I’ve rarely seen such a stunning city…like Istanbul meets San Francisco, with its pastel-colored buildings and the wide river running right under a Golden Gate look-alike and sweeping out to the ocean. My husband Tim and I were in Lisbon, Portugal, on the way to our rented house at the beach in Copa da Caparica. For $1,500 we were set up with a rental for a five-week stay living in this beach town just 15 minutes from the Portuguese capital.
We lived in Paris for a month in 2012, and we were so happy that this year we increased our stay to three months. It now looks as if the grande dame of European cities will claim us for five months in 2014.
A couple would probably need around $800 a month for food, not counting several meals a week in the city’s excellent restaurants.
My husband Tim turned to me and whispered in a confidential tone out of the corner of his mouth, “I’ve never been so excited in my whole life.”
Tipping: You can pre-pay the suggested tips for stewards and dining room attendants, but if the service is special you might wish to give a cash reward at the end of the trip.
My husband Tim and I are living proof that older people can learn plenty of new tricks. And our errors have been almost as much fun as our home runs. In 2011, we sold our comfortable California house, dumped the furniture, put our small treasures, art, and clothes in storage, and kissed our four daughters and seven grandchildren goodbye. At ages 67 and 72, respectively, we became senior nomads. We had taken stock of our lives and realized that we were happier on the road than anywhere else— and that becoming home-free would give us the flexibility we needed to experience life in other cultures.