Slow Travel Retirement Get the retirement test guide · $29

For Americans considering slow travel, seasonal living, or retirement relocation

Test your retirement dream before making a costly move.

A practical guide to 14-, 30-, 60-, or 90-day trials, true-cost comparisons, everyday-life checks, and a documented next-step plan.

  • Instant download
  • 208 pages
  • 12 worksheets
The 90-Day Retirement Relocation Test
208pages
12worksheets

Inside the book

See the method before making a decision

Sound familiar?

A wonderful vacation is not the same as living there.

A place can feel right during a visit and still leave important questions unanswered. Before making a larger commitment, find out what the ordinary weeks would actually require.

  1. 01

    You’ve visited promising places, but a week or two never quite feels like living there.

  2. 02

    You want to know how long to rent or test a location before deciding whether to move.

  3. 03

    The advertised monthly budget looks attractive, but what about two homes, travel, healthcare, and surprises?

  4. 04

    You’re unsure whether to sell, keep your home, rent seasonally, or simply take longer trips.

  5. 05

    You wonder how healthcare access, everyday errands, family distance, and social connection would actually work.

  6. 06

    You don’t want a rushed decision that is expensive or emotionally difficult to reverse.

Why I wrote this book

Why this guide exists

A memorable vacation can tell you what you enjoy about a place. It cannot, by itself, tell you whether the same place will fit your ordinary retirement life.

That gap matters. Moving is not only a question of finding attractive scenery or affordable rent. It can involve keeping or selling a home, changing how you access medical care, deciding how often to visit family, and discovering whether the small routines of daily life are comfortable once the novelty wears off.

We organized this guide around a different question: What would you need to test before a bigger commitment makes sense?

The answer is not the same for everybody. For one household, the critical issue may be maintaining two homes without stretching the budget. For another, it may be reaching healthcare and groceries without a car. For someone traveling alone, it might be finding regular community rather than only friendly conversations with other visitors. A couple might discover that they agree about the destination but disagree about the length of each stay.

We built the method to take those differences seriously. You start with your priorities, check financial and practical feasibility, and select a trial length that fits your situation and the destination’s rules. Then you observe ordinary days, compare neighborhoods, record what can be verified, and decide what commitment the evidence actually supports.

The right answer might be to move. It might be to spend winters away. It might be to try another neighborhood—or keep your current home and enjoy longer trips.

Our goal is not to talk you into relocating. It is to help you decide with fewer expensive assumptions.

— Slow Travel Retirement

What changes

Go from a promising destination to an informed decision.

Each part turns a vague retirement question into something you can observe, calculate, confirm, or write down.

  1. 01Day 1

    Know your non-negotiables before choosing a place

    Define the daily routines, essential services, family ties, and financial limits that matter to you, using a personal priorities profile.

  2. 02Week 1

    See the whole-year cost, not just the rent

    Compare staying home, seasonal living, a trial stay, and relocation, including retained-home expenses, travel, insurance, and a higher-cost scenario.

  3. 03

    Follow a trial plan with a purpose

    Choose a 14-, 30-, 60-, or 90-day track when legally feasible, with clear tasks to investigate ordinary living rather than simply sightseeing.

  4. 04

    Investigate the essentials before committing

    Use structured questions to review healthcare continuity, prescriptions, insurance, lawful stay, rental terms, emergency access, and return-home options.

  5. 05

    Compare neighborhoods and real-life fit

    Use the Ordinary Tuesday Test, route observations, and social-connection exercises to discover what daily life might really feel like.

  6. 06

    Leave with a documented next step

    Use a weighted scorecard with non-negotiable stop conditions, then create a plan to move, travel seasonally, test again, or stay based at home.

How it works

A simple process for a consequential choice

  1. PDF
    01

    Decide what you need to learn

    Choose the living model, destination candidates, and personal requirements that deserve evidence.

  2. 02

    Test ordinary life, with safeguards

    Use the appropriate trial itinerary and worksheets to document costs, services, housing, routines, and relationships.

  3. 03

    Choose the next justified commitment

    Compare the evidence, identify what remains unresolved, and create a realistic next-90-days plan.

What’s inside

Everything in the book

Not a country ranking. A complete method for testing the life you are considering.

