In 2011, I walked away from a six-figure law career and retired at age 41. I thought I was prepared financially. But emotionally? Not so much.

After decades of working, I was used to the sense of purpose that came with a career, and I assumed I’d have to give that up once I stopped working. My biggest fear took the form of one major uncertainty: What would I do with all that unstructured time?

Fast forward 14 years later, and my days are anything but idle. My wife and I now live in Portugal, the No. 1 country Americans want to move to. I spend my free time enjoying local food with friends and hiking the wildflower-dotted coastal trails. Retiring early is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made … but I remember how overwhelming it felt at the start.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far in early retirement, and why I don’t regret it.

I followed a predictable path for most of my adult life: law school, summer associate gigs, and eventually a stable legal career. Then came the 2008 financial crisis. The firm I worked for collapsed — and with it, my sense of direction. I couldn’t picture myself doing anything other than practicing law.

I could’ve stayed in the industry. But instead, I chose the unknown. Most people think early retirement is about not working anymore. But it’s about redefining your identity without a roadmap. That required a mindset shift: I had to become an explorer.

That mindset brought us to Portugal, a country where we didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, and had no idea what to expect day-to-day. It was disorienting at first. But the uncertainty became our motivation to grow, learn, and build a fulfilling life from scratch.

If you’re delaying retirement because you don’t know what comes next, that might be exactly why it’s worth doing. Uncertainty could be your opportunity to travel down paths you’ve never imagined.

When we first retired, my wife and I assumed we’d gradually draw down our savings over time and hope it would last. But something surprising happened: Our net worth kept growing.

A major reason is that living in Portugal drastically reduced our expenses. Here’s what we save annually compared to our old life in Washington, D.C.:

• $15,000 on state income taxes
• $25,000 on health insurance and deductibles
• $14,000 on property taxes
• $20,000 on food, entertainment, and daily costs

In total, we estimate that we save about $5,000 per month just by living abroad.

We follow the same financial strategy we did while working: We live below our means, reinvest the difference, and let compounding do the work. The only difference is that now, instead of salaries, our income comes from investments.

Retirement doesn’t have to be the end of building wealth. It can even be the beginning of a more sustainable, intentional version of it.

Whether you’re working or not, most of us want the same thing: to feel like we matter and are making a contribution.

When we first retired, we had a built-in sense of purpose as parents to a young child. We joined school activities, studied the local language, and built a new life in Lisbon.

But when our daughter went off to college, we were back to square one. Our schedules emptied out, and we faced the same question we did in 2011: What do we do with all this time?

Before diving into hobbies or commitments, we made a plan. We identified six core priorities that bring meaning to our lives:

1. Building and strengthening friendships
2. Personal care and physical health
3. Quality time as a couple
4. Travel
5. Volunteer work and giving back
6. Learning new skills

Once we had those priorities in place, it became easier to build a routine that felt fulfilling.

Today, my wife volunteers at our tennis club, takes pottery and Dutch lessons, and plays sports. I’m focused on writing, freelance retirement coaching, and helping a local nonprofit as a consultant. We host dinner parties, explore new recipes, and take short trips around Europe.

With the right mindset, early retirement can be the perfect new starting point. You just have to be willing to embrace it.

Alex Trias is a retired attorney. He and his wife have been living in Portugal since 2015. He writes about tax planning, investing, early retirement and expat life on Substack.

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While Markeiz Ryan, 36, was a senior airman in the U.S. Air Force, he took a trip to Vietnam that would set him off on a new journey — he just didn’t know it yet.

At the time, Ryan admits, he was feeling down after having gotten in trouble for breaking his curfew. He lost out on several months of pay, was restricted to his military base and demoted from staff sergeant to senior airman.

“After this, I was very depressed and very sad,” Ryan tells CNBC Make It. “But that depression and sadness make you think about where your life is going and it makes you redirect your life into the right direction.”

″[Vietnam] just looked like so much fun and it really lived up to all the hype,” he said. “I ended up having the best time of my life, and that depression was [just] gone.”

Ryan says he didn’t want to let go of the good feelings he had on that trip, so when he got home he almost immediately started planning his return to the country.

The veteran went back to his life in the Air Force and completed his service on a military base in Wyoming before being honorably discharged in 2019.

Soon after leaving the Air Force, Ryan relocated to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he spends roughly $1,031 a month on expenses: $850 in rent for a two-bedroom apartment, $130 for utilities, $8.50 for his cellphone, $15 for gas and $27 for a VIP gym membership.

His other expenses include $96 a year for internet, $1,000 a year for health insurance, and $100-$400 a month on groceries. What he spends on groceries varies because he often alternates between cooking his own food and dining out.

To keep up with his life in Vietnam, Ryan’s monthly income comes from several sources and totals roughly $4,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

It includes approximately $1,500 from VA disability, $1,000 from the GI Bill while he’s pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration, and $900 to $1,300 from teaching English. Ryan also does occasional odd jobs like voiceover work, where his pay can range from $200 to $600 a month, and is an avid fan of day trading, where he averages about $300 a month.

“This might not sound like a lot in America but trust me, this is more than enough to be middle or even above middle class in Vietnam,” he says.

