Some people may look at us and think, “Surely they’re too old for Vanlife?”
Who knows? Maybe we are? But we have never really felt the need to do as we are told, or to be predictable. And after all…don’t old people have a second childhood?
Our journey into Vanlife started after several momentous occasions that made us really think about our future. We lost close friends – many of whom were younger than ourselves. Marianne donated one of her kidneys to her best friend, becoming a paired living kidney donor. We realized that life is short and too valuable.
We also started to realize that the biggest risk that any one of our age faced was believing that they would reach pension age and still be fit and healthy enough to enjoy their pension!
At that point, we were both more than 17 years away from getting our pensions and retiring, and had already…
- Been successful at work and with our careers ✅
- Raised the kids, and watched them grow and start their own life adventures ✅
- Had the house, the white picket fence, a dog or two, and paid off the mortgage ✅
Yet once we had ticked off these usual ‘life goals’, we had another major realization - that there were still too many things we still wanted to see and do. Too many roads not yet traveled, too many experiences not yet had.
We had a choice.
To continue as we were, and hopefully live long enough to get the pension…and then hope that we were healthy enough to enjoy the pension…
Or…
Make the most of what we still have left - including the asset we had worked so hard to own, our house.
Everything began to fall into place, like a giant jigsaw. We could make the best use of our house by renting it out, giving ourselves a sustainable income. This way we could complete the challenge we had set ourselves, which until that point we had only been able to dream of commencing.
What is that challenge? Oh, nothing too major – we only want to visit every country in the world in our van, or with our backpack, before we die. Or die trying!
We were at the crossroads of our lives, but there was no doubt about what direction we were taking.
While Marianne was recovering from the kidney donation surgery, I started the process of selling everything in our family home (well, anything the kids - now adults - had not bagged for themselves) and prepped the house for rental.
And we both began the (ongoing) process of prepping for never-ending travel and the next stage in our lives. Finally, on the 10th of May 2018 - the Tread the Globe Social Media platform was born!
Why do old people start a YouTube channel? Because our eldest son was moving to Australia for two years and told us to! Four years later, we are about to hit 10,000,000 views…
So, it seems we are not too old for Vanlife, or for social media, or to become Nomadic Digital Travel Content Creators!
"We travel not to escape life - but so life does not escape us !"
Chris and Marianne Fisher - TREAD the Globe
