Because life is short & the world is big
The Messy Suitcase travel blog offers a revolutionary retirement, through travel and new experiences that allow us to constantly grow and learn. We hope by sharing our creative alternative, we’ll you to be more adventurous in your later stage of life.
Bob Greenawalt and Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt have reinvented retirement. We left Colorado in 2018, packed up our Tacoma Tacoma with two bikes, a few suitcases, three musical instruments, and three cats, and hit the road to explore this planet. First, we traveled around Europe, then visited family and friends in the USA. In January 2019, we headed to México! Tlaquepaque, Guadalajara, Leon, Guanajuato, la Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Cancun, Mexico City, Acapulco.
Open our minds and our hearts. Collect experiences instead of stuff. Live well with less. Walk more. Connect with our community.
We live for at least a month at a time in different places — mountains, villages, beach towns, cities — long enough to internalize the flow of life. We avoid high-crime areas, a common-sense strategy we would use anywhere we lived. We avoid expat havens and are working to learn Spanish.
We launched this blog and the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel. Lisa has written a couple of children’s books and is working on a third. Bob advocates for education back in Colorado, stilll our official residence.
Our travel has been derailed now and then by life, family and the Coronavirus, but we live life as an adventure, wherever we are! We spent winter 2022-23 in Puerto Rico (broken up by a month in Washington, DC, for Christmas near family), and fell in love with the island. In the end we decided to buy a house in Cabo Rojo, on the west coast, three blocks from the sea.
So now the plan is this: We call ourselves nomadic snowbirds. We spend summer at our family’s lake house in Vermont, and will spend winters in Puerto Rico. We will travel in the transitional seasons, or whenever we feel like it! One cat went to college with our son Gavin and another passed away, but Kaylee the orange Maine Coon — a.k.a. Esponjosita,which is Fluffy in Spanish — still lives with us, and enjoys housesitters when we are on the road.
Life is short, and the world is big. Join us on the journey!
Looking for serenity? Or a party? Depending on the day, you can find either at La Playita, one of our favorite local beaches. La Playita, found at the end of a dirt road tucked among the mangroves near Puerto Real, is just a mile or two from our home in Cabo Rojo. The beach can …
We spent a sweet morning at a beach in south Rincon that is popular with local swimmers and snorkelers. It’s a quiet beach with soft golden sand, but not a lot of shade. A reef can be found about 50 meters from the coastline. Unfortunately, the water kicked up a bit and kept us out …
Continue reading “Messy Suitcase Mini-Tour: Playa Corcega in Rincon”
The mountain village of Las Marias, Puerto Rico, throws a huge block party every March, the Festival de las Chinas Dulces, to celebrate the abundant variety of sweet oranges that grow on the island. They call oranges “chinas” (pronounced CHEE-nahs) in Puerto Rico, though the Spanish word for “orange” is “naranja” (pronounced nah-RAHN-hah). We spent …
The Messy Suitcase YouTube Channel shows you some of the fascinating people, places, and things we have encountered on our journeys. Please subscribe!
We started our journey accompanied by three cats who reluctantly became intrepid travelers, driving through the United States and Mexico, as well as by plane. One moved away with our son, one passed away, one still accompanies us.
In August 2019, Ellie went off to live with our son, Gavin, at Champlain College. She is his emotional support cat but often needs emotional support from Gavin! Follow elliesmoit on Instagram.
We lost our dear cat Equinox, a.k.a. Noxy, on Feb. 8, 2020, in Mexico City. It turned out that he had heart disease. He is dearly missed, especially by his buddy Kaylee.
Kaylee is now the lone cat in our household. She doesn’t like being cooped up in her carrier, but once she is strapped into the car, she sits like a little Buddha and watches the world.
To meet other cats we have encountered on our journey, continue here.
