Full Time Roaming - How To Travel Without A Home Base

The fantasy of full-time travel is simple: sell the house, grab your bags, and go wherever you want. The reality is both better and messier. We talk through what “full-time roaming” actually means when there’s no reset button, no familiar place to return to, and every move and decision is on you.

We share what surprised us most when we tried full-time travel ourselves, including the unglamorous systems that suddenly matter a lot: mail, physical address requirements, banking and credit cards, renewing a driver’s license, and the limits of virtual mailbox services like PMBs. We also get into the practical side of downsizing, whether it’s worth storing a car, and how eliminating a home base can cut recurring costs while introducing new logistical headaches.

Health and comfort matter too. We discuss prescription medication access abroad, why over-the-counter rules vary by country, and how routines make long-term travel sustainable. From choosing walkable neighborhoods to slowing your pace with longer stays, we explain how “slow travel” can feel more like real life and less like a never-ending sprint.

We also zoom out to the bigger point: not everyone needs to travel full-time to get what they want from travel. Sometimes part-time roaming or extended getaways offer the best balance, especially when family traditions and a home base still matter. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s dreaming of long-term travel, and leave a quick review so more travelers can find us.

And if you want to go deeper, you can check out my book, Wherever We May Roam: Finding Your Travel Style, where I walk through all of this in more detail. If you have any questions, a topic you would like discussed, or would like to be on our show, email us at jim@jimsantosbooks.com.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Big Dream

Jim 0:00

If you've ever thought about traveling longer but weren't sure how to make it work, you're not as far off as you think. Welcome to Wherever We May Roam, the new phase of travel to Jim and Rita. This podcast is about discovering your own travel style to explore the world. I'm Jim Santos, and along with my wife Rita, we spent more than 16 years traveling. Sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a few months, and sometimes a whole lot longer. And what we've learned is this: there's no right or wrong way to travel. Some people take extended getaways, some roam part-time, some work from the road, and some make travel a full-time lifestyle. This podcast is about helping you figure out what works for you and how to make it happen in the real world. So whether you're planning your next trip or thinking about something bigger, we're glad you're here. Let's get started. Hello everybody out there in Podcast Land, and welcome back to Wherever We May Roam Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm Jim Santos, joined by my lovely wife Rita, and over the last few episodes we've talked about taking extended getaways, being a part-time roamer, and we touched on the digital nomad lifestyle. Today we'll be looking at the big one, becoming a full-time roamer. Now we've been surprised by the number of people we've run into that have been interested in this or actually doing this, so for some people this is really the dream. You have no home base, no fixed schedule. You're just moving from place to place, wherever you want, and whenever you want. We're talking about full-time travel. And fans of the show know that Rita and I tried this ourselves in 2024. But there is a part that most people don't think about. When you don't have a home base, everything becomes your responsibility. Every move, every decision, and every detail. And that can change the experience in ways that sometimes people don't really expect. But I have to say, Rita, that part, the logistics part, that didn't bother me at all. Did you ever feel overwhelmed with the actual process of traveling or planning?

Rita 2:08

Not really. No, because we had been we've been traveling our whole lives.

Jim 2:13

Yeah.

Rita 2:13

So no, it just seemed like it seemed normal.

Jim 2:17

Yeah, we we did have a a big background of planning longer and extended trips also.

unknown 2:22

Right.

Jim 2:23

So this is really just stringing several extended trips together.

Rita 2:27

Right.

Jim 2:27

So let's get a definition

What Full-Time Roaming Means

Jim 2:29

down here first. A full-time roamer is exactly what it sounds like. You're always traveling. You don't have a home base, so you don't go home at the end of a trip. Now you may go visit family and friends, so it's not like you're never seeing any place familiar, but travel itself becomes your lifestyle. And that can create a completely different dynamic than any other type of travel. Because there's there's no reset button, there's no familiar place that you can return to and relax. One thing about the long-term roaming, we we talked about with part-time roaming, there can be problems with like your your mail taking care of a home base and things like that while you're gone.

Mail Addresses And Driver’s License Hurdles

Jim 3:05

When you're doing full-time roaming, you don't have that home base to take care of, but there are still some problems with getting started. And that mail is probably the biggest issue, don't you think?

