Interesting article. I am a Wapo subscriber and read it. I see mostly cons for me but I can see their pros. I would be concerned about:
-What if cruises have to shut down again for a period of time? Can you live in a timeshare or hotel year round in a worst case scenario?
-What happens if you get very sick and can’t live on a cruise ship or time share anymore?
-What if you do not want to or can’t cruise anymore, then do you have enough money to purchase a new home at possibly higher costs than the home you sold?
-Would you be happy with a lower standard of living like living in a tiny cabin and possibly an inside cabin at times with no sunlight?
-How realistic is $100 a day per couple long term? Or even short term? That’s a $700 per week cruise not including some incidentals that you probably must spend, at least tipping. I assume a $700 a week cruise is not the best overall.
-Will family and friends get tired of hosting you and start feeling like you are a freeloader? I guess you can offer to pay them $700 a day if you start feeling like a burden. I would not want my family and friends staying at my house more than once a year not even for money. LOL
-What kind of timeshares and hotels can you get for less than $100 a day? If you want to spend $100 a day, then assume your hotel/timeshare budget will need to be less than $100 since you will have food, uber and other expenses. Or you can budget for more.
I see some of their positives like lower cost living if you can handle that style of living and find the deals, built in food/entertainment, and seeing new places all the time. I just could not live a nomad lifestyle in a small space for long periods of time. I need a king size bed and a big bathtub. LOL
I think keeping your home and renting it out might be safer. If you purchased your home at a low cost, then consider what an equivalent home at an equivalent price would cost elsewhere.
I have given some of these issues some thought previously. Although it's always possible that circumstances may dictate a change in approach, I would say that any pandemic circumstances requiring a cruise to be canceled would create more openings in time shares because less people would be booking them. This actually just got through happening so that would be my hope. There are already people who basically are full time ts people.
Of course I'll buy supplemental health insurance that covers what the VA and Medicare won't.
If I can't travel any more I'll do senior subsidized housing or put enough cash down on a little place that a reverse mortgage will eliminate any additional payments except property taxes, utilities, and maybe an hoa. If I need assistance I'll be a cash pay at home or have my assets in a tryst so I can go medicaid.
I lived in a room with 80 dudes for years at a time with basically a gym locker, plus a one foot high by 3 feet across by 6 feet long bunk that had a 2 inch pad for me to sleep on, so I'm good with anything better than that and I'm pretty good at managing my expectations. What these folks are doing seems to eclipse that stuff exponentially. But who knows.
I have been pretty pleased in the past with Carnival, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean all being $100 per day per couple and the amenities included were quite satisfactory. And it looks like there are folks already doing it.
As far as time share costs goes. I think you would find that most folks in RCI would tell you that $259 a week with an occasional resort fee, or less, would be their expectations for a one bedroom condo with a full kitchen, living room, washer and dryerand one or two baths.
In my case I would have to freeload for consecutive years with my various immediate family members before I used up all of the goodwill/capital/equity I have offered them in the past, all the way up to now. As a matter of fact, we may be working out a sweetheart deal with some of our kids that are currently staying downstairs and I'm sure they could hold a room for us to use a couple weeks a quarter if things don't go seamlessly. I mean we gotta die at some point in time so it can't be forever.
You bring up good points but I think I may have developed reasonable rationales to get us through many of those circumstances with managed expectations. I guess we'll see.