Spending the holidays at the ranch is my cue to look ahead and share with you our plans for the upcoming year. And y’all, this one is a doozy. In 2024 we will visit six countries on four continents, traveling by planes, trains, ferries, RVs, cars and bicycles. It is an exciting year of travel that also includes lots of down time so we can visit with our kids and also so we don’t get burned out. Here’s a look at what’s coming up.
January & February – Cuenca, Ecuador
At some point during the past few months I decided another winter in Europe was not in the cards. We’ve enjoyed all the warm weather countries we visited but I was ready for a new adventure. After a bit of research, we decided on somewhere in South America, and finally settled on Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador at an elevation of nearly 8,400 feet in the mountains. Because Cuenca is so close to the equator, the weather there is like springtime all year ’round. It sounded like a great place to stay at a Airbnb for a couple of months which will give us time to see all the things.
I messaged my friend Kelly and told her our plans. Not long after, she and Bill booked their tickets to Cuenca and secured an apartment in the same building as us, on the third floor. Because we are at high altitude, I figure after a day out, we will stop at their place to catch our breath before making the hike to our place on the fifth floor. There is no elevator! They are staying for one month, so hopefully by the time they leave we will be in good enough shape to make it all the way upstairs for the next month. We should be pretty fit when our stay in Cuenca is over. We all arrive in Cuenca on December 30th, so we’ll be in a new country, on a new-to-us continent for New Year’s Eve!
March – Paris, France
By the time we return to Paris on March 1st, we will not have seen Bijou for over four months. She is currently resting at a lovely farm near Charles de Gaulle airport, hopefully enjoying her holidays. We plan to stay at our favorite campground in Paris upon our return. Steven will take a few days to fly to Dublin to spend time with his family, while I will enjoy Paris all by myself. I will be busy, though, because the time has finally come to prepare Bijou to be put up for sale. I know. It makes me choke up just thinking about it. I get so freaking attached to the vehicles that provide us both transportation and safe harbor during our nomadic life, it is so sad when we have to say goodbye. We both still think of Alfred Hitchpop and Scoopy, and no doubt we will always look back on our time in Bijou with great fondness. We have really been so lucky! If any of you are thinking of perhaps making the change to a full or part time nomadic lifestyle and would like to include a European chapter, give us a shout!
April – Istanbul, Turkey
As some of you probably know, after putting Bijou in storage at the end of October, we flew to Istanbul where we stayed for five weeks. I have not had the time to blog about that trip, but will do so by combining it with the return trip. This trip is part two of our efforts to take advantage of the fantastic medical tourism available in Turkey before returning back to the U.S. I’ll tell you more about all this in a future blog post.
Big News! May – Texas, US
Every year we review where we’ve been and what we still want to do, and every year we wonder if it is time for us to move back to the U.S. Until now, we’ve not been ready. I can’t say even now we are 100% ready, the prospect of leaving Europe leaves us both kind of sad. At the same time, we want to be closer to family, so now is the right time for us. From Istanbul, we will fly to Texas and begin a new chapter in our lives.
But wait! Our nomadic lifestyle is far from over, it has just taken a different turn. Waiting for us at the ranch is Ruby Red, our new-to-us 2017 Tiffin Allegro Open Road Red which we literally purchased last week. I found her online, we did a quick Zoom walkthrough, then made an offer which was accepted. We booked our plane tickets and I messaged Kelly and Bill, who were in Florida for the holidays, and asked if they could meet us in Orlando and help inspect her, which they did. Between the four of us we gave her a good inspection, then the next day sent her over to Freightliner. While Ruby Red was getting poked and prodded by the folks at Freightliner, we hit up Walmart and went on a shopping spree to kit her out for the shakedown trip home.
Over the next six days we drove nearly 1300 miles through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and finally Texas on our way home. Well, we did briefly dip into Georgia, but that was by accident. We were yakking to each other about how much we love Ruby Red and missed our turn to go west. Beyond that, our trip was not without drama, but having previously driven a big rig, we kinda knew what we were doing. Ruby Red has loads of alarms and she loves to set them off. We figured them all out, and managed to keep rolling.
I want to tell you all about her, but I’ll save the walkthrough for a future post. Just know that she will be patiently waiting for us when we return to the ranch in May and we are very excited to begin our new nomadic chapter with Ruby Red as our new home on wheels.