  • 208pages
  • 17chapters
  • 12worksheets
  • 2hreading time
  1. IntroductionA beautiful vacation can inspire a retirement dream. This book shows you how to test whether the life beneath that dream actually works.6 sections
    • The decision beneath the dream
    • What you will leave with
    • A useful promise—and a useful boundary
    • Meet the three possible futures
    • How to use this book
    • The rule that protects the dream
  2. Part IBefore you choose a place
  3. 01The vacation trapA place can be wonderful to visit and wrong to live in. The opposite can also be true.4 sections
    • The difference between delight and suitability
    • Four common traps
    • Three questions that interrupt wishful thinking
    • The Couple, first observation
  4. 02What your ideal retirement actually requiresThe most useful destination search begins before you open a map.5 sections
    • Design your ordinary Wednesday
    • The three-bucket method
    • When two people are deciding
    • When you are deciding alone
    • Complete your priorities profile
  5. 03Five ways to live your retirementA person can spend three months abroad every year without becoming an expat.5 sections
    • The five living arrangements
    • Compare the models without guessing
    • The hidden price of optionality
    • A useful break-even exercise
    • Choosing the smallest responsible experiment
  6. 04Choose your three best candidatesThe question is not “What is the cheapest country?” It is “Where can my particular life work?”5 sections
    • Start with regions, then move immediately to daily-life locations
    • Why neighborhood beats national average
    • The sources ladder
    • The three-candidate comparison
    • The decision at the end of Part I
  7. Part IIProtect the retirement you built
  8. 05The true retirement cost calculatorA cheaper apartment does not necessarily produce a cheaper retirement.5 sections
    • Separate recurring costs from the cost of changing your life
    • The seasonal-living example
    • Make three budgets
    • The return-home reserve
    • The budget question behind the budget question
  9. 06Healthcare when you actually need helpA hospital on a map is not yet a healthcare plan.5 sections
    • US coverage is not automatically portable
    • Five layers of health readiness
    • Five conversations to have before an extended stay
    • Worked example — The Care-Aware Planner
    • Rehearse the process, never a medical emergency
  10. 07The visa, tax, benefits, and banking reality checkA 90-day itinerary and permission to stay for 90 days are different things.5 sections
    • Four different permissions
    • Your official-rule sheet
    • Taxes: moving does not erase US obligations
    • Social Security and benefits
    • The six-month calendar trap
  11. 08The rental, safety, and emergency planThe place where you sleep will influence nearly everything the trial teaches you.5 sections
    • Screen housing as a residence
    • Beware of the wrong housing sample
    • Arrival-day audit
    • Create a secure emergency card
    • Compare the beautiful rental with the livable rental
  12. Part IIIRun the real-life test
  13. 09Build your 14-, 30-, 60-, or 90-day trialYour trip should answer a question, not merely fill a calendar.6 sections
    • Match the duration to the question
    • Before departure: the evidence plan
    • The 14-day screening itinerary
    • The complete 30-day everyday-life schedule
    • What changes in a 60-day test?
    • What changes in a 90-day test?
  14. 10The Ordinary Tuesday testThe day that tells you the most may be the day you do almost nothing memorable.5 sections
    • The rule: live the day you actually want
    • Six practical measures
    • The Couple’s first Ordinary Tuesday
    • A second Ordinary Tuesday is more valuable than the first
    • The quiet-hour test
  15. 11The neighborhood reality testThe best destination can lose because you chose the wrong street.5 sections
    • Compare like with like
    • Measure door-to-door, not dots on a map
    • The three-neighborhood example
    • The six categories of neighborhood fit
    • Housing negotiation without premature commitment
  16. 12The people and relationships testA place can be friendly without becoming home.6 sections
    • Distinguish four kinds of connection
    • The repeatability test
    • The loneliness forecast
    • Couples: the split-screen exercise
    • Solo travelers: independence with a support plan
    • Family distance: price it honestly
  17. 13The bad week and future-you testA place does not need to be perfect. It needs to remain workable when life is ordinary, inconvenient, and changing.5 sections
    • A safe resilience test
    • The friction ledger
    • The future-you lens
    • How to handle contradicting evidence
    • The end-of-trial interview with yourself
  18. Part IVDecide without burning bridges
  19. 14Your retirement relocation decision scorecardThe difficult part is not collecting information. It is deciding what to trust when the information points in different directions.5 sections
    • Layer 1 — Check the non-negotiables first
    • Layer 2 — Choose your weights before you see the outcome
    • A completed example
    • Layer 3 — Evidence confidence
    • Comparing two lifestyles, not two postcards
  20. 15Move, return, travel seasonally, or test again?The best retirement decision may be smaller than the dream you started with.5 sections
    • Five legitimate outcomes
    • The decision tree in plain language
    • The false urgency of a “once-in-a-lifetime” apartment
    • The one-page decision conversation
    • Leaving is not a refund request on your retirement
  21. 16The next 90 days after your decisionA responsible next step should make your life clearer, not harder to reverse overnight.4 sections
    • Five follow-through plans
    • The reversible-commitment principle
    • The personal exit map
    • The post-decision review
  22. Closing reflectionsA retirement decision is not a contest to make the biggest change. It is a reasoned choice about where—and how—you want to live.2 sections
    • The life behind the destination
    • Keep the right to change your mind
  23. 17Three decisions and ten tempting claimsThree different retirees can test a dream and reach three different, equally responsible conclusions. Learn to recognize alluring relocation claims that still need evidence.4 sections
    • A solo retiree keeps a home base
    • A care-aware traveler changes the experiment
    • A domestic move with delayed savings
    • Ten claims worth questioning
  24. AAppendix Retirement field kit3 sections
    • How to use the field kit
    • Worked example: from dream to decision
    • Keeping the workbook useful
  25. BAppendix References and verification scripts4 sections
    • Source index
    • How to record an official answer
    • Ten useful conversations
    • Final verification gates

