{"id":203,"date":"2014-07-10T20:33:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T20:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/?page_id=203"},"modified":"2022-08-04T20:11:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T20:11:22","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/?page_id=203","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, 2004, my husband, Curtis, and I took a trip to Belize.\u00a0 We\u2019d been married 2 years at that point, and had already traveled to Greece for our honeymoon and to Cozumel for a SCUBA trip with his three kids.\u00a0 The first week in Belize was spent in Placencia, a peninsula in the southern part of the country.\u00a0 We then spent 5 days on Caye Caulker.\u00a0 Both locations were relaxing and beautiful, and we were able to get several amazing dives in at both.\u00a0 But the last few days of the trip we set aside to study the real estate market and to make plans for our future.<\/p>\n

After leaving Caye Caulker, we headed to Belize City.\u00a0 Now, Belize City is NOT where we would normally choose to spend vacation time, but this planning portion of the trip was an exception.\u00a0 We stayed at a lovely Inn called Colton House (http:\/\/www.global-travel.co.uk\/colton.htm<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Belize<\/a>

Belize Beach<\/p><\/div>\n

It was a charming home, close to the water, and also close to a real estate office.\u00a0 We spent some time with the realtor looking at properties, but for the most part we stayed in our room at Colton House and planned.\u00a0 And what we came up with was our plan for retiring early, what we call our Colton House Plan.\u00a0 We talked about what we needed to do financially and where we might want to retire someday.\u00a0 We also decided that Belize was not the place for us to retire; the details were left to work themselves out later.<\/p>\n

When we arrived back home, we immediately started working on the financial aspects of the plan.\u00a0 We paid off as much debt as we could as quickly as we could.\u00a0 For example, we paid off my car loan as soon as we got home from the trip; Curtis’ car loan was already paid in full.\u00a0 We have not had a car payment for the past 9 years, and as long as repairs are more cost efficient than buying we will not purchase another car.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 9 years.\u00a0 Our Colton House Plan had been reworked, adjusted, and fine-tuned.\u00a0 We had talked about living in an RV full-time in order to save money, but had discarded the idea. \u00a0Then in January 2013, we started looking at RVs again.\u00a0 We knew what our minimum requirements would be to be able to live in an RV full-time.\u00a0 We did not plan to actually purchase an RV until April, but we found one that was perfect for us and made the leap of faith that this was what we wanted to do.<\/p>\n

I cannot say that the decision was easy.\u00a0 The first RV park in a reasonable distance to Curtis\u2019 work had me in tears.\u00a0 I just could not envision myself living there.\u00a0 Together we worked through all the issues that came up.\u00a0 Even now, each of us has full veto power: if one of decides RV living is not working then we move on to something else.<\/p>\n

We have just sold our house, which I purchased in 2001 right before we started dating.\u00a0 We had put a lot of love, energy, and updates into the house, and were able to sell it quickly and for a price that allowed us to pay off the loan on the RV.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s time to start really saving so that we can retire.<\/p>\n

\"Cotacachi,<\/a>

Cotacachi, Ecuador<\/p><\/div>\n

Currently, our plan is to retire to Ecuador.\u00a0 We first visited Ecuador in 2010 and completely fell in love with the country, the people, the weather, everything.\u00a0 It was the first and only place I\u2019ve ever been so sad to leave that I cried; when we boarded the plane it felt like I was leaving home and didn\u2019t know when I would be able to go back.\u00a0 We\u2019ve since been back to Ecuador two more times, checking out different areas and staying in apartments, shopping at the markets, and preparing our own meals to make sure this is really what we want to do.<\/p>\n

We plan to be in the RV at least three years and will re-evaluate retirement at that time.\u00a0 This blog will be a diary of sorts, about our life in the RV, our vacation travels, and our eventual retirement to Ecuador.\u00a0 We hope you join us in our adventures here and abroad!<\/p>\n

Kathy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May, 2004, my husband, Curtis, and I took a trip to Belize.\u00a0 We\u2019d been married 2 years at that point, and had already traveled to Greece for our honeymoon Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1905,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-203","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1984,"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions\/1984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.here-and-abroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}