Retirement for Bill Morse looked exactly like it should: A house in Palm Springs, sunny days by the pool, travel on the calendar. But then, the quiet began to feel a little too quiet.

“I was sitting around one day reading a book,” Morse says. “And I just sort of looked around and thought, ‘So I just do this until the stroke comes?’”

There had to be more to life, he told himself.

It was the moment that nudged him out of the desert and all the way to Cambodia, into a second act of life shaped by purpose.

From Palos Verdes to Siem Reap

Morse grew up among the dramatic bluffs of Palos Verdes — a kid with salt in his hair and the Pacific Ocean in his backyard. He was in the first graduating class of Rolling Hills High School (now Palos Verdes Peninsula High School).

“I loved growing up in

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