Rita 3:15

Oh, yes. That and possibly storing a car. Depends on what you what you got rid of, what you kept, what your issues are going to be.

Jim 3:25

Yeah, the thing about the mail though is that there are some things where you need to have a physical address.

Rita 3:31

Like for banks or credit cards.

Jim 3:33

Yeah, for some banks and credit cards you have to have a physical address. Now we'll we'll talk in later episodes about some things like setting up a virtual mail account. But those virtual mail accounts are called PMBs, personal mail boxes.

Rita 3:45

Right.

Jim 3:46

And they're not looked at as post office boxes, so you can get deliveries there and things like that. And some businesses will accept those as your address.

Rita 3:54

And the government doesn't accept that as your address sometimes.

Jim 3:58

Yeah, uh for as far as uh like voting records.

Rita 4:01

Right.

Jim 4:01

You can't use a PMB as your home address. Uh if you're planning on ever renting a car again when you're back in the US, if you don't have a driver's license from another country, to keep your license current in the U.S., you're gonna have to have a physical address.

Rita 4:16

Exactly.

Jim 4:16

So they won't accept a PMB. So there are some difficulties and some trade-offs and things that you have to work around to do this. So it can be a little more complicated getting started.

Car Storage And What To Keep

Jim 4:25

Now, Rita, you mentioned the car. Modern cars, you can leave garage for up to like three months at a time without having a lot of concern. I mean, it's going to be the wheels will be a little odd for a while. Right.

Rita 4:38

Until they round again. Yeah.

Jim 4:40

But then again, finding a place to store it safely is going to be difficult and or expensive. Keeping it with relatives is not always a great thing to do.

Rita 4:50

Right. Yeah, because you know, our our children have teenagers who have cars and they're on overload with cars themselves. And honestly, finding car storage, that was almost impossible.

Jim 5:05

That was much harder than storing some of our households.

Rita 5:07

It was much harder. I mean, I wouldn't have put a pig in some of those places, let alone my car.

Cutting Costs Without A Home

Jim 5:15

So on the one hand, if you're getting rid of your home base, you're freeing yourself up from a lot of expenses and a lot of responsibilities. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Rita 5:22

You are, and that and that's that's a really great feeling.

Jim 5:26

Yeah. Yeah, that is very nice. You have no property taxes, there's no home insurance that you're paying.

Rita 5:31

Right.

Jim 5:32

We kept a storage unit that we put a bunch of things in, climate controlled storage unit.

Rita 5:36

Right.

Jim 5:37

But really, we greatly reduced our monthly expenses.

Rita 5:41

We had yeah.

Jim 5:42

Less than $1,000, probably around $700 a month.

Rita 5:44

Yeah. That was keeping our insurances and keeping our healthcare insurance paying for that storage unit. Yeah. That's right.

Jim 5:55

Yeah, these are all things that we still have to pay for. But then there are some banking issues, some credit card issues. We mentioned that some of these places do not want you to have a personal mailbox.

Rita 6:05

Right.

Jim 6:05

So you have to have a physical address for that. So that can be complicated. Uh again, you can try to use a friend or a relative.

Rita 6:12

Which we have done. It's done, but it's not optimal.

Jim 6:16

But to prove that you actually live there, you generally have to show like a utility bill or or a rental lease or a property tax statement, something like that.

Rita 6:26

Right.

Jim 6:26

And that can be tricky to try to share with somebody. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Rita 6:30

Plus, we didn't want to have to have our address in a state that taxed our retirement.

Jim 6:36

Right. Now we got around that when we were living in Ecuador full-time because we had a property in the U.S. that we owned that we were renting out.

Rita 6:43

Right. And we used that as our permanent address. Right.

Jim 6:51

So we had proof that we had an address there. Now, was that technically fraud because we weren't actually living there? It was a physical address, but we weren't living there. Well, we don't really know, but actually we came back before we had to renew our driver's license. So we never really put it to

Medications And Healthcare Planning

Jim 7:06

the test. Another issue, of course, is if you're on any prescription drugs. Now there are a wide variety of things we think of as prescription drugs that you can get in other countries, but it varies a lot. We've been in South American countries where you could pretty much ask for anything short of ovium.

Rita 7:21

Yeah.

Jim 7:21

And they'll just sell it to you.

