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, still 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 two have passed away, but we are now traveling with two new kittens, Toby and Jackson!
Why are we doing this?
Life is short, and the world is big. Join us on the journey!
Travel Stories
Laguna Guatavita: In Search of the Legend of El Dorado
We took a hiking tour – in Spanish – of the Laguna de Cacique Guatavita, which roughly translates to Guatavita Indian Chief Lake. Located about 40 miles north of Bogotá, Lake Guatavita is a spectacular lake in the heart of the Colombian mountains. It’s also the birthplace of a legend of El Dorado, the mythical …
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Bogota Private Tour: Monserrate, the Gold Museum, and the Botero Museum
We spent a day with a private guide exploring some of Bogota’s most iconic destinations, including Monserrate, the Gold Museum, and the Botero Museum. First, we rode a funicular to the stunning mountain peak of Monserrate, which overlooks the sprawling city of Bogota at more than 9,000 feet. A major pilgrimage site, Monserrate features an …
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Snorkeling–and Napping–with Turtles in Hawaii
We were fortunate to experience sea turtles, on land and under the sea, in both Kauai and Maui. How magical! On Kauai, we discovered that green sea turtles, called “honu,” nap on the sand on Poipu Beach on the south coast every afternoon. At sunset, scores of them haul themselves up onto the beach to …
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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. They earned their degrees in 2025, and now Ellie lives with us during the Vermont portion of our life. 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
We lost Kaylee in June of 2025. She was our little Buddha who used to sits in her carrier and watch the world pass by the car.
To meet other cats we have encountered on our journey, continue here.
