While we don’t own a home, or a car, we do sometimes create a “home base” in Canada in order to fulfill our 5 month per year health care residency requirements. The bonus of our nomadic lifestyle is that we can choose a base close to our young grandsons, no matter where their military family is posted.

For now, that means Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

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We’ve found an absolutely wonderful 2 bedroom/1 bath VRBO 9575509, to which we’ll return throughout 2024 between our travels: this month, May, part of June, and August/September.

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This will be the “hub” out from which our travel spokes will radiate: southeast to Florida; east to England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ontario; and west to Vancouver Island… so far.

Maple Ridge is not the most transit-friendly city but with careful timing we can get to Vancouver International AirPort in just under 2 hours on the West Coast Express train (weekday rush hour service only) for about $8CAD each, or take a 45 minute $75CAD Uber ride.

Getting into the city’s downtown commercial area for haircuts and in-person banking (collecting foreign currency) means timing things just right for the limited bus service, and potentially (horrors!) having to hang around one of the Italian bakery/coffee shops until our appointment time. Of course, Uber or hitching a ride with our son or daughter-in-law is an option. Getting to our doctor and dentist, both in Coquitlam and not at this point worth changing, involves a local bus plus an intercity Rapid Bus, the early morning West Coast Express, or an Uber, but those are one-time visits. It’s not super convenient, but compared to our prior life’s costs of owning a car, it’s well worth it. Last year our surface transportation (i.e. not including flights) was just $2072 (including a one week fully insured car rental) as compared to over $12000 when we were making car payments, maintaining things like tires, buying fuel (even at HALF of current fuel prices), and paying for car insurance. That difference more than funds any flights we take that are not covered by credit card points.

Groceries get delivered right to our door, which is something we’ve been doing for over a year now, in Canada, Mexico, and the US. I’m not missing physical grocery stores at all, although farmers’ markets and bakeries worldwide are still a big draw,

I actually prepped our on-line grocery order while still in San Diego, so it arrived at 10 a.m. on our first morning here. Knowing that we’d be arriving late the night before, our landlord had left us tea and coffee, milk, and breakfast bananas, so we weren’t desperate for food.

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Speaking of on-line shopping, we’re taking advantage of a stable address to top up a few travel needs: new socks and underthings, a couple of replacement clothing items (one in, one out is our mantra) for our upcoming cruise, and prescription sunglasses for me. I’m particularly excited about the latter, ordered from KITS, a Vancouver-based online eyewear company with a terrific guarantee and return policy. (UPDATE: they arrived within 5 days of ordering and are perfect!)

Once it stops raining, there are lots of hiking paths, beautiful parks and conservation areas, and the Fraser River nearby – and of course our grandsons just a 30 minute stroll away.

Beyond that, we’re anticipating a quiet month, simply reorganizing our suitcases in readiness for April’s transatlantic cruise.