Top 5 Reasons We’re Leaving America

What is this all about? What are you thinking?

In November 2022 Tiffany and I decided we would start to consider selling all of our stuff and heading out on an adventure. Everyone’s first question is usually, “why?”. That is generally quickly followed by “awesome, I’m a little jealous”. So what happened and how did we come to this seemingly crazy life changing decision to search for the life of Riley? Here are our top five reasons why we decided to radically alter our careers and ultimately our entire lifestyle by leaving America.

Adventure Time

Perhaps the biggest reason of all is the excitement of adventure! We are both adventurous at heart. We love travel and all the amazing experiences that go along with it. Whether it is hiking in strange places, eating exotic dishes, or visiting ancient structures we relish those experiences. Some of the greatest memories we have are our adventures: camping in our Taxa campers, hiking in the National Parks, walking all over Spain, zip lining in Costa Rica. We want more of those experiences!

Corporate Healthcare Burnout

As registered nurses we are both routinely frustrated with the corporate exploitation of the front line worker. The major healthcare companies in the U.S. make billions off the backs of staff that they don’t care about and frankly, off of the misfortunes of patients that they don’t care about. Healthcare in America really sucks. Don’t get seriously ill in America or you’ll find yourself bankrupt, whether you buy in to the insurance racket or not. We don’t feel that availability of quality healthcare should be political, religious, or governed by Wall Street. I guess that leaves us in a position of disillusionment with our careers. So it ranks pretty high on the list of reasons to jet.

Political and Social Division in America

I’m in my fifties and have lived in the U.S. my entire life. I grew up with Sesame Street and School House Rock teaching me that America was the great melting pot. In America we value diversity and freedom. The America of the 2020’s is filled with anger and division. In the 80’s we watched as walls came down. In the 20’s we’re building our own walls and fuel our discourse with vitriol. America is a little off kilter in so many ways. Take gun violence for instance…

The funny thing is that when we tell people we’re starting this adventure in Mexico people love to tell us how dangerous Mexico is. Ironically every time you tune in to the news in the U.S. you hear about someone getting shot, often a whole bunch of people getting shot. It happens daily across the country in everyday settings.

I’m not saying it’s better anywhere else, but I’m not sure using unexpected, unwarranted violence as a reason not to go makes sense.

Work Life Balance in our Empty Nest Years

When we started talking about this idea we had to approach the idea of what would hold us back. Why not? Our kids are out of the house doing their own thing. We have a great group of friends, but we all live to work in the U.S. How often do you really get to spend time with the people who are closest to you? Work life balance often seems to be more heavily weighted to work and not so much to life. Ultimately, our friends and family are still meaningful no matter where we are. Neither one of us wants to roll through our adult professional years just working away the years and not enjoying what we’ve worked for all these years. We had kids young and now is the time to have an adventure of a lifetime. The real question became, if not now then when?

Cost of Living

I don’t know where you are, but here in Colorado the cost of living just keeps going up and up. I’m not sure how young adults will ever afford to purchase a house. America is really expensive. Granted, there are parts of America that aren’t as expensive, but we’re not looking to explore those areas.

We chose to start this adventure in Mexico partly because it is close, it is familiar, and the cost of living is so much cheaper than the U.S. According to the WorldData.info project the cost of living in Mexico is 41% cheaper than in the U.S.

Mexico isn’t necessarily the only stop though. There are so many potential places to visit around the globe that are cheaper than the U.S. Check that list people! We have a bunch of potential landing spots: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Greece, Portugal, etc… It’s a big world and there are so many places to explore and check out. Hopefully we can keep this going as long as possible and explore as much of this wide world as possible.