Geoff and Vicky Wells are active baby boomers. Geoff was born in 1946, so he is at the leading edge of the population wave. Vicky, born in 1951, is a few years behind but still a boomer.
In 1999 we bought a vacation home on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera and are fortunate to still be able to spend several months there, each winter, while spending our summers in Northern Ontario. Any “leftover” time is usually taken up traveling around Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as you’ll see from our various blog posts.
We were both able to “retire” early – Vicky at the tender age of only 54, and Geoff at 60.
Retirement, to us, has always meant reaching the point where we don’t have to work in order to exist. It doesn’t mean not working – but rather working on projects that we enjoy. While we love sitting on our deck in Eleuthera enjoying the views of the Atlantic and Caribbean oceans and pottering in our garden in Northern Ontario, if that’s all we did we would slowly go mad.
We found we each have a love of writing – both fiction and non-fiction – and we have already published several books, with several more in the pipeline.
Because we share a profound love of travel, we are always looking for ways to get the most “bang for our buck” so we can travel as much as possible even with limited funds.
We’ve blogged about a 7-month long trip we took in 2010 that included destinations in North America (both the U.S. and Canada) and Europe. It also included three cruises – Alaska, Greek Islands and TransAtlantic. The entire trip was done on only $84/day!
Another set of blog posts documents a 4-month long trip to Europe, in 2014, which included stops in Iceland, the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Denmark, as well as a Mediterranean cruise that included stops in Tunisia, Italy (including Rome) and Malta. This trip concluded with a TransAtlantic cruise that began in Copenhagen and ended in Los Angeles with a transit of the Panama Canal on it’s 100th birthday!
We hope to have many, many more adventures and to document them so we can show that, even at our age (and our income), life can still be enjoyed to the fullest.
Our joints are arthritic, our “senior moments” are becoming more frequent and our funds are limited but, damn it, we are going to have fun!
We hope you will join us.
Hi Geoff,
I was trying to find a place to contact you about an error I found in your Cornish pastie book (which I was reading on my iPad at 2.30 this morning.) In the conversion section you write, “The US gallon is larger than the Imperial gallon. 1 gallon (Imperial) = 1.2 gallons (US)” – but this is incorrect.
Your conversion rate is right but the US gallon is, in fact, SMALLER than the Imperial gallon; it takes MORE (1.2) US gallons to = 1 Imperial. The US fluid pint is 16 fl oz while the Imperial fluid pint = 20 fl oz.
Just thought you’d like to know this b/c you can probably pretty easily put in right in the e-book. I British and have lived in the US for nearly 30 years, currently in Vermont, and I enjoy your books. Thank you. Jennie
Hi Jennie,
Good catch.
You are absolutely right and in most versions of the book I corrected this before going to press. I will get this fixed as soon as possible. I just hope the error didn’t creep into one of the foreign language versions, like Japanese for example, as I would never be able to find it.
Geoff
Hi Geoff & Vicky, Just discovered your books, and I’d like to purchase several as Christmas gifts. Can I order from you? Diane Smith
Hi, Diane,
Thanks for your comment. If you let us know which books your are interested in, we would be happy to offer you a 20% discount on each of them through Createspace. We just need to know which books because the discount codes are set up per book.
Hope this answers your questions.
Regards,
Vicky
Hi Geoff
This is Michael Rocharde, another expat from the UK who’s been developing FileMaker solutions since 1987. Am currently living in Las Vegas but Karen and I are interested in relocating to the Bahamas and am reaching out for some thoughts and advice; that is if you have any time in your schedule? I don’t know much about the Bahamas although a very wealthy great-aunt lived there for a number of years until she crashed her Rolls-Royce into a bridge in Nassau and killed herself. I hear that Nassau is quite dangerous but we’re more interested in living on a smaller island or just somewhere quiet and peaceful. Not looking to buy so only interested in rental properties but have a decent budget. Plus, minuses, any thoughts would be gratefully received. TIA
Hi Michael,
We bought our home here in Eleuthera over 20 years ago and things were a lot different then. Dial-up Internet was a challenge when you had to submit weekly builds to a client. Island life is not for everyone so I would suggest you don’t burn your bridges until you have tried it for a while.
So long as you can secure off island work you should have no problem now. Internet is now about 16mps down but only 1mps up – not great but enough if you are patient.
You are right about Nassau but it is totally different on the out islands. Come check it out.
Contact me directly if you want any specific info.
BTW – Sorry about the state of the website. WP 5 just dropped and I’m taking the opportunity to rework all my sites and it’s turned out to be a bigger job than I thought.