{"id":21720,"date":"2024-05-10T10:37:13","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T08:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/suddenly-retired-what-now\/"},"modified":"2024-05-10T10:37:20","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T08:37:20","slug":"suddenly-retired-what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/suddenly-retired-what-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Suddenly retired &#8211; what now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"l-section wpb_row height_medium\"><div class=\"l-section-h i-cf\"><div class=\"g-cols vc_row via_flex valign_top type_default stacking_default\"><div class=\"vc_col-sm-12 wpb_column vc_column_container\"><div class=\"vc_column-inner\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><div class=\"wpb_text_column\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><h3><strong><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Summer 2015<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Our retirement in summer 2015. What now? We have no children of our own and therefore no grandchildren to look after. Sitting at home and becoming dissatisfied or concentrating on an ever-narrowing circle is something we definitely didn&#8217;t want.  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">As we have always enjoyed traveling, we decided to travel in southern Africa. Although we traveled to northern America for a whole year when we were young, we didn&#8217;t know whether we would still enjoy long-term travel. We dared!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Our camper at the time, a Woelcke Autark Runner 4&#215;4, was shipped to South Africa and for about 1 1\/2 years we drove through South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, with a short detour to Zimbabwe.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-image align_none\"><a ref=\"magnificPopup\" href=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Puros-Hoanib-9065.jpg\" aria-label=\"Puros-Hoanib-9065\" class=\"w-image-h\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Puros-Hoanib-9065.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Puros-Hoanib-9065.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Puros-Hoanib-9065-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Puros-Hoanib-9065-420x210.jpg 420w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Puros-Hoanib-9065-840x420.jpg 840w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" \/><\/a><\/div><div class=\"w-separator size_medium\"><\/div><div class=\"wpb_text_column\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong>At home everywhere<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>During this time, we realized <span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>that we feel at home wherever our vehicle is parked.<\/strong> <\/span>It&#8217;s exciting that a camping vehicle can become a home anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not just the magnificent landscapes and fascinating wildlife of southern Africa that have impressed us, no, the encounters with people have always been (and still are) very special experiences. These are what make up the ultimate appeal of traveling.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-image align_none\"><a ref=\"magnificPopup\" href=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/White-Lady-9464.jpg\" aria-label=\"White Lady-9464\" class=\"w-image-h\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/White-Lady-9464.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/White-Lady-9464.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/White-Lady-9464-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/White-Lady-9464-420x210.jpg 420w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/White-Lady-9464-840x420.jpg 840w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" \/><\/a><\/div><div class=\"w-separator size_medium\"><\/div><div class=\"wpb_text_column\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong>What next ?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The Mercedes Sprinter Autark Runner 4&#215;4 was the ideal vehicle in terms of its track width and size. Not too big and not too small. But with the total weight and the lack of ground clearance, it was still very restrictive.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, we very often came together with truck travelers or &#8220;expedition mobile&#8221; drivers. The massive and well-equipped vehicles were impressive and fascinating. &#8212; And driving a truck was also a boyhood dream that my father gave me along the way. I still remember how proud I was sitting in the passenger seat when my father drove the Mercedes XY through Switzerland &#8211; and then the wonderful roar of the diesel engine&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So it is not surprising that we finally bought a truck with four-wheel drive, a MAN 14.285 from 2001.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-image align_none meta_simple\"><a ref=\"magnificPopup\" href=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Fredy-Rita-Reck-1170.jpg\" aria-label=\"Zusammen mit Freddy und Rita Reck\" class=\"w-image-h\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1365\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Fredy-Rita-Reck-1170.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Fredy-Rita-Reck-1170.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Fredy-Rita-Reck-1170-420x236.jpg 420w, https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Fredy-Rita-Reck-1170-840x473.jpg 840w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1365px) 100vw, 1365px\" \/><\/a><div class=\"w-image-meta\"><div class=\"w-image-title\">Zusammen mit Freddy und Rita Reck<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summer 2015 Our retirement in summer 2015. What now? We have no children of our own and therefore no grandchildren to look after. Sitting at home and becoming dissatisfied or concentrating on an ever-narrowing circle is something we definitely didn&#8217;t want. As we have always enjoyed traveling, we decided to travel in southern Africa. Although...","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21727,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21720\/revisions\/21727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwheels.travel\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}