Three weeks after he stunned the NASCAR world by saying he was abruptly retiring from the sport, we now know what the next chapter of Cole Pearn’s life will be.

And it’s about as far away from NASCAR as you can get.

Pearn revealed recently to the Toronto Sun that he and his wife Carrie have moved to Western Canada and have purchased Golden Apple Holidays, a skiing and hiking vacation company in British Columbia.

“Not many times do you get the opportunity to do that, to leave when you’re at the height of your success,” Pearn told The Sun. “We were ready to go on to do the next chapter.”

Pearn was tired of being gone from home so often during the course of the NASCAR season and not being around 7-year-old son Callum and 5-year-old daughter Freya.

“I’ve had a ton of great memories when we do get time together, but that day-to-day life, they’re not used to me being there, so for me I felt like the window was closing,” Pearn told The Sun. “I think once they’re teenagers they probably won’t want anything to do with me. If I was going to be part of their lives, the window was now. I think that really pushed us to make the decision as early as we did.”

“I know it’s what we needed to do. I’m sure there’s going to be things I’m going to miss, but at the same time it would have been hard to keep going.”

Even though Pearn doesn’t rule out the possibility of doing some consulting in NASCAR in the future, his decision to buy the skiing and hiking business is something “I’m definitely at peace” with, he told The Sun.

The seed of Pearn’s new venture was sewn nearly a year ago while he was on a skiing trip in Japan with the now former owners of Golden Alpine Holidays, which includes four rental lodges.

“It just seemed to cross a lot of the things off the list of what we were looking for,” Pearn told The Sun. “We finally came to a point this year where we found an avenue that we felt could work and we were excited about and we just decided to act on it.”

“We’re either going to do this or we’re not, and we didn’t feel good about any other options and that’s kind of how we settled on our plan.”

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