2019 was certainly a year on the move for us. We began our year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, housesitting in a luxury apartment for a month. It had full-length windows along one side with a balcony overlooking the city, and access to a fantastic pool and gym. Watching the New Year’s fireworks display in comfort […]

When Linda Martinez and Steve Brenner opened their hostel, The Beehive, in Rome, they couldn’t have picked a better name. There is always a buzz of voices in the cozy courtyard garden and the social gathering room, as folks from around the neighborhood and across the world mingle. This sense of community is a happy […]

I’ve recently been collecting lots of stories about retiree regrets for a screenplay I want to write. These regrets, I think, offer a particularly poignant insight because: Here’s this collection of people who are looking at the sunset of life, and they’re analyzing all the choices they made over a lifetime—the paths they took and […]

I was pretty sure that when I left my healthcare executive job in 2011 to move overseas, I was going to be retired. I’d had enough of long work hours in a stressful position, and I was ready to kick back, relax, and enjoy my life in Medellín—the City of Eternal Spring. But a funny […]

I wonder what my grandmother’s retirement would have been, given a different set of circumstances. She loved to travel and I know there were places in Europe and South America she always wanted to see. And after sharing a house with her sister for more than three decades (the two got on like territorial wolverines), […]

The Czech letter Ř. Honestly, I don’t think it should exist. But I concede a certain bias here. See, I’m American, born and raised. Never had to trill an R and mash it together unnaturally with a J sound. Or scrunch it into a string of consonants, sans vowels, not meant to be married. Now, […]

When I moved to France in 2010, I brought the small selection of publications that had taught me everything I knew about the country to that point—four grammar books, a travel guidebook, The French Chef cookbook by Julia Child, and The French Chef DVD collection. From these books, I’d learned that France was a beautiful country and that I […]

“What could I possibly do as an online freelancer?” That question, or some variation of it, is the one I’m most frequently asked when I speak at events, workshops, and in online training programs. It’s certainly a valid question, but it also speaks to the doubts many baby boomers feel about their ability to compete […]

Once a niche market, wellness has gone mainstream, permeating our lives in more and more ways: yoga, healthy eating, personal care and beauty, nutrition and weight-loss, meditation, spa retreats, and Fitbits. For budding entrepreneurs, this market offers endless possibilities, which anyone can tap into. “One day I was visiting my mother in Ireland and went […]