June – September – Mount Vernon, WA
When we leave the ranch we will make our way to the Pacific Northwest with our destination being the Skagit Valley RV Park in Mount Vernon, WA. Having lived in the Seattle area for 14 years, this is somewhat of a homecoming for us. More importantly, two of our three adult children live in this area, and the third, is just down the coast in San Diego. In June, our son Zac will graduate from Western Washington University with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, with an emphasis on Freshwater and Terrestrial Ecology. To say we are proud of him would be an understatement. We want to be there with him and celebrate his achievement.
Other than seeing friends and spending time with our kiddos over the summer months, Steven and I have only one goal, and that is to hit the gym. It will be the first time in a decade that we have been in one spot long enough to actually take advantage of a gym membership. And the reason for this focus on getting into the gym is not only for our health, but for our upcoming trip in October.
October – South Korea
In mid-October Steven and I will fly to Seoul, South Korea where after a few days of sightseeing and getting ourselves oriented, we pick up our rented E-bikes and head out on the Four Rivers Bike Trail, a 630-kilometer bike trail stretching from Seoul in the north to Busan in the south. This, my friends, is why we need to get into the gym. We are giving ourselves plenty of time, perhaps even time for a down day should one of us have a really, really sore butt. Mostly, though, we plan to make this ride in about 10 days or less, so hopefully that won’t be too taxing and we will still be walking upright when it’s all said and done.
November – Japan
From Busan we will take a ferry to Japan. We will hopefully meet up with friends, but those details are still being worked out. We will take the ferry to Fukuoka, Japan and visit a few sites as we make our way north by train to Tokyo. Our daughter, Zoe, and her partner, Dan, will be there at some point, so we will meet up with them. But mostly the fine details are still brewing. All I know is we are going to South Korea and Japan and I could not be more excited!
December – Pacific Northwest
We will be returning to Ruby Red and taking a deep breath before gearing up for the holidays. While we usually spend the holidays at the ranch in Texas, this year we will gather at Zoe and Dan’s house in Lake Stevens. One thing that’s great about your kids buying a house is that they are eager to host family gatherings and we are excited to begin making holiday memories at Zoe and Dan’s home.
So that’s it! Pretty exciting stuff coming up for us, with lots of changes and new places. We look forward to sharing our adventures with you and hope you’ll come along for the ride. We appreciate you all!
Happy Holidays!
Next up: All about Ruby Red!
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Holy cow! What a great year ahead. We’ll miss running into you in Europe but change is the only constant. Keep the rubber side down
Thanks, Bob. You are right about change, it happens. We are looking at this as a positive one for us, but you never know when change might happen again! Happy Holidays!
This is beyond exciting! I will miss reading about Europe and your periodic returns to the place in Sens, and I so look forward to new adventures. Congratulations to you and hello to Ruby Red!
We are actually planning a final trip back to Sens in Bijou, just for old time’s sake. It will be sad when we leave there for good. 🙁 But we have lots to look forward to and we are really looking forward to our time staying near the kids. Happy Holidays, Carla!
What a wonderfully exciting year y’all have planned! Looking forward to riding along with you in your blog. merry Christmas and Happy Adventures in 2024 ❌⭕️
Thank you, Mary! You have been with us since the beginning! We thought about settling down, but it is hard to stop the wheels. 🙂 Happy Holidays!
Thank you so much. I’m ready for exciting new countries! Love you guys and the new Ruby Red.
Oh, I am so ready for new countries, too! And, I can’t wait for you to see the interior of Ruby Red, she will be so familiar to you! Love you guys, too, and look forward to being back on the road in the U.S. so we can swing by and see everyone! Happy Holidays!
How exciting for y’all! Unless I get booted from my armchair, I’m looking forward to traveling with y’all. If y’all get a yearning to visit Chilean Wine Country, I can put you in touch with a lovely woman in SCL, who now works at one of the local Vintners.
Hugs and our love to all at the Ranch, Felice Navidad y Felice Año Nuevo!
Dear God, don’t get booted from your arm chair! We thought about you guys when we were on our shakedown trip last week. If we had had more time we would have made a swing by Houston, but we had to get back to the ranch for Zoe and Dan’s arrival. We will make it there one of these days, I promise! Love you, and Happy Holidays!
WOW, I travel with your blogs. I’m thankful you’re still posting. It looks like a wonderful 2024. I’d love to see you again. I’m in the panhandle of Florida south of Crestview. Have a grand time!!!
