Join authors Richard & Jackie Pickles for stories and tips based on their experience of retiring early and travelling in their camper van.

Take a journey with Richard and Jackie Pickles, who retired at 50 and embraced a life of travel and adventure in their campervan, Nelson. The couple will share stories and advice, helping you to think about the future and get motivated for your next, life-changing journey.

Date: Wednesday, 11 November

Time: 7-8.30pm

Tickets: £7

Venue: The Grove Bookshop, 10 The Grove, Ilkley, LS29 9EG

Tickets can be purchased in the shop or here via Eventbrite.

Refreshments will be served.

Refunds available, minus the Eventbrite fee, up to 3 days before the event.

Our Guests

Married couple Richard and Jackie Pickles are former teachers who retired early at ages 50 and 51. They created the popular Early Retirement Wanderlust platform to share their lifestyle redesign, campervan travels, and early retirement advice.

About the book:

Early Retirement Wanderlust: Freedom in Our Fifties, Embracing a Life of Travel and Avdenture

If you are thinking of Early Retirement and want a practical guide to creating a life of freedom, then this is the book for you.

Richard and Jackie Pickles are two ex teachers who wanted to take life down a different path after a heartbreaking year losing Richard's dad and brother within weeks of each other in 2021. They realised that life was unpredictable and living into our 70's is not guaranteed. They wanted to get out and experience all that the world has to offer and have quality time to spend with their families.

When they early retired, there was very little information and guidance out there. All the books and YouTube channels were based on the financial side of retirement and were very theoretical - in contrast, they wanted to hear people's lived experiences and how they made it work for them.

They started a YouTube channel in the summer of 2022 and quickly realised they were not alone. There so many people out there going through their own life changing situations and looking for answers- our online community has grown massively since then.

'We wanted to create a guide that would help people realise that it can be done. We dispel some of the retirement myths, take an in depth look at the 3 phases of retirement, discuss how to maintain purpose and identity in retirement and look at the importance of looking after both your physical and mental health.

The book has a good dose of travel inspiration too, as we share some of the campervan road trips and world wide travels that we have undertaken now we have a life of freedom. We also look at ways to keep our travels on a budget so that our finances go further.

We outline how we set our weekly, monthly and yearly budgets so that we get the most out of our retirement and we share with you our 'Cash is King' philosphy. We are not financial advisors so you will not find any serious finance planning in the book - but we do offer some sensible practical tips for you to think about.'

Each chapter has a reflection section for you to think about how you would like your retirement to look.'

Description supplied by the event organiser.