The Messy Suitcase travel blog offers a revolutionary retirement option, through travel and new experiences that allow us to constantly grow and learn. We hope that by sharing our creative alternative, we’ll inspire you to be more adventurous in how you approach your later stage of life!
Meet Beto & Lisa
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.
Our Plan
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.
Life Happens
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.
Why are we doing this?
Life is short, and the world is big. Join us on the journey!
Travel Stories
Flamenco is Weird
Everywhere you go in Madrid, you are inundated with opportunities to see a flamenco show. Various fliers, posters, and websites describe it as “a world-famous Spanish tradition,” “upbeat,” and “iconic.” Bob would describe flamenco as “scary as f**king sh*t.” Maybe it’s because we saw it in a cave. Come watch the show with us and …
Touring Madrid from the Top of a HOHO
We toured Madrid from the open top of a Hop On Hop Off bus, our favorite way to get an overview of a new city. Tickets start at $27.50. Bus InfoMadrid TourismMap
Riding Lisbon’s Famous Tram 28
No trip to Lisbon is complete without a ride on iconic Tram 28, an old-fashioned tram that takes you through the city’s most famous neighborhoods in a vehicle so narrow it almost brushes the historic buildings. The classic yellow trams retain original 1930s features like brass dials and polished wood interiors. It squeezes in and …
Our Cats
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 lives with us part-time when not at college with our son, one passed away, one still accompanies us.
Ellie
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! She spends summers and school breaks with us. Follow elliesmoit on Instagram.
Equinox
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
Kaylee is now the lone cat in our household, except when Ellie is visiting. 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.
