you “copy” it? If you copy it, it becomes a new post, and the action is publish. If you edit, the action should be update, and everything remains the same, except for the words/images you changed.
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I opened the original post and clicked edit. Have done the same thing numerous times on other posts and never had one repost as if it were new. Oh well. Thanks for getting back to me. Maybe a glitch.
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Hah! I am in the same epic situation as you. I can watch the sunrise on the east coast of Vancouver Island and take a 3 hour drive to watch the sunset on the west coast. Aren’t we so very fortunate, to live in a space full of nature, parks, water (salt and fresh)? I love this life.
Deb
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Absolutely, we are fortunate indeed. Truthfully, I released this update by mistake but have decided to leave it up since a lot of my readers have probably never read the original post. 🙂
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Well….we live in the grey drizzle of England but we do live near the sea. We retired at the end of 2019 to invest in full time travel….COVID came knocking on travellers’s doors….but we’re still managing to live our dream, just not on the original plan. We’ve just passed the 360-days away point since 1/1/20 so we’re having fun! Retirement is wonderful!
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I have enjoyed following your travel adventures. Long-term travel isn’t something we have aspired to do, but who knows, things could change. You guys are inspirational.
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Wow thank you!
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I’m glad you made your “mistake” when you published this. Even though I’ve been following you forever, it was still nice to “get to know you” all over again. You live in a beautiful part of the country, which is fortunate for us since it inspires many of your lovely photos. Here’s to an adventurous 2022!
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Hi Janis, I don’t mind mistakes that have pleasant consequences. 🙂
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Sounds like you have retirement figured out!
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Dawn, some days yes, and some days not so much. Adapting and evolving are key to this phase of life.
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