Category: Adventurous retirement
How Don Stark turned a passion for diving into a major retirement activity is the latest in our series of interesting baby boomer profiles. Here is his story as told to Patricia Kennedy. If you know a boomer retirement we should know about tell us via the Contact Us link.
I went to college thinking that I wanted to be a pharmacist because that would be a good way to own my own business. By the time I graduated, chain pharmacies were taking over. After college, I did work – for a short time -- for one of those mega-chains, decided I didn’t like it, and headed off to graduate school. Eventually, I became a business development consultant for pharmaceutical and biotech companies specializing in oncology. I still do projects for a couple of clients, but no longer reach out to develop new business.
Initial Plans for Retirement
In the early 90s, I friend introduced me to scuba diving which has been my passion ever since. My wife and I now spend about half the year in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands. The rest of the year we’re in Burlington, Vermont.
With a partner I direct the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund (www.tcreef.org), a non-profit organization to help protect the marine environment in the Turks and Caicos. We only started two years ago,
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Published on March 17, 2012
Comments 11
Category: Adventurous retirement
This is the latest in our series exploring different retirement lifestyles. Here is where you can find more retirement profiles. If you know a boomer retirement we should learn about use the Contact Us link to tell us about it.
Of all of the people we have interviewed in this series of adventurous retirements, Gail and Allen Hinand win the prize for putting the most thought and preparation into retirement. Their search led/took them from Boston to San Francisco, Key West, and (eventually) Claremont (California) in pursuit of a multi-phase retirement - one that would work from early retirement to old age. As you will see, this planning has paid off to give them a rich and rewarding life for their post-working years.
What they did
The couple grew up in the West; Allen in Montana and Gail in Washington State. They went to college in
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Published on March 9, 2012
Comments 5
Category: Adventurous retirement
Note: This is the latest in our series of interesting baby boomer profiles. Our goal is to portray a variety of active baby boomer retirement lifestyles for our members. If you know a boomer retirement we should know about tell us via the Contact Us link.
Amelia Ceja is President of Ceja Vineyards, which Inc. Magazine named “Entrepreneur of the Year” (one of 7) in 2004. She and her husband Pedro are hard-working people. After talking with them for just a short time it is easy to see why their perfect idea of retirement is to just keep doing what they love doing - growing grapes and making wine in the Napa Valley. We think you will enjoy the story of these successful baby boomers and how they are living their dream retirement.
What Amelia Did Before Retirement
Amelia emigrated to the USA from Mexico at age 12. Her parents worked in the California grape industry. Growing up Amelia also worked in the vineyards as a child and during summers in college. After attending
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Published on February 14, 2012
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Category: Active adult communities
Note: This is the latest in our series of adventurous retiree profiles Our goal is to portray a variety of active baby boomer retirement lifestyles for our members. If you know a boomer retirement we should know about tell us via the Contact Us link.
Len and Ann are the kind of people that don’t like to stand still. And that's a trait which perfectly qualifies them to be residents of The Villages, that giant, non-stop fun active community of 100,000 people near Ocala, Florida. Here is their story - we hope you find it useful to learn more about how they came about deciding to living here, and what it is really like to live in The Villages.
What They Did Before Retirement
Len had a long career as an IT guy at SNET, the former
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Published on January 17, 2012
Comments 90
Category: Adventurous retirement
How to Travel Around the Country, Be Fulfilled, and Live for Free
Note: This is the 5th in our series of interesting baby boomer retirements. Here is the link to the other Retirement Lifestyle Profiles in this series.
Barbara Traynor was resigned to working until she was 110. Although this single mother had been an administrative assistant for 40 years, her savings were low. She had no pension, and knowing her expected social security payment would be minimal, Barbara had all but given up hope of enjoying experiences like visiting the national parks.
Then one day she got an email from friends that changed everything in the most delightful way. As a result of that contact she soon set out for Sitka, Alaska, where in exchange for her professional skills, she received
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Published on November 1, 2011
Comments 7
Category: Adventurous retirement
A New, Rewarding Life
By Tom (“T. L.”) Linskey with questions from Topretirements
At first, it didn’t sink in. Even though Harriet and I were sailing our new 46-foot sailboat, Hands Across the Sea, a Dolphin 460 catamaran, on the Rio Paragaucu in northeastern Brazil, it hadn’t sunk in that we’d made it—that we’d successfully made the leap from the working life to retirement life.
In the space of a single year back in 2007 we’d wrapped up our careers, sold our home in Massachusetts, stored our possessions, sold our cars, found a home for our cat, worked with our Brazilian boatbuilder to customize our new boat, and bought a boatload of equipment from solar panels to a watermaker, to go with it. It felt like a miracle how quickly the trappings of suburbia—home insurance, property taxes, traffic, mowing the lawn, blizzards, consumerism, the roar of media, the neighbors’ barking dogs at midnight—fell away astern. We were just as astonished by what was ahead—a second life with an open horizon, promising equal measures of freedom and
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Published on August 23, 2011
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Category: Adventurous retirement
August 17, 2011 -- If exploring charming villages or savoring the beautiful countryside appeals to you, one of the best ways to experience these pleasures is… on a bike. Your Topretirements editor and wife Roberta are just back from a wonderful biking trip along the Danube in Hungary and Slovakia. Although there a quite a few choices in biking tours, including a self-tour, we chose VBT for ours. Some other choices include the more expensive Butterfield and Robinson, Euro-bike, and Backroads.
Whether you are retired already or just thinking about it, bike trips or other active tours are a great way to explore new territory and relax. This short article will give you an idea of what the experience is like in case you are considering one. For those to whom cycling seems a bit too adventurous, there are also walking tours, wine and food tasting tours, and barge tours. For those who crave more excitement there are options like kayaking, fishing, backpacking, and float trips.The beauty of using a tour company vs. a self-guided tour is that
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Published on August 17, 2011
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Category: Adventurous retirement
May 23, 2011 --
Note: This is the first in our series of retiree profiles. Our goal is to portray a variety of active baby boomer retirement lifestyles for our members. If you know a boomer retirement we should know about use the Contact Us link to let us know about it.
Kelly and Demaris Edwards wake up to a dream retirement every day. Picture a historic country inn perched high above the shores of Lake Erie. The sounds of the lake are the first things they hear. The 13 room inn they own and manage provides them with the majority of their livelihood plus a great deal of personal satisfaction. This outgoing couple enjoys running the inn for many reasons, but their favorite is the chance it gives them to meet new people. Over the years many of their guests have become repeat patrons and personal friends.
Their unique lifestyle also frees them to become snowbirds every winter. In January when Lake Erie freezes and the lake-effect snows begin to pile up, the Edwards climb aboard their 30’ RV and head on down the road to Key West, Florida. There they stay in a U.S. military RV park where they relax, read, and exercise in the warm Florida sunshine. This article will help explain why their son Jim...
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Published on May 23, 2011
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