Living Your Best Encore: Maria Coffey

What is or was your prior job/career, and how many years have you spent there? Are you willing to share your age?

I am 72. I trained as a teacher but didn’t last long in that profession. Since 1989, I have been a published author—my latest and 13th book, Instead: Navigating the Adventures of a Child-free Life, was published last November. In the early 1990s, my husband Dag (a veterinarian) and I reinvented ourselves as a writer/photographer team. We started travelling the world, having big adventures and producing books, articles and multi-media presentations about them. In the mid-1990s, we were head-hunted by an American adventure travel company to help develop a new worldwide kayaking program. We created and guided the first commercial sea kayaking trip in Halong Bay for several years. In 2000, we established our own adventure travel company, Hidden Places. Our first trips were in the Solomon Islands—truly adventurous! In 2010, we founded a conservation branch of the company, initially raising funds to help improve the plight of captive and wild elephants. We still run Hidden Places.

What inspired you to pursue your current path (whether actively working, retired, or starting a second act), and how did you arrive at that decision?

We wanted an adventurous life, travelling the world. We are both creative people, so photography and writing were important outlets. The guiding and founding of a travel company allowed us to keep exploring and sharing the special places we discovered with like-minded people. We are still on that path!

What advice would you give someone considering a career change, retirement, or starting a new chapter in life? What do you wish someone had told you before you made your decision?

Accept the pull to what inspires you. Know that things probably won’t turn out as expected, but that is part of the adventure. Be prepared to pivot. And if you’re giving up a ‘regular’ job to go freelance like us, be ready for more work than you could have imagined! (But it’s worth it.)

What unexpected challenges, joys or surprises have you encountered in this phase of your life?

In my early twenties, I had a near-death experience - I was caught in a riptide, hauled ashore, not breathing and resuscitated on the beach. This gave me a strong urge to follow my dreams to not waste time. Now, in old age, this urge has become even stronger, but in different ways. I no longer suffer fools; I focus on the people I love and who love me in return. I try only to do things that feed my soul and drop the things that don’t.

What life lesson has your current phase of life taught you that you wish you had known earlier?

It’s important to rest! I did everything at full tilt for many years. Sometimes, I felt close to burnout, but luckily, I managed to avoid it. It was close, though.

How has your understanding of happiness or fulfillment evolved over the years, especially in your current phase of life?

I finally understand that success doesn’t necessarily make you happy. The burning ambitions that drove me when I was younger have died down, which actually is a relief. Life seems more peaceful now, but still exciting.

Is there anything you dislike about being your current age?

All the obvious stuff–how my body looks, the fact that I have less energy and strength. But most of all, friends dying. Along with the grief, there is always the realization that a part of me has gone with them–the things we shared, the chance to reminisce about the madcap times we spent together. I experienced this in the 1980s when dear friends in the mountaineering world died climbing. Now, once again, I have to accept that I will lose friends, this time more often because of illness and age. As for my own demise—I love the world so much I hate to think of leaving it. But this makes me appreciate every day all the more.

Maria Coffey has written extensively about her worldwide travels and expeditions with her husband, Dag Goering, who is a veterinarian and photographer. Her book Fragile Edge: Loss on Everest won the 2002 ITAS Prize for Mountain Literature and Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow won the Banff Mountain Film Festival Literature Prize in 2003 and a National Book Award in 2004. Her memoir Instead won the Adventure Travel prize at the 2023 Banff Mountain Film Festival. Coffey and her husband are based in Victoria, B.C. and Catalonia. Now available: Instead-Navigating-Adventures-Childfree-Memoir