Oh, Dee! We passed right by you on I-10! In fact, we spent the night in Ponce de Leon! Now that I know where you are, we will stop by when we come that way again! Happy Holidays!
Holy cow,your plans are so exciting & like Dee ,I now travel via your blog.Ruby Red looks pretty neat & gives you that extra flexibility.Really looking forward to your next posts but hard to foresee that any better than any previous.All the best for the Xmas Season with family & your future travels.
Oh, thank you so much for your kind comment. I can’t wait to show off Ruby Red in our next post, she really is such a beauty! We are very excited for all the travels we have coming up, but honestly, I am looking forward to the downtime as much as the travel time. Especially being closer to my kiddos! Happy Holidays!
Love your post! Maybe we may meet up again somewhere in the states. Our plans for next year are still up in the air, but we hope to be on the road again. Dang that sounds like a song. We may be headed to Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Especially the coastal areas. That is just a guess at this point! Happy and safe travels to you both!
Thank you, Hank! We would love to meet up with you and Shirleen if you find yourselves in the Washington area. We are not that far from Anacortes, if you are staying along the coast. In any case, we will stay in touch and work something out if we are on your route! Merry Christmas to you both!
Sens will forevermore be yours, as Roman Polanski has staked your claim! With that said, it is great to have you back stateside 😊. Let us know if you ever are rolling back to Michigan!
We are making a journey back to Sens just to say goodbye to Roman Polanski and the wonderful park that was such a safe and beautiful home to us when the world around us seemed to be falling apart. We will always love Sens. Michigan is on our itinerary in the future… think Maritimes. We’re getting the band back together, wanna come? 🙂 Happy Holidays to you both!
That is a very real possibility…at least a portion of it, as that area is a major part of my paternal lineage. Let’s stay in touch on that!
We will absolutely stay in touch and fingers crossed we can work out a time and route that works! How fun would it be to get some of the Class of 2014 traveling together? 🙂
Wow! Sounds like an exciting year and big changes. We’ll miss running into you in Europe but maybe we’ll meet again somewhere else in the world! Cheers to a Happy & Healthy 2024!
We are not giving up on travel outside of the U.S. so I hope we will bump into you guys again! We are looking forward to all the possibilities for our future travels and we are excited about our nomadic future. Happy Holidays to you and Dan, and we will raise a glass for a very Happy New Year!
Congrats — a whole new lifestyle (kinda) and exciting! Super impressed with the South Korea bike adventure. Happy holidays to alla y’all!
It’s funny you say that. In some ways it feels new and exciting, and in others, it feels like we are back in Scoopy and that we never left! I am very sad to leave Bijou, it is gonna take me a while to get over her. But as always, we have to look to the future and all the possibilities that lie ahead. Like a bike ride through South Korea. I am so looking forward to that, even though I may never walk right again. 🙂 Happy Holidays, Nickie!
What a huge transition. Bravo! Wishing you safe travels, a wonderful Christmas and good health for 2024…including tone thighs for that herculean bike ride. With love, maggie
Thank you so much for your kind comments, Maggie. We may never walk right again, but we will have killer thighs. 🙂 Happy Holidays to you and Joel.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. What a wonderful year you have planed for 24. So looking forward to you letting us tag along. Wow, what a beautiful RV . P,S. great to have you back in the USA even if is just a jumping off base.
Thanks, Vern! Just wait until you see the inside of Ruby Red! She reminds us so much of Scoopy, it’s like we’ve come home. 🙂 Happy Holidays!
Congratulations on your new ‘Ruby’.. hopefully our paths will cross at some point once you are travelling in the USA ..
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you both and your family!!
We are planning on being in Q next winter, so if you’re there, chances are we will cross paths! Or, if you make a Costco run across the border. 🙂 We’re pretty close! Happy Holidays to you guys!
This is all amazing news!! So very exciting. 2024 will be a super year for you!❤️
It’s all very exciting, isn’t it? We will be on a “Friends” tour next year, so we’ll hunt you down. 🙂 Happy Holidays to you and Bill!
Happy holidays! ❤️
WOW! That’s going to be quite a year! And here I thought you might be coming south to visit us. We have dear friends in Lake Stevens that are also foodies on all the best fb sites. I’d love to (virtually) introduce you when you head there. Still jealous of you traveling to Istanbul!! Move love & Happy Merry to you both.
