Warren Knox caught the travel bug back in his military days. His career brought him to several unique and interesting places, from Korea to Germany and Bahrain, opening his eyes to the possibilities of life beyond U.S. borders.
“When I was stationed in Germany, I got to travel around Europe,” he says. “When I came back to the United States and got married, I wanted to share those kinds of experiences with my wife, Julie. I missed the café culture and the lifestyle that Europe has to offer. I also wanted to look at retiring early.
“Initially, Julie would get upset with me when I mentioned the idea because she said it was too early to be talking about retirement. She told me I was talking like an old man. I kept pushing those buttons and talking about traveling to different places. Eventually, I got her on board, and we started looking for a country we could both agree on.”
The trouble is that Warren and Julie are polar opposites. She’s from Louisiana; he’s from California. She likes mountains, cold weather, and tranquility; he likes hustle and bustle, the beach, and sunshine. They couldn’t agree on which country to move to.“After making many, many trips to look at different countries as places to stay long-term, we decided that we’d just retire everywhere and continue to travel,” says Warren.
“We couldn’t make our mind up on one country, so we chose them all,” says Julie.
Warren and Julie became “slow travelers.” This way of exploring the world emphasizes connection more than conventional tourism. Instead of spending a day or two in a destination and attempting to see as much as possible, slow travelers immerse themselves, living like locals for extended periods of time.
Slow travel has taken Warren and Julie to over 40 countries, though they’re not worried about tracking their country count. Eventually, it led them to Montenegro, which turned out to be a happy medium for this couple.
Julie says, “We started scouting in 2008. We went to Panama then from there to Europe. In 2010, we did Italy. In 2012, we took on more of Europe, visiting nine countries, and we fell in love with the lifestyle. At that point, I said, ‘I don’t think anything’s going to beat Europe.’
“We still had to see Asia, however. We went to the Philippines, Korea, and Taiwan in 2015. By 2016, we knew that Europe was our thing, and we wanted to buy property. I started doing a ton of research. I was always on the computer.
Warren says, “Montenegro was a middle ground for us. It had beaches, the coast, restaurants, and the café culture that we like so much about Europe. It also had the mountains and cooler weather for Julie. It was one of those things where we just knew right away.
“We came here thinking that there was a 50% chance that we’d actually buy property. We were ready to own, but we weren’t ready to commit to any one place yet. We wanted to make sure Montenegro was right for us. We got here, and it surpassed all expectations. The places we saw, the exploration we did. Very quickly, we became enamored with the Old Town of Kotor and the people here. To us, looking through our American goggles, it was a fairy tale wonderland.”
Warren and Julie bought a home in Kotor Old Town and ended up selling it a couple of years later in favor of a bigger property near Tivat.
“We were happy with our little home in the fortress area,” says Warren. “I loved walking out the front door to the restaurants, cafés, and bars. It was my little happy place, but Julie needed more elbow room away from the tourists. That’s how we ended up in our new spot.”
Now settled on the Durasevici Coast, just across the water from Tivat, the couple is only a 15-minute drive from Kotor Old Town and all its charm.
Julie says, “When I first started talking about Montenegro to people in the United States, they’d say, ‘So, you’re going to Jamaica?’ They had no idea where it was. We’ve helped a lot of people figure out where Montenegro is since 2016 through our YouTube channel.”
“I feel like we’ve had a pretty good impact,” says Warren. “There’s a very international expat community here, with people from Europe and all over the world. Everybody likes to get together—it’s a big international community, with English as the bridge language for all.”
Julie says, “Our neighbor is from England, and he gets flights here for 40 to 50 euros. Our upstairs neighbor gets them for about the same price.”
What’s next on this intrepid couple’s agenda?
“We’re shifting our approach,” says Warren. “We’d been doing the Schengen shuffle, where you go into the Schengen Zone for 90 days and then leave for 90 days. But we found that we weren’t really using all of our 90 days in Schengen. We were going to Turkey. We were going to Serbia. There were other non-Schengen places that interested us.
“Now we’re still doing the shuffle, but we’re just doing Montenegro at this point. We stay in Montenegro for 90 days and then go somewhere else.”
Julie says, “There are so many places we love, so it’s really hard to nail down just one place and stay there.”
“We both want to be kind of omnipresent,” Warren adds. “We get homesick for so many places we’ve made friends because we slow travel. We spend a month or two somewhere. We develop roots. We get to know places, and we start to miss things about them. We talk about how great it would be to be in Montenegro at different times of the year to see our friends and do different things with the community we’ve built here. But then we also say, ‘We need to go back over there and see those people.’ It’s hard for us to imagine staying in one place.”
In the end and considering all the places we’ve been, Warren and Julie still consider Montenegro their ideal base.
“If we could only be in one country in Europe, I think Julie and I could probably agree that this would be where we would stay,” says Warren.
Julie says, “Montenegro is our version of California. We lived there before and loved it very much. How many places in the world can you be two hours from snow and two hours from the sea at the same time? We love Montenegro because it checks a whole lot of boxes for us, from the cost of living to the mountains and the sea.”
Until next time,
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter
P.S. This is an excerpt from my new book “At Home Abroad—Retire Big On Little”, the culmination of 40 years of experience covering this beat and of more than 26 years living overseas.
It is bigger, more in-depth, more comprehensive, and more timely than any other book on retiring overseas available anywhere.
