Our Retirement Adventure Begins

It became apparent after the first five days of our retirement adventure that posting each days events and photos on Facebook and sending out e-mails to family and friends was not going to work.  We were spending more time telling all of you about our adventures than we were actually going out on our adventures.  So on this sixth day, which we will call our day of rest in our new apartment, we will begin Bob and Di's Retirement Adventure blog.  This will be the soul source of information on our retirement adventure.

Our retirement adventure actually began back a few months ago.  It became apparent to us that the economy in the U.S. was not going to allow us to retire in the lifestyle that we wanted.  The economy was not going to allow us five more productive years so that we could retire at 66 in comfort in the US.  We also were getting unhappy with the extreme hot Florida weather and the high electric bill that came with it.  It was time to find something new.

It did not take us long to discover that there was nowhere in the U.S. that we could afford or that we could enjoy in retirement..  It was either too expensive or too hot or too cold or too much snow and on and on.  So we decided to look outside the U.S.  It didn't take us long to eliminate all other countries but Ecuador.  Only Ecuador fit everything we were looking for.  We researched Ecuador for a couple of months and decided that Cuenca was the city that would most fit our needs and desires.

So what made us decide to look at retirement in Cuenca Ecuador?  The answers are cost of living, quality of life, the weather, the scenery, the public transportation, the lack of need to own an automobile, the chance to explore a new part of the world, to be able to afford to travel, the adventure.  Will there be hurdles in our path?  You bet but that is part of the adventure.   In this blog you will learn of all of those hurdles and all of the excitement, enjoyment and adventure as we experience it.

The next step was obvious.  We needed to go to Cuenca and be sure that it was in fact what we wanted.  We decided on the dates and length of our trip.  We were going for five weeks including travel days.  We booked all of our flights and hotels and our apartment.  Now we had to wait.  We had finished our bookings by the end of July and our flight wasn't until September 23rd.  Never give Di almost two months to think about what to do before our adventure.  By the time we left to go and decide whether we wanted to retire in Cuenca, Di had sold half our belongings and furniture and put the house up for sale and had already made up our minds.

So this will begin Bob and Di's Retirement Adventure.  Off to Cuenca Ecuador we go.