I’m the ultimate snowbird — half of my year is spent in Alaska and the rest is in the Bali sun for $25 a day
By the time Jonathan Montgomery, a British transplant living in Alaska, retired 15 years ago, he was thoroughly fed up with his adoptive home state’s notoriously brutal winters. So he decided to become a snowbird and head for warmer shores.
“I view my life purpose as to be where the bad weather is not,” Montgomery, 61, tells Realtor.com® in a recent email exchange while on one of his winter adventures abroad.
Here’s how it works for Montgomery: Six months out of the year, covering the spring and summer seasons, he lives in Anchorage, AK, enjoying the many outdoor activities the area has to offer. The other six months, the retiree splits between a guesthouse in Bali and a van in New Zealand, while renting out his home in the States.
“I spend exactly six months each year in Alaska—and not one moment longer,” Montgomery stresses.
Thanks to this arrangement, Montgomery has been able to retain his Alaska residency and collect what he described as “free money” from the state government through the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays out annual dividends to every Alaskan from the state’s multibillion-dollar oil and mining revenues.
Montgomery says that last year, his share came out to $1,700. It has been known to climb as high as nearly $3,300.
A snowbird’s life in a tropical paradise
In Ubud, Bali, Montgomery has been staying in the same guesthouse for the past decade for the low price of $25 a day. That amount includes breakfast.
Meanwhile, the rent income from his house in Anchorage comes out to $110 per day.
The British-American expat’s day in Bali begins at 7 a.m. with a hatha yoga session, followed by a workout in an air-conditioned gym. In the evenings, when the weather turns cooler, Montgomery enjoys an hour-long Balinese massage for just $20, including a generous tip.
“During my working career in Alaska, I never really enjoyed my winters. I just got through them,” Montgomery admits. “Now, I totally love my winters.”
Early in his snowbirding experience, Montgomery would move far afield to explore far-flung places. But more recently, he says he has been going back to his favorite spots, including Bali and the South Island of New Zealand, where he keeps an old van in a friend’s yard.
“I typically go to New Zealand for two to three months per year,” he explains. “It’s a lot like Alaska, but when it’s winter in Alaska, it’s summer in New Zealand. It also has the advantage that I can hike in peace through the woods, confident that I am top of my food chain. The worst thing that will bite me is a sandfly.”
A major concern for the wilderness enthusiast in Alaska is becoming an alpha predator’s meal.
“It is a complete fallacy that Alaska bears will kill you and eat you. No. They bypass the killing and go straight to the eating,” Montgomery quips. “The last sound you may hear is the crunching of your own bones! No such worries in New Zealand.”
Though he loves New Zealand, Montgomery says he views Bali as his true home away from home, as well as a convenient winter travel hub from where he can jet to Thailand or Singapore for as little as $100.
This spring, Montgomery’s travels took him to Nepal, where he was preparing to go on a three-day white-water rafting trip, before flying back to Anchorage in late April.
“This will be my 15th year of snowbirding, and I totally love it,” he gushes.
From the United Kingdom to the Final Frontier
Montgomery is originally from England but moved to Alaska to attend graduate school in Fairbanks in the late 1980s. After earning his MBA in 1991, he moved to Anchorage, got married, and embarked on a career in mortgage lending.
An avid outdoorsman, Montgomery fell in love with Alaska’s wild, open spaces—but not so much with its harsh winter weather, with average temperatures hovering in the teens and 20s.
“I totally love Alaska in the summertime. It’s the size of Western Europe with the population one-twelfth of London,” he says. “The wilderness adventure opportunities are just unbeatable.”
Montgomery has lived in Alaska for 38 years, but having to shiver through the frigid winter months never really agreed with him. So when he got the opportunity to retire from the mortgage origination industry at age 46, he jumped at the opportunity to revamp his lifestyle.
Montgomery, now a widower, notes that he was able to “stop chasing the dollar” earlier than most of his colleagues because, unlike them, he had no children to care for, and he always strived to live below his means.
“I was able to recognize that I had enough and my time was more valuable to be,” he says.
Instead of springing for a fancy car, Montgomery continued driving his old Jeep while investing in a five-unit apartment building. Ten years later, the mortgage on the building has been paid off, and the income from the rentals now makes up the lion’s share of Montgomery’s retirement income. It also funds his jet-setting lifestyle.
While he is enjoying a massage in Bali or exploring the temples of Thailand, Montgomery also draws another income from renting out his private home in Anchorage, which he had built in 2007. Between the upper-floor furnished unit and the granny flat he’s got on his property, the retiree says he pulls in about $3,300 during the six months he’s gone.
Montgomery says he intends to keep up his globe-trotting for as long as his health allows.
“As any flock of migrating birds can tell you: Don’t overthink it,” he says.
