Six Months in South Africa: Prologue. Why in the world would you want to do that?


This blog is a continuing chronicle of our transition from a working life to retirement—with odd other posts as something comes up. I write it to crystallize my own thoughts and also for the few folks reading who might be contemplating their own retirement options and plans.

As I hit 70 and decided to fully retire, Estelle and I conceived the idea that it would be an adventure to spend six months living in South Africa. It is a comfortable second country for us, given her upbringing there and our short visits over the years.

A secondary benefit of living somewhere else for six months, particularly in different rental apartments and homes, is that we get to try out a different lifestyle than the one in our home we’ve known for the past 36 yrs.  A chance to explore some questions such as how do we live in a one or two-bedroom apartment? And, what do we miss compared to living in our house and living in central Nashville?

The preparation for a six month stay involved figuring out what to do with our house, the financial implications, healthcare, planning where we would live and what would we do for the six months we were there, and getting immigration visas to stay there more than 90 days. After this effort, we’ve learned that you need to be retired more than six months in advance, just to have the time to do all the prep work for a six month out-of-country stay.

From past visits, we had a pretty good idea of where we wanted to live in South Africa during our six months there, and so the plan is:
  • Cape Town—January
  • Wilderness beach on Garden Route—February
  • Johannesburg/Pretoria—March/April
  • Other, to-be-determined, travel from Johannesburg
  • House in Eastern Transvaal at Game Reserve—May/June


So, that’s the story. The why, when, how, and what that brought us to South Africa for our six-month life adventure.

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