Our plan is to retire at age 50 when DJ graduates high school. At that point we want to be unencumbered and travel the world in retirement. Specifically, we plan to slow travel from place top place, beginning in Southeast Asia. Doing so, however, requires short term rentals. Enter living in an Airbnb (or similar). So, this idea brings us to our month long “test” on Cape Cod, Massachusetts to try our hand at living in a small short-term rental.
Why Visit Cape Cod?
Summer of 2022, DJ was still into healthcare related subjects and we really wanted to give him another experience to test these waters. No sense in him getting all focused on med school before he even enters college if he isn’t even going to like it. We found a great camp in Waltham, MA that was three weeks and set about planning how to get him to/from camp without long drives from VA to MA and back twice.
Turns out, it had also been 25 years since we got married and spent our honeymoon on Cape Cod. What better way to get him to and from camp and celebrate a big anniversary. And… as it turns out, this was a great way to “test” living together in a much smaller setup. Think of it as a trial run for our ultimate plan to shift into a nomadic lifestyle as of Summer 2026.
Living in an Airbnb on Cape Cod
So, we spent three full weeks on Cape Cod – most of that time in a VRBO located in Barnstable. Okay, its not technically an Airbnb but VRBO is less well known and not what we are looking at outside the United States.
Our rental wasn’t on the water, nor was it in a touristy locale. Instead, it appeared to be a working class neighborhood. The VRBO itself had the owner living downstairs while they converted the attic into a small studio. We had private access via the front door, straight upstairs to a bedroom, full size bath (shower only), and small kitchen and dining area.
For two and a half weeks it was home. We cooked most of our meals here, worked about half the days with Hillary managing our business from here and I taking care of my day job supporting partners of a major cloud computing provider. And in the middle of this DJ got COVID so we went to Boston to pick him up, housed him in a hotel in Orleans (about 45 min away), and spent time hiking and biking across the cape.
Our Airbnb Experience on Martha's Vineyard
For a few days, after DJ was deposited back to camp, we went to Martha’s Vineyard, leaving our car behind, riding the ferry across and using bikes to get around. This time we stayed in an even smaller spot in Tisbury. It was a very cool tiny house out behind the owners main house. Though small, it had everything we needed. A small cook top to make hot water and do light cooking. It wouldn’t have worked for a long term stay since it didn’t have a good setup of pots and plans for eating the steak and fish we like to cook. But for a few days it was great. And the outdoor shower was a blast! The only other downside is Tisbury is a dry town, so we couldn’t find wine anywhere walking distance.
We Can Live in an Airbnb (or a Small Short Term Rental)
All in all we had 3 wonderful weeks on Cape Cod together. We learned a bit about just how small a place we can get by with, minimum needs for cooking and doing some computer based “work”, improvised well when things blew up (DJ getting kicked out of camp for a bit with COVID), and founds lots of outdoor activities to keep us entertained. Success! Now we will try living in an Airbnb again in Panama (no not Panama City, Florida) for a full month during the Summer of 2023!