Wandering Money Pig - A journey of early retirement and FIRE (financial independence retire early)

  Kingsley Plantation, Jacksonville Florida  During our second major road trip since our early retirement in 2020, which was to travel through the American South/Deep South/Central South, we found ourselves spending 3 nights/4 days in Jacksonville Florida .  This was of course intentional, as we wanted to really get to know the city that was so easily missed on our previous trips driving along the I-95 corridor. Compared to many other destinations during our 8 week long trip, Jacksonville is where we really got to push ourselves to visit more than our usual share of places.  Why is that, you ask? Well, for one thing, there are just so many neat attractions in and around the city.  While planning for this particular destination, I really got busy figuring out our must visit places from a list of potential candidates.  Luckily, the city and the suburbs had so much to offer! We narrowed our list down to 3, all within an easy driving distance of roughly an hour from the downtown Jacksonv

  Zion National Park, one of our favorite places in America  Tammy Duckworth: “The American Dream I believe in is one that provides anyone willing to work hard enough with the opportunity to succeed.” Many years ago, a very close friend of mine was hosting a relative from South Korea.  I don’t remember much about that particular relative, except that she mentioned how America, especially the areas around Queens (New York City), looked so dilapidated and run down, unbefitting the status of United States as the world leader in almost every major aspects of our current, interconnected world. What struck me as odd hearing that sentiment was how uninformed she was about the world around her.  Every major city has a downtown/city center where businesses and more importantly jobs are located, with housing & condominiums surrounding that city center.  The further you move away from that business saturated city center, the less developed the areas tend to be. In New York City for example, M

  Southbank Riverwalk, Jacksonville, FL Jacksonville Florida is one of those places that is easily overlooked, situated between the ever more popular Orlando to the south, and Savannah to the north.  Being near the ubiquitous I-95 , one of the most traveled interstate highways in the United States spanning over 1900 miles, the city is right there, en route from points both north and south.   We must’ve passed by this city on at least 4 different occasions when we were driving down to Orlando (3 times) and once more when we were driving way down to the Florida Keys .  Every time we’d pass by the city, with its glistening buildings, various impressive-looking bridges and its modern cityscapes, we always wondered when we might actually stop there to properly explore the city. That day finally came for us in December of 2023, during our second major road trip since our early retirement in 2020.  That second road trip would span 8 weeks during the winter of 2023-2024, with us exploring