I don't think the forum has strayed far from its roots. Part of it just may be that with markets flying so high, a lot of people are feeling rather flush. I still see this as the "middle of the road" FIRE site compared to the extreme early retirement folks and the Boglehead forum types. I imagine when we get a downturn here there will be a lot of tears and belt tightening and things will return to being a bit more frugal.
My own take on a few of the points that have come up recently in this thread:
My own research and experience is similar to Classical_Liberal. A year of travel on the road for a single person will probably run about $18k to $24k. But, that's spending a good portion of your time in the lower COL areas and doing a good portion of it as a "backpacker". And again, that's as a single. therethere sounds like he/she is making plans for a couple. I'd expect that to run about 50% more, so around $27k to $36k for a couple. Really it just sounds like they are planning rather conservatively at an expected spend of $60k then really being spendypants. As noted slow travel can bring the cost down quite a bit and is really the way to do it. Expecting to spend on a year of travel the same that was spent on a month long vacation is certainly not the most efficient way to do it. Perhaps a bit more research is in order? I'd suggest reading this whole thread, as it really is a good one...you'll find that the "number" a lot of us partial early retirees arrived for early partial retirement at was just north of $500k total assets invested, but for the most part we're all singles as well.
I will say, though, if the plan is to take a year off and spend down a good chunk of the stache doing so, I'm afraid I have to vote for that being a very bad idea. As you noted, therethere, it was a difficult grind to get to where you are now. Going out and blowing a bunch of it right before your stache starts to take on a life of its own is probably an extremely bad idea. When you go back and look at this whole thread, I think you'll find a lot of people that made the semi/serial early retirement thing work in and of itself. Some people earn on the road working remotely. Or, myself for instance, works part of the year as a traveling healthcare professional. I'm actually still adding to my stache overall on a yearly basis...just not as much as when I was full time. I also completely reordered my life to take advantage of the situation - got rid of all my stuff minus the two bags I live out of, made sure my investments were in the right types of accounts, researched places I wanted to go, costs, visa issues, banking, etc. It really was an entire lifestyle decision as much as FIRE itself is, or making a decision to have children, or move to a new city.
As for living abroad on the "cheap" I can't say I'd recommend it. Why? Because if all you want to do is retire and live on like $20k a year you can do that just fine in the US. Better frankly, because you understand how the system works, you don't need to deal with visa issues, and you can kind of just live a simple below the radar kind of life. What you really don't want to be doing is living "poor" in the 3rd world. That sucks. Moreover, any loser can (and does) do exactly that. Just go get yourself a thrift shop backpack, a guitar and some dreadlocks and you can retire right now down at Khao San Road without ever having worked a day in your life. No, you go to a place like Thailand to live like a Rockstar on a Toledo, Ohio budget. Otherwise you're going to be bored out of your mind living in your cheap ass Chang Mai apartment with absolutely nothing to do.