Danica Patrick is enjoying a relaxing retirement from racing in NASCAR and IndyCar. And in the NFL offseason, that includes a lot of traveling around the country and world with her boyfriend and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
In the two years since the sports power couple went public with their relationship, they’ve traveled all over, including to India, England, Zambia, New Zealand and Paris — a surprise trip for Patrick’s birthday last March. Recently buying a $28 million mansion, as Variety reported, in Malibu, Patrick said they’re spending a lot of offseason time in California when they’re not traveling.
“It’s pretty good,” Danica told For The Win this week. “We look at each other a lot and say, ‘Wow, it’s a pretty good life.'”
Patrick and Rodgers have a trip planned nearly every week, she said, and that’s just the way they like it. A lot of it revolves around golf tournaments, so right now, they’re in California with Rodgers playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. With a few couples to make up a good group of friends with them, it’s an eventful vacation with “a whole week of having fun and entertaining and drinking wine and watching golf.”
(Patrick is an admittedly “terrible golfer,” although she said she owns clubs and will still play.)
Golf tournaments aside — they’ll also go to the American Century Championship on Lake Tahoe in July — Patrick said she and Rodgers are in the process of blocking out a month and planning a big offseason trip.
.@AaronRodgers12 playing guitar for friends, players and caddies? This is the kind of stuff that just happens during @attproam week. https://t.co/qusmGP3KYz pic.twitter.com/LamYreyPur
— Caddie Network (@CaddieNetwork) February 5, 2020
But not everyone does well on the road with their loved ones, and Patrick joked about how “some people are really late all the time or they take forever to get ready.” But she explained that she and Rodgers have similar travel interests, like trying new things, learning about cultures outside of their own, visiting historical sites and exploring spiritual experiences.
“We’re very good travel buddies,” Patrick said. “We both want to do the same things, we want to go to the same places, we want to have similar experiences, we want to see the same stuff.
“It was one of the things we connected on very early on when we started talking: Travel and wanting to travel and that no matter what, that was going to happen for us in our lives. And then we came to find out we’re really good travel partners too.”
Rodgers expressed a similar sentiment about traveling with Danica in a 2018 interview with Artful Living. Opening up about their relationship, he said, in part:
“We really enjoy traveling. She went on the trip to India and Africa, and we had a blast. And we’ve taken some trips domestically that have been fun. I’m a little further out there in my love for history; I want to go to historical sites around the world. She’s getting into it as well, but she’s spontaneous. She’s up for anything travel-wise, which is fun. She’s a good travel partner because she’s so laid-back and low-maintenance.
Patrick’s mentality about how she imagined her retirement from racing has changed following her seven full-time seasons in IndyCar and six in NASCAR. She has speaking engagements, remains involved with her Napa-area wine company, Somnium, and puts out a weekly podcast called Pretty Intense (guests have ranged from Rodgers to Alex Rodriguez to her dad).
But she’s learning to do less.
“I have actually come around to the idea and be really honestly totally happy with this idea that I don’t have to do more or I don’t even have to do as much as I used to do,” Patrick said. “I can do less. Life is OK doing less, and that’s a part of retiring that I wanted as well.
“It gets hard when you get in this mindset and you have a go-go mentality and an aggressive mindset to accomplishing things in life where you just think, ‘OK, what’s next? Let’s make this big, and what can we do here?’ And then to realize, ‘Wow, I’m actually totally fine with just doing a little less.'”
The nine-month NASCAR schedule is beyond demanding with 36 race weekends, plus two exhibition events. And when drivers aren’t competing, their days are still filled with sponsorship obligations and fan- or team-related events.
It’s a near-constant grind, and after so many years of working her way up to being the first woman to compete consistently at the top of two motor sports series, Patrick is enjoying the benefits of her success.
“The priorities have just shifted,” she said, and they now include time blocked off for Packers games and playoff runs, in addition to traveling and her businesses. “But it’s really, really lovely.”
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