1 R Special Advertising Section | Sunday, March 26, 2023 13 & ' , ( ' ) - - - ) - ( . / - - 0- ( - ) $! 0 ) . ' ( ' - 1- ) 0 Some refer to themselves as “senior nomads.” Diede Janel, a retired office manager who has primarily lived out of a Toyota Sienna minivan for the last six years, likes to think of her nomadic lifestyle as “no sticks and bricks.” Janel is among a growing number of retired Americans who have traded a fixed home base for full-time travel. In 2014, the Shoreline native was working for a Seattle construction company and feeling restless. She was younger than the average retiree, barely 40, when she quit her job, rented out her condo and sold most of her belongings. Newly unencumbered, she rode her motorcycle to San Diego, where she met a sailboat captain and cruised in the Sea of Cortez for seven months. “I’d always wanted to travel,” she says by phone from a campground in Quartzsite, Arizona. “I wanted to do something more than just Monday through Friday, work, work, work, and then only get to play on the weekends. I thought, there’s got to be a different kind of life out there.” Adventure awaits A different way of life appeals to a majority of U.S. citizens over 50, and travel is a top priority. While more than two-thirds said they were still concerned about the spread of COVID, 67% planned to take an average of four trips last year, according to an AARP report, up 13% from 2021. The majority (76%) said they would stick to domestic destinations, with many opting for fewer crowds and road trips over airline transportation. Even as travel numbers have slowly crept toward pre-pandemic levels, health and safety concerns have curbed retirees’ plans, especially for international travelers. At the time of the AARP report’s publication, only 17% of travelers in this demographic had booked international trips, while 34% said they were still in the planning stages. Despite visitors’ trepidations, the number of retired workers actually living in foreign countries and receiving Social Security benefits grew just over 68% between 2018 and 2021 to more than 695,000, according to the Social Security Administration. DEBBIE AND MICHAEL CAMPBELL DIEDE JANEL DIEDE JANEL Continued on page 14
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