With no end in sight for Covid pandemic , everybody is probably stuck at home with no traveling for about a year now while yearning when is the next opportunity to travel again. I have been watching a lot of Youtube videos about interesting destination and read many financial blogs while stuck at home. I come across an interesting Taiwanese talk show about an early retiree who retired at 45 and traveled around the world twice to 70 countries. That Taiwanese uncle life story resonates with me as I have been an avid traveler whether it is for work or leisure. One of
my main reason for achieving FIRE and passive income is to take control
of my freedom so that I can travel without worrying about my travel
expense. He is first guest of the talk show and his name is LaoHei. I extracted
and condensed the video with some simple English subtitle as below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gXM2zqEO7Q
The show started talking about retirement life in general. According to statistic, a retiree has 80,000 hour of free time before he dies. The question on retiree mind is "do you want to lead a boring retiree life or start a new exciting chapter of your life". The transition from work to retirement is not unique to FIRE; anyone who retires, regardless of age will have to decide what to do with the new found freedom .The first guest LaoHei went on to talk how he started his early retirement life 15 years ago. At that time, the concept
of F.I.R.E (Financial Independence Retire Early) was not even fathomable
by most people. Therefore, he received many skeptical questions and disparaging remarks about his decision to retire early. He did planned to retire at 40 so it was never a sudden decision. He realized about middle age crisis and decreasing health when he hit 40. He wanted to do something he loved while his health permit than tied his life to a career. He opted for voluntary layoff at 45 when it was offered by his company. In his first 6 months of his retirement , he did not have any concrete plan what to do with his newfound freedom and extra time on hand. He spent some time developing new daily routines that no longer incorporated work. However, he knew he liked to travel and love music. He then planed his retirement life revolving around his interest. He even tried street singing and went on to write 6 books about his travel and singing experience .It was something he never expect himself to write again after leaving high school. His lifestyle become an envy among the small Taiwanese F.I.R.E community. He also talked about his finance that sustained his early retirement. As he was high earner in his previous job in a large MNC, he was able to save enough with frugal lifestyle. His investment is mainly conservative with 5% yield which he said is more than enough to cover his expense. That is summary of the video.
As I mentioned in my blog before, my main goal is to achieve financial freedom to do some traveling. I have always been planning the next destination to travel. Due to my job nature , I have actually traveled to 70 countries as well and all 7 continents by combining business trips with leisure before covid pandemic struck. I had a bucket list of difficult trips which I was fortunate to have the opportunity to fulfill while I was working abroad. Therefore , when I finally retire , I am not so keen to travel around the world again. My traveling plan after retirement will be much simpler by living in different part of South East Asia for an extended period of time like several month to sample the local life. For example, I would love to travel along Thailand coast facing Andaman Sea, islands hopping along Palawan, Philippines , Raja Ampat Islands along Indonesian archipelago or just chill out in hillside of ChiangRai. When I visited some of these places before, it was always a short trip due to the limited vacation time. I really admired the YOLO lifestyle of several backpackers I met who stayed for several months exploring these places. When I can fulfill my retirement in these beautiful places, I would like to spend more time hiking, exploring and improving my photography. Hopefully, I will retire soon with the end of covid pandemic.
My Tripadvisor Worldmap -places visited:
