We showed you a blank canvas when we last talked about our RV lot. https://joebeans2002.com/2024/07/19/creating-our-year-round-haven-leasing-and-developing-in-bc/
We had this unit near Balfour, BC, on Kootenay Lake. The sight was perfect in every aspect except one. It wasn’t open all year. It also didn’t have running water, power, or sewage. The new location had more and more, including shower and laundry facilities and much larger lots.
What We Needed
This was the 2nd part of our quest. We were looking for a location that offered us affordability, convenience, and proximity to the necessities of life. These necessities we determined before our search and included:
Access to an airport, in this case Canadian Rockies International Airport, just north of Cranbrook, BC.
Access to a hospital, also in Cranbrook.
Access shopping and groceries, again this box was checked.
Access to a variety of restaurants, check.
And finally, a range of outdoor and indoor activities within a fairly large radius from our location. There is skiing, hiking, hot springs, national parks, kayaking, biking, cross country skiing, waterfalls, golf etc. etc., all within a 3hour driving range.
Now What
Now the hard part begins, making this lot a workable living space. We will be presenting our efforts from time to time, and we are still working on it.
To sum up with some helpful advice, we spent many suppers discussing how we were going to deal with retirement. We talked this over more than a few bottles of wine. Our goal was to handle retirement in a responsible and economical manner. We settled on this path based on cost. We wanted to live comfortably and still maximize our available funds to help in funding our travel bug.
Something To Pass On
If we had something to pass along, it would simply be, talk. Put your hopes on the table and figure out a way to get the most out of them. It also very important to not put this off to the “future”. The future is now! It has taken us 20 years to get to this point and we still have things to work out.