The one job he loves the most, though, is teaching English as a second language.

“ESL teaching is fun and very rewarding. I wanted to do it since high school. I felt like it was the only job I ever completely enjoyed,” he says.

“Vietnam is the number one safest place I’ve ever lived. I never have to look over my shoulder here. I noticed that there’s this great level of calm,” Ryan says. “People are more focused on their day-to-day life and they’re less focused on what’s going on politically. It’s a much more calm feeling.”

Ryan uses the extra income he receives to invest in the U.S. and Vietnamese stock markets. He says he also supports the local communities and always has money set aside for medical bills and visa runs.

When Ryan first arrived in Vietnam, he moved around quite a bit, but has been living in his current Ho Chi Minh City apartment in one of the country’s tallest residential towers for two years now.

“If I leave, it’s because Vietnam told me to leave. In America, I felt very unmotivated. I felt like no matter how hard you work, you’re still in poverty. You’re constantly chasing a standard that you can’t really achieve,” he says.

“Here in Vietnam, it takes a lot of the monetary pressure out of your day-to-day. You focus on what makes you happy, who you want to become and how you’re going to get there.”

Since moving to Vietnam, Ryan has made an effort to learn the language, but he admits he’s still not the best at it.

“I can never claim that I’m fluent in Vietnamese, but I do a lot better than most of my peers here,” he says.

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More travelers are heading to the mountains: Big Sky, Montana was named the top trending travel destination for 2026, according to a new report from Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo.

The report ranks 10 global destinations on the rise based on increased flight and accommodation searches on Expedia from 24,000 global travelers over the last year.

Big Sky, the Rocky Mountains town an hour’s drive from Yellowstone, may seems like it “came out of nowhere,” but it’s “long been known for world-class outdoor recreation, skiing and snowboarding in the winter and hiking, mountain biking and rafting in the summer,” says Melanie Fish, travel expert for Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo. Also adding to its charm are an evolving dining scene, growth in family-friendly offerings, community events and cultural activities, she tells CNBC Make It.

Here are the top 10 hotspots for travelers in the coming year and how much search interest has risen from 2024:

1. Big Sky, Montana, USA: 92% increase
2. Okinawa, Japan: 71% increase
3. Sardinia, Italy: 63% increase
4. Phu Quoc, Vietnam: 53% increase
5. Savoie, France: 51% increase
6. Fort Walton Beach, Florida, USA: 45% increase
7. Ucluelet, Canada: 44% increase
8. Cotswolds, U.K.: 39% increase
9. San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: 30% increase
10. Hobart, Australia: 25% increase

Okinawa, a chain of islands with a subtropical climate in southern Japan, is the No. 2 trending destination for 2026, per Expedia searches.

Travel to Japan surged in recent years thanks to a weak yen and lifted Covid restrictions, but some cities like Kyoto have introduced so-called tourist taxes to curb overcrowding. Meanwhile, Expedia recognized Okinawa for meeting its “Smart Travel Health Check” framework, aligned with World Travel and Tourism Council principles, for the region’s efforts to offer cultural and natural experiences without the overcrowding seen in many major global cities.

“Expedia doesn’t feel like it should or could be the arbiter of where travelers should visit or should want to visit, but we do play a role in informing travelers of what’s happening in the places that they’re making plans to travel to,” Fish says about recognizing places that support sustainable travel practices.

“What we see in Okinawa is that they are taking proactive environmental measures like coral reef restoration, they’re moving towards a decarbonized economy by using renewable energy sources,” Fish says. “They’re celebrating local heritage and making sure visitors have educational opportunities.”

Rounding out the top three is Sardinia, another rising destination beyond hotspots like Rome, Florence or Venice. The island is the Mediterranean’s second-largest after Sicily and is sometimes referred to as “the Maldives of Europe” because of its beaches.

Parts of the region are considered a “Blue Zone,” an area of the world where people tend to live exceptionally long lives, thanks to healthy lifestyle habits, access to fresh food, and focuses on strong social ties and spirituality.

“Sardinia is going to take a little bit more effort to get to than the destinations that we are so familiar with, like Rome and Florence,” Fish says, but travelers are finding it worthwhile to enjoy the island’s beaches, food and diverse landscapes.

“There are beautiful coastlines, but then there’s a mountainous interior, and then those charming towns,” she says. “That’s really the trifecta of what travelers are looking for.”

This article has been corrected to accurately reflect Big Sky’s proximity to Yellowstone National Park.

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In September, The Economist released its third annual “Carrie Bradshaw index,” named after the protagonist of the hit TV show “Sex and the City.” The report ranks the U.S. cities where Americans can afford to live alone.

The index was named after the character because, on the show, she lives in a studio apartment in the West Village and it is highly unlikely that she could afford it on a writer’s salary now, Lizzy Peet, a data researcher at The Economist, tells CNBC Make It.

“It all came about from a sort of snappy way to sum up the aspiration, a sort of quality of living by yourself in a big city for the first time. How much would you have to earn to afford that? And how much is that a realist prospect?” she says.