Rita 7:23

Yeah, we had no problem getting any type of prescription drug that we needed.

Jim 7:28

Yeah, but on the other hand, in Vienna, you're I think you were just looking for something for your sinus.

Rita 7:32

Yeah.

Jim 7:32

And they couldn't sell it to you without a prescription.

Rita 7:35

No.

Jim 7:35

Yeah, so you're going to find some variation there. So that takes some planning too. If you're on regular medication, you want to make sure you have a a way that you can keep getting that medication.

Rita 7:44

Yeah. Yeah. Europe has very minimal over-the-counter

When Travel Becomes Normal Life

Rita 7:49

drugs.

Jim 7:49

Now, at first, when you're doing full-time roaming, it feels like total freedom. And in many ways it really is. I mean, when we closed on our home, I didn't feel concerned at all about being homeless. How how did you feel then we walked out of closing?

Rita 8:04

No, because we'd only been in our home that year five weeks.

Jim 8:10

Yeah, I think about five weeks. And four of that was spent packing stuff and selling it and getting ready to do it.

Rita 8:14

Yeah, yeah, that was so that was part of the five weeks that we were there. So no, I I didn't I didn't know. We had gotten rid of a rental property we had too, as well as that house getting ready. Right.

Jim 8:34

So I think there just didn't seem to really be any big transition for us.

Rita 8:38

No.

Jim 8:38

And that's uh part of the the enjoyment of this, that travel does become normal. You're not really on a trip anymore. You're just living your life and it just happens to be in different places.

Rita 8:47

Yeah.

Jim 8:48

Yeah. Now we still had routines. There was still stuff that we had to do. It was just it just shifted a little bit. Our routines were basically learning how to pack and unpack and how to find the groceries we needed, things like that, getting used to a new environment before we moved on. Learning a little bit of the language so we could at least say hello and thank you.

Rita 9:08

But honestly, we had been doing all of that for years before we just always had a permanent house.

Jim 9:14

Yeah. Yeah, so it really didn't feel like that big a deal for us.

Rita 9:17

It didn't. Right.

Jim 9:28

That dealing with that was not really that big of a deal. It wasn't that much different from doing it from home.

Rita 9:34

The only thing I remember my credit card got compromised, and so I had to call the credit card company and cancel that card. And we had no way to get a new card mailed to us.

Jim 9:47

Yeah, that's one of the reasons that we use uh Apple wallet.

Rita 9:50

Yeah, so it was on my phone.

Jim 9:52

On our phone, because they can update the phone immediately.

Rita 9:54

Right.

Jim 9:55

When that's happened to us before, like with the Chase card.

Rita 9:57

Right.

Jim 9:58

You hung up the phone, we looked on our phone and the wallet and it had already updated.

Rita 10:02

Right. So we continue. But that that was true to the to living and w and traveling in Europe, but I don't know if it's true everywhere that you could do that, that you didn't need a hard copy of your card.

Jim 10:16

Yeah, the it does come up. In fact, we ran into that when we were in Panama and uh my American Express card was compromised. I had a new one on my wallet, but when we got to a lounge and went to go into the lounge, they wouldn't accept it on the phone. And they wouldn't use mine to Well, they would have used yours, but we'd still have to pay an extra fee for that.

Rita 10:36

That's right. They wanted you to pay the extra fee. Yeah.

Jim 10:38

I think they were just being pains in the ass, really. I don't know. They probably could have done it.

Rita 10:42

I know that it's never bothered it's when that it's happened to us several times that our cards have been compromised in Europe and we didn't miss a beat.

Jim 10:50

But yeah, but in other lounges we've walked up to the desk and registered by just holding our phone up.

Rita 10:55

That's true. We have. Yeah.

Jim 10:57

I think we just didn't feel like a litness in. We we probably look too uh too relaxed. To second or third class.

Rita 11:05

Probably.

Jim 11:07

So you are gonna have good days and bad days while you're traveling, and that's something to keep in mind because you're not gonna have those comforts of home there when you're you're having a bad day.

Rita 11:15

Right.

Jim 11:16

But when you do spend an extended amount of time moving from place to place, you start to realize that your challenges aren't really about the travel part. That's really the easy part. They're about the lifestyle itself.

