Our FIRE analysis works the numbers: a million dollars at a 3.5 to 4 percent withdrawal funds $35,000 to $40,000 a year, which is a comfortable life in Chiang Mai, Oaxaca or Tbilisi and a mid-range one in Lisbon, by our dated estimates. "Forever" is a different question, and the people who have tried answer it in ways a spreadsheet cannot.
Forever is longer than the studies
The 4 percent rule was built on 30-year horizons; a 40-year-old planning to travel until 90 needs 50. The calculator lets you set that and shows the result under conservative assumptions, which is rarely comfortable. Everyone who has done this for more than a few years describes a withdrawal rate nearer 3 percent, a willingness to earn a little, or both.
Healthcare decides the second decade
At 45 international insurance is affordable and travel is easy; at 65 the premiums have tripled, the exclusions have multiplied and the idea of a different clinic in every city has lost its charm. The long-term travellers who keep going past 60 almost all establish residence somewhere with good private care (Portugal, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico) and travel from it.
Boredom is real and specific
Not boredom with places, boredom with being a visitor: the lack of a project, a community and a role. The ones who last build one: a language studied to fluency, a volunteer post, a business, a craft, a sport. Travel becomes the context for the thing rather than the thing.
A home for the things, and the people
Two or three years in, most people want a base: a storage unit becomes a room, a room becomes a flat, a flat becomes a place where friends know to find you. Our FIRE travel vs expat retirement guide weighs the costs; the hybrid (a base for most of the year, two or three travel blocks) is where most of them land.
Family gravity
Ageing parents, grandchildren, weddings and funerals pull harder each year and each pull is a flight. Budget them; choose bases with direct connections; accept that forever has seasons at home in it.
The currency and inflation years
A decade of travel will include a year when the dollar falls 15 percent against the place you live, or local inflation runs at 20 percent (several destinations in our database have seen it recently). The people who survive those years had a year of spending in local currency, a cheaper country in reserve and the flexibility to move.
So, can you?
On the arithmetic, probably, if you live in the cheaper half of the world and stay flexible. On the evidence of people who have tried, "forever" turns into "for a long time, from somewhere", and that is a better plan. Run your own numbers in the calculator, take them to a qualified adviser, and plan the base as carefully as the trip.
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