Living The Dream: Age Is No Barrier

Living The Dream

It’s not everyday we hear about a few 60 year olds Living The Dream, but Duncan and Jane are doing just that. They take their pension to a whole new level and you’ll love reading about their senior gap year.

Jane and Duncan

What was the first country you visited? Who with and why did you choose it?

As a couple, the first country we visited together was France in 1983. We were living in Southampton in the United Kingdom and back in those days you could travel to France for 10 pounds return which included 1 bottle of spirits and 200 cigarettes. The deal was an overnight Ferry each way and a day in Paris on a guided tour. It was winter time and the crossings between the UK and France were notorious for being rough. Before our marriage, Duncan lived in Malta, Hong Kong and Australia. Jane travelled to Bali.

When did you start a travel lifestyle? What inspired that change?

Throughout our corporate lives we travelled for business and when our boys came along we travelled as a family throughout Asia and Europe. The inspiration to take our travel to the next level and leave the corporate world altogether came about when our elder son Rob took a belated gap year. We stalked him via Facebook and met up with him in Santorini where he regaled us with stories of his adventures throughout South and Central America and Europe. We experienced an “ah ha” moment and as we looked at one another we said we can do this it will be our senior gap year. Six months later February,2013 we hit the road for 12 months and To Travel Too was born.

Do you have a base you travel from? Or is it continuous travel? And why do you choose that style?

Our base, if you can call it that, is 6 boxes containing tax files and photographs in storage, back in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. It is where we will come back and where we call home. We are continuing travelling whilst we can. Duncan has just reached his 60th year and Jane has 2 years to catch up. Retirement age in Australia has been stretched to 67 years. Our tagline in our business is “age is no barrier when it comes to travel’” and our motto is “chase time not money”. In our transition to retirement, it is important for us to travel as much as we can and to check off those places on our bucket list. The Australian Government has just thrown the retirees a wobbler - it has been approved in the Lower House of Parliament that when you are on the Aged Pension you are limited to 6 weeks a year outside of Australia then your pension ceases, it has yet to be approved in the Upper House. This will certainly throw our plans awry.

How do you fund your travel lifestyle? Is it something you do when travelling or are you a saver?

We fund our travel lifestyle currently by living off our investment strategy and taking it one step further by travelling on the equivalent of today's Aged Pension, USD60 or AUD92 per day, and showing other retirees that it can be done. After launching our website 12 months ago we are now planning to monetize our blog.

If you could tell yourself one tip before you started your travel lifestyle, what would it be?

That one tip would be our motto - chase time not money.

What does "Living The Dream" mean to you?

Living the Dream to us means getting out of that cubicle and the daily grind of corporate life, enjoying life with travel adventures and experiences we can enjoy along the way with no stress or pressure. If we can inspire folks as we travel then this also underpins our tagline “age is no barrier when it comes to travel” and “chase time not money”

You can find Jane and Duncan here -

Website: To Travel Too

Twitter:  @totraveltoo  

Age is no barrier when it comes to travel.

Reader Comments...

"I respond to every comment by direct private email. I look forward to your feedback" -

If that change to the Australia pension goes though limiting time outside the country each year it's going to throw out a lot of peoples retirement plans. Good to see you guys making the most of it now.

Toni | 2 Aussie Travellers Apr 20th, 2016

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