Rita 11:26

Yeah.

Jim 11:27

You know, what are you gonna do when you just really need to relax and recharge a bit? Is the constant transition to the different place after a different place going to affect you? And what happens if you just want to take things easy for a while? Well, those are real questions, but I never really felt like we had that problem. I mean, I enjoyed every place we stayed. I always look forward to the next stop. Maybe we just didn't do it long enough to get tired of it. But did you ever feel like you just wanted to stop for a while?

Rita 11:55

No.

Jim 11:55

Yeah.

Rita 11:56

No, I didn't. No, uh because we have our travel routines, we stick to those. If if we're tired and we want to spend longer, well, like we spent six weeks in Panama.

Jim 12:06

Yeah, the places we've been have just been so interesting, and really the places we stayed have been pretty comfortable.

Rita 12:10

Right. We've lucked out.

Jim 12:12

Yeah, it hasn't really felt like much of a hardship.

Rita 12:15

No. And you know, I think when we've hit it hard on short, shorter travel excursions, we then like find a luxurious hotel and stay in it for a week and regroup.

Slow Travel And Smarter Stay Choices

Jim 12:27

Yeah, I think um when you're doing this, it's important to from time to time slow down your pace a bit.

Rita 12:33

Yeah.

Jim 12:34

And make sure that you you do have some kind of routine that you're sticking to. For us it's probably you know, we first get there, we do a lot of walking around to get the kind of the lay of the land, find out where the shops are and everything.

Rita 12:46

Where the metro is.

Jim 12:48

Yeah, we try to have our breakfast at home and decide what we're doing that day. We're pretty careful too about choosing the locations that we stay at. And this can be tricky sometimes because it could be more expensive staying in like a downtown historic district.

Rita 13:02

Right.

Jim 13:02

But on the other hand, maybe you're not paying as much to travel.

Rita 13:06

Exactly.

Jim 13:06

Because everything you want to see is in walking distance or you can use local transit. And on the other hand, maybe a more expensive hotel is a better deal because it includes breakfast and because you are downtown in the areas that you want to see.

Rita 13:19

Yeah.

Jim 13:19

You know, getting a bargain Airbnb that's out in the countryside can end up costing you money and time from trying to go back and forth from all the places you want to see.

Rita 13:29

I think it actually depends on are you touring the country or are you wanting to tour just an area of that country.

Jim 13:39

Aaron Powell For the world capitals that we've been to, we tend to try to stay in the historic district or near the historic district because we're mostly going to be walking around.

Rita 13:47

Yeah. And and we like to use their subways or metros, whatever they call it.

Jim 13:51

Aaron Powell But the month we spent in Ireland, because we were renting a car so that we could go and see more of it, we were a little more flexible about where we were staying.

Rita 13:58

Aaron Powell We really wanted to see the countryside, not just Dublin and Galway, we and Belfast. We wanted to we wanted to see the country.

Jim 14:07

Yeah, and we stayed at some places that were down little country lanes. They were surrounded by cows and foxes and they were they were wonderful.

Rita 14:16

Yeah, we we stayed, yeah, on that family farm with that little boy. He was so sweet. Yeah, we enjoyed it. Enjoyed that.

Jim 14:23

Yeah, so full-time travel isn't necessarily about constant motion, but it's about sustainable movement. So you have to be traveling in a way that doesn't stress you but also keeps you interested. Finding that balance is going to be different for everybody. It's really kind of a different mindset to that. Um and I think you're right. I think if we hadn't done so much extended travel before or lived in another country for a few years, it would have been a lot more difficult.

Rita 14:48

Yeah, it never seems to be a challenge. I mean, even when the alphabet is not the same, like when we were in Turkey.

Jim 14:57

Or Greece.

Rita 14:58

Or Greece. It just seems like we have a rhythm and we just we just fall in.

Jim 15:05

In fact, I I really think I was thinking about this the other day, if it hadn't been for COVID, we probably would have started part-time roaming in 2020.

Rita 15:12

Right.

Jim 15:13

And transitioned to full-time after a year or so.

Rita 15:16

I think so.

Jim 15:16

I mean, that was our original plan when we left Ecuador was because we wanted to do it.

Rita 15:21

To travel. Yep.

