Our Freedom Years

Financial independence, early retirement & slow travel

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    • Europe
      • Albania
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    • North America
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    • South America
      • Colombia
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    • Asia
      • Thailand
  • About Us
  • Welcome
  • Binge!
  • Popular
    • What’s New
    • Plan for Travel
    • Airbnb Living
    • Real Costs
    • Travel with Dogs
  • Destinations
    • Europe
      • Albania
      • Austria
      • Croatia
      • Czech Republic
      • Greece
      • Hungary
      • Italy
      • Malta
      • Poland
      • Portugal
      • Romania
      • Serbia
      • Slovakia
      • Spain
      • Ukraine
      • United Kingdom
    • Middle East
      • Turkey
    • North America
      • Canada
      • Mexico
    • South America
      • Colombia
      • Ecuador
      • Peru
    • Asia
      • Thailand
  • About Us
  • Canada

    How Much is the Cost Of Living In Toronto?

    July 2, 2020 /

    Upon arriving in Toronto, we had two weeks of quarantine and since then we’ve been sheltering in place. So how did that affect our cost of living this past month?

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 14 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Climbing a mountain in Albania

    It’s Official: We’ve Given Up On Travel — For Now

    February 4, 2024

    Why We Can’t Wait To Get Back To Europe

    June 27, 2021

    Could Country Living be the Perfect Lifestyle For Us?

    July 4, 2021
  • Italy

    Nomad Life Turned Upside Down When COVID-19 Hit

    June 29, 2020 /

    We were in the midst of enjoying February in beautiful Florence when we first heard rumblings of a virus that was spreading quickly in northern Italy.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 8 Comments

    You May Also Like

    How To Budget For A Month In Florence

    How To Budget For A Month In Florence

    May 7, 2020

    Look What $2,500/Month Gets You in Europe

    April 18, 2021

    7 European Destinations that Won’t Break the Bank

    January 2, 2022
  • Save and Invest

    How To Track Spending and Budget

    June 25, 2020 /

    One of the secrets to building wealth is simply to know where your money is going. We track every dollar we spend and, in the year before we retired, we were able to save 70% of our after-tax income.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 4 Comments

    You May Also Like

    What Is Fixed Income Investing?

    July 16, 2020
    How To Save More Than Half Of Your Income For Early Retirement

    How To Save More Than Half Of Your Income For Early Retirement

    April 30, 2020

    How We Invest in the Stock Market for Financial Independence

    June 18, 2020
  • Save and Invest

    How We Invest in the Stock Market for Financial Independence

    June 18, 2020 /

    We recently provided the briefest of overviews to our investment strategy as part of a look at our risk management approach. No surprise: our video garnered a lot of questions about our exact investment strategy.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 5 Comments

    You May Also Like

    How To Track Spending and Budget

    June 25, 2020
    How To Become Financially Independent In Your 40s Or Earlier

    How To Become Financially Independent In Your 40s Or Earlier

    March 18, 2020

    What Is Fixed Income Investing?

    July 16, 2020
  • Real Costs

    How To Budget For Year Of Slow Travel

    June 11, 2020 /

    It's the number one question we receive from our audience: How much does our life of full-time travel cost?

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 3 Comments

    You May Also Like

    How much to budget for one month in Istanbul Turkey

    How Much To Budget For One Month In Istanbul

    April 6, 2020
    Machu Picchu

    We had a Once-in-a-Lifetime Visit to Machu Picchu (Now We Know What it’s Really Like )

    May 5, 2024

    Novi Sad Offered the Authentic Serbia That We’ve Been Dreaming of

    September 26, 2021
  • Retire Early

    How to Introduce Your Partner To Financial Independence

    June 4, 2020 /

    It could be the best conversation that you ever have with your partner. Or it could be the conversation that launches a thousand fights.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 1 Comment

    You May Also Like

    Is This the Year You Can Finally Quit?

    April 25, 2021

    How We Can Afford to Travel Full Time (and It’s Not By Being Digital Nomads)

    July 11, 2021

    Working Overseas Could be Your Ticket to Early Retirement

    August 29, 2021
  • Plan for Travel

    Our Bucket List for Slow Travel

    May 28, 2020 /

    With planes grounded worldwide and borders closed, what better time to share our bucket list for our future travels?

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    How Much Do I Need To Retire Early And Travel?

    March 6, 2020

    What Not to Pack for a Year of Travel

    May 23, 2021

    Do You Have to be a Minimalist to Travel Full Time?

    February 14, 2021
  • Retire Early

    Staying Motivated To Retire Early

    May 21, 2020 /

    It’s one thing to decide on the goal of becoming financially independent . It’s quite another to get through the long years of earning, saving and investing to achieve your goal.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 0 Comments

    You May Also Like

    How We Can Afford to Travel Full Time (and It’s Not By Being Digital Nomads)

    July 11, 2021

    Working Overseas Could be Your Ticket to Early Retirement

    August 29, 2021
    How To Manage Risk In Early Retirement

    How To Manage Risk In Early Retirement

    May 14, 2020
  • How To Manage Risk In Early Retirement
    Real Life in Retirement,  Retire Early

    How To Manage Risk In Early Retirement

    May 14, 2020 /

    We've gone and done the one thing that every retiree fears. We retired just months before a significant market crash with a recession now looming on the horizon.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 5 Comments

    You May Also Like

    What’s It Like To Retire In My 30s?

