A Change of Pace for 2026

Many in the nomadic travel community refer to themselves as “slomads,” which, as the name would suggest, are nomads who move at a more leisurely pace, often staying in the same place for 1-3 months. This slower pace allows them to take advantage of long-stay discounts offered by Airbnb or other types of landlords, and they generally maximize the time allowed in a country before moving on to somewhere new. That is definitely NOT our style!!

Don’t get me wrong! Moving at the speed we do is a conscious choice, and we’re not complaining. But to be honest, when we started our nomadic life four years ago, we really did think we’d slow down after the first year. It’s just that we kept hearing about new places we wanted to visit, and our destination list kept growing longer. We occasionally did stay in one location for a month, but not infrequently ended up bored after a couple of weeks, feeling we’d seen everything in the area that held any interest for us.

So here we are. After visiting 68 countries, 237 cities, sleeping in 257 different beds, and averaging less than 6 nights in any one location over the four years, we’re nearing the end of our “must-see” list, which got us thinking: are we ready for a new phase of nomadic life? Could we simplify the logistics, yet still keep moving to find new places to experience?

How to Change Things Up for 2026?

Our inspiration for change came through Whitney’s step-sister and her husband, Laura and Boyd Godfrey. Coincidentally, Laura and Boyd began their nomadic odyssey right around the same time we did (2022), just with a twist. They’re from Vancouver on Canada’s west coast and had always been boat people, so their nomadic life involved water. While we were mapping out routes around the world, they were looking for canal boats in mainland Europe, and after a few months, found an 18.6-meter Dutch barge built in the Netherlands. They christened her “Flat Bottomed Girl.”

This barge was built in 1927 and was used for decades as a commercial transport ship on the canals of western Europe. It was refitted a few decades ago as a live-aboard. We visited them in the spring of 2024 and admired the work they’d done to get the boat into the shape they wanted. Boyd is highly creative and a very handy guy (which is understandable given his background as a prop designer and fabricator, working in the Vancouver TV & movie industry on shows like Stargate SG-1). They both have impeccable taste, and have turned Flat Bottomed Girl into a beautiful watercraft, both what you see and what’s working behind the walls and under the floorboards.

You can imagine our surprise to hear earlier this year that they were considering the purchase of a larger boat. We didn’t hesitate to let them know we’d be very interested in talking to them when they were ready to sell Flat Bottomed Girl. In late October, they let us know they’d decided to begin looking for a new water home. We didn’t need to be told twice, and the four of us quickly settled on a purchase price. I’m also happy to report that we won’t be leaving them homeless, as they’ve found a boat that ticks all of their boxes for an “upgrade.”

At this point, you may be asking yourself, “How do those crazy kids know they’ll like the canal barge lifestyle?” That’s a good question, but one that we’d unwittingly been preparing ourselves for since 2010. That’s the year we bought a speedboat and a 30-foot 5th wheel trailer that we used for several family trips through western Canada and the US, and many, many weekends at lakes in Alberta.

For many years, our retirement plan was to be “snowbirds,” travelling down to the southern United States for four or five months each year during the winter. We liked living in the small space, along with the freedom to pick up and move whenever we wanted a new place to explore. It was while doing research into that lifestyle that I came across an article about retirees who just sold it all and travelled the world, calling themselves “nomads.” That got us wondering why we were limiting ourselves to just North America. So we retired, sold the trailer along with our house and everything else, and the world became our retirement home! Thus was born our nomadic lifestyle, with this second phase resurrecting the original plan of mobile housing, but this time on water.

What’s Next?

Earlier this year, before this change from land to water came about, we booked travel to our final two continents: Antarctica and Oceania. At the end of January, we’ll be on a cruise that will take us to stops where we’ll actually be able to set foot on Antarctica to meet penguins (in a conscientious and respectful manner) and do some short hikes, then we’re heading to New Zealand and Australia for two months. After that, we’re back in Canada for a month and a half for a family wedding, then heading to England for me to take my Captain’s courses and get certified to pilot a boat on the inland waterways of Europe, plus get licensed for VHF radio usage. During this time, Laura and Boyd will be taking delivery of their new boat, doing some updates, and moving in. After all that, we’ll meet them wherever they are to take possession of our new boat in the second half of June.

So what are we calling our new home? Whitney came up with “Change of Pace,” which perfectly captures where we are in our retirement life, and what this boat allows us to do! We’ll slowly customize CoP to our personal tastes, but there won’t be many changes; Laura and Boyd are handing her over to us in beautiful condition.

We’ll spend the second half of 2026 on CoP, probably all of it in France, returning to Canada for Christmas, where we’ll stay for a month or two into early 2027. Then it’s back to Europe to travel the canals through Belgium, the Netherlands, and into Germany to join a group expedition of canal boaters that will take us through Germany, and possibly into Poland. After that, there are over 42,000 km of canals in mainland Europe (26,000 miles), so that’s a lot of waterways to explore over the coming years!

We’re really looking forward to settling down a bit, or at least having our own bed and stuff with us as we travel in this new phase of nomadic life.

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