Become a Retirement Snowbird

Although it may seem a long way off, it’s never too early to start thinking about where you’ll spend next winter.  You can become a retirement snowbird after your working career without having to have a second home somewhere.  We have been able to spend our winters out of the cold by using the timeshare that we bought over the past thirty years.  When the children were young, we bought a couple of weeks of timeshare because our family vacations were the highlight of our year.  Our children still talk about our getaways and the fact that we stayed in places with a pool and game room near attractions they enjoyed seeing, made each vacation a time to treasure.  When the children got older, it was just my wife and me so we went to places that we would not have gone to if we didn’t have timeshare.  The places were beautiful, and we really got used to the lifestyle we were experiencing.  We were locked into the school calendar since my wife was a teacher, so we didn’t even experience a “winter escape” from the cold weather.  The whole experience got us to consider the implications for our retirement.

We did not want to own two homes.  We were planning the house of our dreams in upstate New York and hadn’t really thought too much about the winters.  Could we escape the cold?  Could we become a snowbird in retirement?  By adding a few weeks of timeshare, we could actually escape the harshest part of winter and go south after Christmas and New Year’s.  That’s exactly what we did, and we have enjoyed every winter so far by escaping to warmer climates.  It's easier than you think to become a retirement snowbird.

Escape the winter and become a Retirement Snowbird

But you don’t need to own another home or even timeshare to become a retirement snowbird.  The rental possibilities are quite numerous.  It seems a lot of people have gotten into the rental business by buying investment properties.  If you plan early enough and look around for all the possibilities, it’s pretty amazing what you can find.  We know many people who rent a place every year and there’s a growing trend to lock that place in for next year if you like it.  We have found that we do like to vary our locations, so we are definitely happy that we don’t own a second home.  We have been very fortunate to not only experience just about all of Florida from the panhandle to the Keys but also the gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas, the desert of the southwest and the temperate winter climate of southern California.  We’ve done it using our timeshare, but many people do it by renting a condo or home that has all the amenities that they are looking for.  You can become a snowbird in retirement with just a little advanced planning.

Keep in mind that the southern hemisphere is experiencing their summer as we are in the middle of winter.  One of our most extravagant trips was a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia and New Zealand.  We had been putting the trip off because of the amount of time that you spend on a plane.  But we had an inspiration that seemed like an impossible dream at first.  The experience was good and so far above our expectations, we would love to be able to do it again.  We broke the trip up into manageable pieces by going to California for a week in Palm Springs.  Our first six-hour flight was out of the way and our reward was being able to stay in one of my wife’s favorite places.  The second leg of our journey was a flight to Hawaii and a week on Kauai, which we already knew was one of the most beautiful places on earth.  It made the final leg, a nine-hour flight to Aukland much easier to handle.  We had been able to book a two-week cruise that began at the end of January and went from New Zealand to Sydney, Australia.  We arrived fresh despite the fact that we crossed the International Date Line and enjoyed a cruise that was probably the best we have ever taken. Coming home, we shortened our stay in Hawaii to two days in Honolulu, stayed in Oceanside, California for a week and then came back to New York wishing we could do the whole thing again.  If you want to become a retirement snowbird, this is the way to do it.  And I don’t bring this up to brag but, rather, to get you to think about the possibilities for your own winter adventures.  If you like to cruise, why not schedule one for a winter and then arrange a before and after stay at a rental that you can find on the internet.  We know one couple who were able to book a hotel stay simply by accumulating points on the credit card that they were using.

If you want to become a snowbird in retirement, there are creative ways to get it done.  We love to spend Christmas at home, but we also like to know that when we’re done putting all the decorations away, there’s an escape to warmer temperatures that awaits us.  Make your retirement as adventurous as you can and live every day to the fullest.  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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