Going Gypsy

We took early retirement in the summer of 2013, sold the house, put what we wanted to keep into storage, and are now 'going gypsy'. This is the record of how that's going... If you'd like to contact us, send an email to: mccaffrey2013@gmail.com

Time machine - ten years later...

Interesting times! Right now we find ourselves with few responsibilities and a golden opportunity to seriously look into the big questions of life. For everyone who has ever tried, there isn't an obvious way of going about this... One possibility from ancient traditions of India is where people in the later stages of their lives become sannyasins - they leave behind worldly pursuits and wander the world seeking wisdom. That seems like a promising idea - but how do you do something like that in the world today? We've decided to try to figure this out - to step out, live lightly, and see the world more clearly. This blog is the record of how that's going...

In the summer of 2013 we sold our house, stored what we wanted to keep and started to travel. The pattern for now is taking 3-month trips in the fall and winter, with the Christmas season and summers spent in Canada. We travelled to northern Spain for 3 months starting mid-September, 2013 and walked 1200 km on the el Camino de Santiago de Compostelo pilgrimage route. In January 2014 we went to India for three months and spent about a week in each of a dozen different places around the subcontinent. Fall of 2014 we walked another 1200 km over 2-1/2 months on the Buddhist pilgrimage island of Shikoku, Japan, and 3-1/2 months of winter 2015 were spend in Belize, mostly on the island of Caye Caulker. Winter of 2016 we travelled to Sri Lanka. This was followed by France, Costa Rica and Vietnam. If you go to the tabs on the upper left side of this page you can see photos of these travels.

Roxanne - saying goodbye. Roxanne had worked as a pre-school teacher.

Roxanne - saying goodbye 2

John - saying goodbye. John had worked as a research physicist.

After selling the house, for the month of August 2013 we rented a place on the Gatineau River about 5 km from Wakefield, Quebec.

We were walking 10 or 20 km a day to get ready for Spain. Saw lots of interesting sites... here's the world's smallest school bus.

Mu

Wakefield art

Tree pose

We spent early September hiking near Barry's Bay, Ontario getting ready for Spain.

John caught cheatin' with Google map...

Flew to Pisa on Sept. 11/13. Spent a couple days at Il Convento.

Marcel, Martina and John. Now on to St. Jean Pied de Port, France, and the beginning of the el Camino.... (Please go to the el Camino pages - go to the top of this page and click on: "How it began...", "el Camino,Sept/2013", "el Camino,Oct/2013" or "el Camino,Oct-Part2 ")