After living in Manhattan for more than two decades and New Jersey for five years, Charles “Chuck” H. Stevens and Berardino “Ben” Di Rienzo were ready for something new. The US couple, who’ve been together for around 37 years and married for 12, say they felt as though they were spending most of their time working to keep up their lifestyles and something had to give.

“We were getting towards retirement age, and we were trying to decide what to do,” Stevens, who previously worked as a creative director, tells CNN Travel. “New York is very expensive. And we had really kind of done everything that we wanted to do.”