Jim 15:23

So we came back to the U.S., we found a home in Knoxville, we bought a another property, it was only a mile from our home, and set it up as a rental property.

Rita 15:31

Right.

Jim 15:31

Found a long-term tenant, and that finished up in uh March of 2019.

Rita 15:36

Right.

Jim 15:36

And I think it was like uh a month later they started shutting down travel.

Rita 15:40

Exactly. Yeah. Yes.

Jim 15:43

So so we lost several years there. And I think you know, at the time we had that rental income coming in, I think we would have been encouraged maybe to sell our house and add that rental income to our travel budget. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Rita 15:53

Because we could have used that rental house as our permanent address. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim 15:58

Would have had the extra income coming in too. So we would have been no problem at all with affording traveling wherever we wanted.

Rita 16:04

Right.

Jim 16:04

And we would have had the income from the sale of the house, setting some point earning interest. So yeah, COVID really did interrupt our our lifestyle there.

Why A Home Base Wins For Us

Jim 16:13

And here is something else that's important to remember. Not everyone needs to travel full-time to get what they want from travel. And for many people, part-time roaming or even extended getaways offers a barr a better balance. And really that's where we are now. I turned 68 this year. Rita well, let's just say Rita's a bit older.

Rita 16:33

I'm in my 70s.

Jim 16:34

And at this point in our lives, having a home base and sticking to extended getaways and part-time roaming really works best for us.

Rita 16:41

It really does. And and it's nice, we had routines when we were in the U.S. that we always had our children at Thanksgiving and different routines with our family. And when you don't have a home, it's kind of hard to stick to any of that.

Jim 16:57

Yeah. Yeah, we like having a bunch of family over for Thanksgiving. Uh one of our sons usually comes to visit at Christmas time.

Rita 17:03

Yeah.

Jim 17:04

And then the summer is when we can really see our most of our grandkids while they're out of school.

Rita 17:09

Yeah, we do the the tr grandchild circuit drive all all over the US seeing everybody.

Jim 17:14

Yeah. So for us with the home base, eliminates all those problems about permanent address and you know having your mail and things like that. A place to keep the car.

Rita 17:23

And plus, wow, when you come back off of a trip, no matter how many months it's been, and you walk into your really nice house and everything's exactly the way it should be, and you can just you just don't miss a beat. Yeah, it's kind of nice. It's kind of yeah. It's I think it's that's where we are.

Jim 17:44

Yeah. I still think if we had been able to start six years ago like we had planned, yeah, we might still be roaming. Really, I I can't stress enough how much it did not seem to be a strain. Uh traveling that much.

Rita 17:55

It didn't.

Jim 17:56

And part of that is because we had finally developed a good packing strategy.

Rita 18:00

Yeah.

Jim 18:00

We weren't lugging around a lot more weight or anything.

Rita 18:03

Yeah.

Jim 18:06

We'll have a whole episode about packing and how to pack for for longer trips.

Rita 18:09

Right.

Jim 18:10

So the goal isn't to chase a lifestyle that looks exciting or to lock yourself into a certain role that I'm a full-time roamer, I have to stick to this forever.

Rita 18:18

Right. And you don't.

Jim 18:19

No.

Rita 18:19

No.

Jim 18:20

The idea is to build something that actually fits your life. And if you're trying to figure out which version of travel works for you, that's exactly what I break down in wherever we may roam, finding your travel style. Now, next time we'll take a look at a key part of finding your travel style, and that's figuring out just what you can afford. We'll go over setting up a budget, and we'll talk about some money-saving travel tips. So until then, safe travels, and remember that we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.

Next Steps And How To Connect

Jim 18:56

If you've been thinking about traveling longer or just traveling better, we hope this episode gave you a few more ideas. Remember, there's no right or wrong way to explore the world. Only the way that works for you. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the podcast, and if you have a moment, leave a quick review. It really helps more people find us. And if you want to go deeper, you can check out my book, Wherever We May Roam, Finding Your Travel Style, where I walk through all of this in more detail. You can search for it on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Audiobook, or just use the link on our podcast page. If you have any questions, a topic you would like discussed, or would like to be on our show, email us at Jim at Jim Santosbooks.com. Thanks for listening, and as always, safe travels wherever you may roam.