To rank the U.S. cities, The Economist used the rule that a tenant should spend no more than 30% of their gross income on rent. That, in combination with using rental prices from Zumper, led to the calculation of the salary needed to afford a typical studio in each city. Each city was given a “Bradshaw score” where a value more than one means an average studio apartment is affordable and less than one means housing is unaffordable.

“Cities that build a lot or maybe that have less demand or maybe have less population demand on rent are the kind of cities that are looking more affordable,” Peet says.

One big change in this year’s index is that some cities that were affordable last year have slid into the unaffordable category this year, Peet adds.

A lot of cities in Texas, like Dallas, Houston, and Austin, moved from what was deemed affordable to what is now deemed unaffordable.

“There are loads of factors at work here. It’s important to know that rental markets can be quite random, but they can fluctuate a lot in a very short space of time,” Peet says. “It’s pretty well documented that Texas has seen this influx of middle-class workers, and that would drive rent up.”

In this year’s index, 41 cities were unaffordable, up from 38 cities last year.

1. Wichita, Kan.
2. Baton Rouge, La.
3. Lincoln, Neb.
4. Des Moines, Iowa
5. Akron, Ohio
6. Tucson, Ariz.
7. Tulsa, Okla.
8. St. Louis, Mo.
9. Albuquerque, N.M.
10. Aurora, Colo.

Wichita, Kansas, is the most affordable city in the index. It has a Bradshaw score of around 1.75, which means that median wages in the city are 75% higher than needed to afford an average studio apartment.

The average monthly rent for studio apartments in Wichita is $580, up 1.64% from last month, but down 10.54% year-over-year, according to Zumper.

Residents of Wichita need to earn $26,400 a year to afford a studio, which is $20,250 less than the median wage.

“I’m not that surprised Wichita is the most affordable. A lot of the cities in the bottom 10 are off the beaten track and not huge economic powerhouses. It’s an interesting dynamic,” Peet says.

“There are still some perhaps less desirable cities that are surprisingly unaffordable and vice versa.”

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Austin Willingham, 30, grew up in Decatur, Alabama, and knew from a very early age that he wanted to leave home as soon as he turned 18.

While studying abroad in Sweden during his junior year at Troy University, he visited the Netherlands for the first time. Now almost 10 years later, Willingham and his partner are living in Rotterdam with the hope that they can obtain permanent residency or EU citizenship. 

It was a move that Willingham admits had been in the works since he returned from his semester abroad in Sweden. 

“Once I came back from Sweden, I was just determined to move back to Europe and had reverse culture shock. I was asking my parents if I could transfer to a different university and complete my degree abroad,” he tells CNBC Make It.

“Me being the first-generation college student in my immediate family, my parents were really adamant about me just going ahead and finishing my degree.”

Prior to moving to Rotterdam, Willingham lived in Ireland, traveled through Southeast Asia and was in and out of Australia for five years.

“We thought that it would be a good break. It would be a good change and transition from life in Australia. We also thought it would not be as difficult a change because Rotterdam is still the second-largest city in the country. We’re definitely city people, so we thought that this would just be the best space for us,” he says. “As soon as we got here, the people were so warm and they immediately welcomed us in.”

An estimated 5.5 million Americans live abroad, according to the Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO). That number continues to rise with an estimated 1,285 U.S. citizens expatriated in the first quarter of 2025 alone — a 102% increase compared to the same period a year ago, according to a report from CS Global Partners, which analyzed statistics from the U.S. Federal Register.

Willingham made the official move to Rotterdam in June of this year, on a DAFT (Dutch-American Friendship Treaty) visa. That visa stipulates that he be self-employed or work as a freelancer only.

To satisfy the visa requirements, Willingham works as an event planner and does commercial modeling, but his ultimate goal is to grow his relocation services business, Willing World.

Willingham and his partner live in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate. The couple splits 430 euros or USD $498 a month for rent — paying 215 euros or USD $249 each — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Including rent, Willingham’s monthly expenses in Rotterdam total approximately $680, covering utilities, transportation, health insurance, groceries, and his mobile phone bill.

“I like the freedom. This is coming from a privileged place, but I truly feel like anywhere outside the United States, it’s about being able to breathe and have a work-life balance. That’s what I love most about living abroad, even though I’m working for myself, there is still this balance and there’s not this societal pressure of needing to prove myself all the time.”

Willingham started sharing his journey abroad on TikTok and says that since moving to Rotterdam, he’s enjoyed building a community both online and in real life. He’s excited to see what the future holds, he says, but moving back to the United States is just not in the cards for him right now.

“I would love to live. I would love to own. I would love to say yes at some point, but not in the current situation that we have. It would be way down the line when the United States finally gets some change,” he says.

“I want to be able to be there for my parents, so maybe I wouldn’t move back permanently, but I would spend an extended amount of time.”

Willingham says that leaving the U.S. has taught him that he is capable of anything.

“I’ve learned that I can do it even when I’m scared because it still has to get done,” he says. “When living abroad, especially on your own, you don’t have anybody to depend on, so you learn to depend on yourself and trust yourself with it.”

Conversions from euros to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 euro to $1.16 USD on October 14, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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