Well, never count us out, you never know when we might head south! I would LOVE to meet your foodie friends, both virtually and in person when we get to the PNW. So hook us up! Love to you and Chris, Happy Holidays!
If you are in Ecuador, you MUST visit the Galápagos Islands, a place on my husband’s bucket list, that we visited several years ago. We traveled with this group- https://www.mtsobek.com/. Awesome trip, second only to sailing around Bali and the islands of Indonesia to see the Komodo dragons! You never mention the wildlife in your travels, well the Galapagos are like Wild Kingdom! Happy New Year!
The Galapagos Islands are also on our bucket list, but I am not sure we will tick that box this trip. It is so hot and humid in the summer time, so for me, this trip would best be done in cooler weather. But it looks absolutely fantastic! It’s funny you mention that we don’t talk about wildlife. To our dismay, we can count on both hands the wildlife we have seen in all of Europe. There just isn’t a lot of anything wild to see. Happy Holidays, and thanks for the link with the tour info!
Wow, what an exciting 2024 you will be having…I just love traveling vicariously with you, and I save all your posts/ travels. I often wondered if you had a Family in U.S.A. now I know. Look forward to meeting them through your great picture taking. Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy & Health New Year!
Thank you so much, Carol. I’m glad you will stay with us as we move back to the US and travel to the other side of the world! I don’t talk much about my kiddos or post their photos because they are kind of anti-social media, and I try to respect that. I’m not always successful and now that I’ll be closer to them I might be able to slip in a photo or two, so stay tuned! 🙂 Happy Holidays!
Poof! From last I read you were in Iceland and now you’re in….where??!! Did I miss a blog or two after Iceland? You’ve done some traveling in between to buy Ruby Red…she’s gorgeous. Oh, I can’t wait to tour South Korea on a bike! Thank you for the timeline for year 2024 🙂
I did jump ahead, Rita, because I really couldn’t keep the news of Ruby Red quiet long enough to get caught up. We put Bijou in storage right after we returned from Iceland and flew to Istanbul for five weeks. Then we flew back to the ranch in Texas, and then to Orlando after we found Ruby Red. We drove her back to the ranch and here we are. That’s kind of it in a nutshell. I’ll try not to be so disjointed in my posts in the future. It bugs me, too. 🙂 Happy Holidays!
Wow, looks like a great year ahead for you guys. Congrats on the new to you rig! We are also planning on Istanbul for the earlier part of April, so hopefully we can get together there. While in South Korea, try to get to Jeju Island at some point… it’s worth a week or so.There is a walking trail that circles the entire island.
Thanks, K&R! Our dates for Istanbul are not quite nailed down, but we’d love to meet up with you, so fingers crossed. We will be flying from Paris so once we get our tickets I’ll let you know our dates! I am so glad you mentioned Jeju Island. I hear about that all the time and now with your endorsement we will have to check it out. Thanks so much! Happy Holidays!
💛🧡❤️
So excited to follow your new adventures! We lived in Cuenca for two years and still have friends there (expats and locals).
I remember when you moved there! We met Dustin and Lacie a few years ago in a campground in South Dakota and were surprised to learn we had a mutual friend on FB. It was you! 🙂
Guys, this is so exciting!! Ruby Red is beautiful, she reminds me of our old Phaeton. We’ll be up in Seattle for our granddaughter’s high school graduation in June as well. Fingers crossed we can catch up with you for a few minutes at some time. From WA we’ll head east, we’ll be exploring the Canadian Maritimes this summer. Thank you for sharing your plans with us all. Merry Christmas Chouters!
Ooooh, yes, let’s get together when you are in the PNW! Will you be in your new little rig, then taking it beyond to the Maritimes? Such an exciting trip! We have that on the books for 2025, so take good notes and we’ll follow along in your footsteps! When you leave WA state, will you travel along Highway 2? We had a fab trip on Highway 2 all the way across to Michigan, so be sure to check out the blog and find those posts. It was really one of our favorite trips. Happy Holidays to you and Larry!
Yes, taking the new little rig. We did the Hwy 2 route in 2019, I agree, it was a great trip across to MI. We’re hoping to take the Canadian route this time, depends on the weather though. I’ll check out the blog for anything we missed, lol.
Oh, fab! We have not visited much of Canada and it is on our list, too! Safe travels and Happy New Year!