Look inside

Real pages from the book

Tap a page to enlarge it.

Is it for you?

Honest about who it’s for

This book is for you if…

  • Americans approaching or entering retirement who are seriously considering another city or country.
  • Retirees curious about longer stays, seasonal winters, or slow travel without a permanent move.
  • Solo readers and couples who want structured decisions around cost, healthcare, daily routines, family, and independence.

It’s not for you if…

  • Readers who only want a ranked list of cheap places to retire or live destination price quotes.
  • Anyone seeking guaranteed savings, visa approval, medical coverage, or individualized legal, tax, financial, or medical advice.
  • Anyone expecting a book to replace real-world trials, official requirements, insurance documents, or professional review.
The 90-Day Retirement Relocation Test

Get the book

The complete retirement test system

One digital guide with the instructions, realistic examples, and reusable planning pages needed to investigate a possible retirement lifestyle.

$29$71−59%

What you get

  • 208-page PDF · A5
  • 12 printable worksheets
  • Four structured trial tracks: 14, 30, 60, and 90 days, subject to lawful stay
  • Worked annual-budget comparisons and higher-cost scenario exercises
  • Healthcare, legal-stay, housing, neighborhood, and emergency-readiness checks
  • The Ordinary Tuesday field log, neighborhood comparison, and final Decision Report
  • Worked examples for couples, solo retirees, healthcare-aware planning, and domestic moves
Get the retirement test guide
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  • Instant download

Questions

Questions, answered

Do I have to be planning a permanent move abroad?
No. The method also covers retirement travel, seasonal living, keeping a home base, and domestic relocation. A successful decision might be a shorter stay, another trial, or staying where you are.
What if I cannot spend 90 days in one place?
Choose the 14-, 30-, or 60-day program instead. Each track explains what you can reasonably learn and what still needs research. Your legal permission to stay always takes priority over a proposed itinerary.
Does the guide recommend one country or promise lower costs?
No. It gives you a way to evaluate places against your own needs, using actual quotes, observations, and an all-in budget. Cost figures in the worked examples are illustrative, not current market prices.
Are the worksheets printable, and does this replace professional advice?
The book contains twelve printable workbook tools. It provides general education, not personalized immigration, medical, insurance, tax, legal, or financial advice. Verify consequential details with current official sources and qualified professionals.
What format is the book?
A 208-page PDF, designed at A5. It reads comfortably on phones, tablets and computers, and prints cleanly at home.
How do I get it?
Right after checkout you’ll receive a download link by email (Gumroad). No account or app needed.
Can I read it on my phone or e-reader?
Yes — any PDF reader works. It looks best on a tablet or computer; on small screens you can zoom in. Kindle and other e-readers open PDFs too, at a smaller size.
Can I print it?
Yes. Your copy is licensed for personal use: print it, write on it, keep it within reach.
The 90-Day Retirement Relocation Test

Ready when you are

A better retirement decision begins with a better test.

Keep the dream. Check the details. Choose the next step that your own evidence supports.

Get the retirement test guide$29$71−59%
  • Instant download
  • 208 pages
  • 12 worksheets
The 90-Day Retirement Relocation TestInstant download
Get the book$29$71−59%