Have you ever thought about how to spend your life after retirement, well imagine this and see how you feel -- retiring early and visiting exotic locations on a cruise ship with delicious food and meeting different people. It sounds wonderful and at the same time, it cost a lot. But, the couple Richard and his wife Angelyn Burk, 53 don’t agree with it.
They are living the best days of their life at just $44 a night each by hopping from ship to ship. Since May 2021 the couple considered the cruise ships as their home and has no idea of going back to their lives as landlubbers. Angelyn boarded her first cruise in 1992 and it changed her life goals.
“In the beginning, we had our plans of traveling to different countries each month, and eventually when we got older we wanted to retire cruise ships,” Angelyn told 7 News. However, a few years back, she masticate the numbers and found they could begin sooner than expected. She said, “We both love traveling and we were looking for a way to continuously travel that would financially suit us in our retirement days.”
They were searching for deals through loyalty memberships and after factoring in the potential sale price of their home, they realize their dream was completely affordable. The rough estimation made sense. If they spend $88 per night on a cruise ship, it would cost around $32,120 a year. And currently, the average price of a home in Seattle for a couple is around $958,027 which would also include a mortgage that would cost nearly $50,000 a year.
Moreover, they need not pay for groceries on a cruise ship. The Burks were determined to live their dream and by being responsible in their lifetime they made it happen. “We were careful throughout our lives to save and achieve our goal,” she said. “We prefer real-life experiences rather than materialistic things.”
“Cruising takes away the stress involved in travel. We don’t have to go through the complications of booking restaurants, hotels, and transportation, it is purely leisure travel in our budget,” she told 7 News. They just travel with two suitcases and if they need anything they would buy it on the ship. But the couple needs to be cautious about the spread of COV-19. The epidemic is more prone in close quarters and recently around 100 people were tested positive in a cruise ship docked in Seattle.
The CDC suggests that passengers get the vaccinations before boarding the ship and people who are immunocompromised should consult their doctors before traveling. After leaving the mainland and their jobs behind the couple have been on a 50-day cruise around the Adriatic Sea, enjoying the sight of Europe, and a 51-day cruise from Seattle to Sydney Australia. They enjoyed cruising to Italy, Iceland, the Bahamas, and Canada but their favorite place was Singapore.