Wow, big news indeed! You two have had more adventures these past few years than many others have had in their entire lives. And it looks like they are going to continue. I cannot wait to read about your 2024 adventures. Especially October!
You know it is hard to stop the wheels once they get rolling. And after a decade it is doubly hard as they have an unstoppable momentum! But things must change, right? Yeah, South Korea and the bike adventure is going to be a whole new physical challenge for us, so fingers crossed we whip ourselves into shape and don’t get lazy sitting in a big comfy rig. 🙂 Happy Holidays to you and Barb!
What a fabulous year you have planned! You guys know how to keep life interesting, that’s for sure. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Love your header photo. 🙂
Thanks, Laurel. Five years in Europe certainly opened our eyes to all the possibilities around the globe and really got us to thinking about how we travel. Our motorhomes have provided such comfort and safety, as well as transport, but sometimes we just have to step out of our comfort zone. I just hope we are able to walk upright after this next big adventure. 🙂 Happy Holidays to you and Eric!
Congrats on your new home purchase! Looks like quite the year you have ahead of you. Merry Christmas and all the best in your 2024 adventures!
Thanks so much! Maybe we can hop over the border and meet up next summer! We’d love to catch up! Happy Holidays!
Lots of exciting places in 2024. I’ve followed you everywhere. Make sure you take your cutting board with you so you can remember Bijou. Love love your trips coming up. And love Ruby Red. Drive safely…and bike safely.
Thanks so much for coming along with us, Nancy! I can’t wait for you to see Ruby Red, she is a beauty. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas!
As always, fabulous travel plans! I love that Steven’s picture was hanging at the RV place! Have fun with Bill and Kelly and your family!
Isn’t that the craziest thing to come across that photo? They couldn’t believe it, either. We’ll be following along on your big adventure next year to Alaska. If you come through the Seattle area on your way across the border, let us know and we’ll meet up. Happy Holidays!
This reads like a novel !! Just amazing !
Merry 🎄Christmas and Happy Healthy New Year!!
Thank you, Barbara! Happy Holidays to you, too!
I don’t know, man. We buy an RV and start RVing in the the U.S., and you all move to Europe. We move to Europe and you guys move back to the U.S. I’m starting to think it’s us….
Just kidding. This all sounds amazing and I’m super excited to watch it all unfold. You’ve got a little bit of everything coming up and it’s going to be a terrific adventure!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
It’s definitely you. And please don’t come back to the U.S. because this is getting expensive. I hope we are not completely done with Europe. You have two bedrooms, right? 🙂 Happy Holidays to you guys, I hope you guys have a great 2024!
Yay! So glad we could add inspiration to your already amazing and inspiring nomad life! Biking in S.Korea will be amazingly fun.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
I hope somewhere in the world our paths will cross again, we’ll look forward to it! Happy Holidays to you and Rich!
Wow and yay!!! That is an amazing itinerary for a whirlwind 2024. So excited you’ll be “over here” and still on the road for so much of it. Of course we hope eventually Ruby Red will find her way to park at our desert site for a few nights 🙂 I wondered if you’d be traveling to other continents – Korea and Japan sounds amazing!! Happiest of Holidays to you and yours.
We’re looking forward to swinging by your place next winter on our way to Q, if all things work out as planned. I know you are happy to have your place and we can’t wait to visit. Happy Holidays to you and Bill, love you both!
Can’t deny I’m feeling a pang of sadness in all this. Our Camino walk last year was one of the highlights of my year, and I was so happy to finally get to meet you after all these years stalking on the blog. Now you’re whisking off back to USA. Ahhh….life. Can’t wait to follow your adventures though. I’ll be back to stalking mode 🙂
Nina
Our Camino together with the other Cheeky Chicas was a highlight of my European adventures. I am incredibly sad to be leaving Europe, but it is time. There’s always Seoul in October, I hope you are still considering joining us for the bike ride! 🙂
Oh my gosh – what an amazing, exciting year you have planned! Can’t wait to read all about your travels, but especially your bike trip. We have done several self-contained bike touring trips over the years (never longer than a few weeks) in Europe and the US and it’s one of my favorite ways to travel. We haven’t transitioned over to e-bikes, but that’s probably in our future. Happy travels!
I continue to enjoy “traveling with you!”
Is Eastern Canada on your list? One of our still favorite places we went in 2016, in our class C, was to Nova Scotia and especially Newfoundland! We loved Newfoundland and also wanted to go to Labrador but didn’t make it.