    November 22, 2020

    How to Survive Your First Year of Early Retirement

    April 4, 2021

    What Life Really Looks Like In Early Retirement

    October 1, 2020
  • How Expensive Is Fethiye?
    Real Costs,  Turkey

    How Expensive Is Fethiye?

    May 9, 2020 /

    From Istanbul we headed further south to the Turquoise Coast for sunshine, hiking and taking tea with the locals along the Mediterranean coastline.

    read more
    Our Freedom Years 12 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Cost of Living in Northern Greece

    October 15, 2020

    Can You Afford Europe’s Best Winter Sun Destination?

    March 14, 2021

    Why Mexico City Blew Our Minds (and Our Budget)

    August 15, 2022
 Older Posts
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ourfreedomyears

Stephanie & Gillian
🌎 Traveled the world with our dogs
❤️ Now making a home in Ontario
⬇️ Watch our latest video

What makes a great winter base? For us: beautifu What makes a great winter base? 

For us: beautiful neighborhoods, easy hiking, warm days… and space to settle into a routine.

Did the Canary Islands just become our go-to winter destination?

Watch the full video — just click on the link in our profile.
For years, the Canary Islands sat on our “maybe so For years, the Canary Islands sat on our “maybe someday” list. They never quite beat out places like Mexico or Portugal when winter planning season rolled around. Now we’re wondering why we waited so long.

After a month in Gran Canaria, we’ve had some surprising takeaways about what really makes a place work as a winter base.

Our full YouTube video drops this Sunday. Stay tuned.
When we look back on 2025, it’s hard to believe ho When we look back on 2025, it’s hard to believe how much we packed into one year. 

🇲🇽 slow travel in Mexico

🥾 100+ miles on the Cotswold Way,

🐕 time inside a 400-dog shelter

🇬🇪 an unexpected detour through Georgia

…and a few big reflections on life after financial independence.

It was a year of travel, volunteering, and learning (again) that freedom looks different in every season.

We’ve wrapped it all up — plus a new podcast conversation with @OurFamilyInvests about what comes after the career ladder — in our January newsletter.

📬 Read the full story — just click on the link in our profile.
Living in Ontario’s snow belt means one thing: we Living in Ontario’s snow belt means one thing: we must escape winter. We’ve been hit with multiple snowstorms since the beginning of November and there are still months of snow and ice ahead of us. 

As much as we love seeing our little village blanketed in white, a few weeks of winter is enough to satisfy for the year. 

After a few misfires during our years of full-time travel (rainstorms in Florence, a chilly apartment in Malta, an unseasonable cold front in Izmir), we finally know exactly what we’re looking for in a winter base.

For the winter of 2026, our wishlist got very specific:

☀️ warm weather
🥗 great food
🏋🏽‍♀️ a decent gym
🐶 stylish Airbnbs that also happen to be pet-friendly
🌳 easy access to nature
✨ enough variety to keep us entertained for three full months

We compared many wildly different options—Taiwan, Argentina, and Cyprus to name just a few—and yes, there was a spreadsheet and a scoring system involved.

So where did we finally choose for winter 2026? We’re sharing the full story (and the big reveal) in this month’s newsletter.

👉 Read now by clicking on the link in our profile.
A final glimpse of our time in Georgia — medieval A final glimpse of our time in Georgia — medieval villages in Svaneti, misty mountain views, and a whirlwind wander through Kutaisi. 

Don’t miss the full adventure on YouTube, including our unforgettable stay at @baias_wine — complete with warm Georgian hospitality, a feast of traditional dishes, and more wine than we could drink in a month. 

Just click on the link in our profile to watch now.
There were plenty of misadventures to go round, bu There were plenty of misadventures to go round, but we still managed to have an incredible time on our first trip to the country of Georgia. Watch the full-length video by clicking on the link in our profile.
It's part two of our trip to Georgia, and this is It's part two of our trip to Georgia, and this is where all our carefully-made plans started to fall apart. 

The misadventures began when our easy 45-minute flight to the mountains was replaced with a 10-hour odyssey by train and mini-van. However, despite all ups and downs of the trip, we still managed to enjoy the highlights of western Georgia, including the medieval villages of the Svaneti region and a ridiculously huge feast at a winery.  

You can catch the full adventure in a new video going live this Sunday. See you then!
The final round of shots from our time in Tbilisi. The final round of shots from our time in Tbilisi. We just couldn't get enough of all those atmospheric mansions and apartment buildings as we wandered the neighbourhoods. 

If you haven't seen our video yet, it's a whirlwind sampler of Tbilisi highlights from our first day on the ground. You can check it out by clicking on the link in our profile.
It's our first full day in Tbilisi, and we're brin It's our first full day in Tbilisi, and we're bringing you along for the ride. Check out the full video on YouTube -- just click on the link in our profile to watch now.
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