You Too Can Travel Like A Starving Artist

Or even if you're not starving, this is a pretty good way to do it

Car Wash

I wrote this blog post at various places and times as Sue and I wended our way to our AirBnB here in Madrid: Early morning at Logan Airport (well, I don’t know about you, but 10:30 is early for me). During a four-hour layover at JFK with a steady stream of travelers rolling by. (Where do all these people come from? And where are they going? And why do so many of these women look like Internet influencers?) Then in that weirdly dimly-lit liminal space 35,000 feet over the Atlantic, after dinner’s served and the trays collected, when passengers claim their bit of rented space to bed down for the night: This one sleeps like a baby, scrunched up, head under a blanket; this one stays up all night staring at videos.

We’ll be traveling for a little more than six weeks. People are always amazed and puzzled and I can tell sometimes even a bit jealous that we can get away for so long, so often, and not only that, but that we—a retired social worker and an artist—can afford to do it.

So, while I was being subjected to the dehumanization typically called air travel, I thought I’d throw some light on how we not only can get away, but how we can afford to get away for six weeks or more.

Especially since at the end of this post I’ll ask you to become a paid subscriber.

Wait! I mean, the nerve! I can’t travel for six weeks; why should I give you money so you can? Who do you think you are?—Donald Trump?

Let me explain. I’m about to tell you Sue’s and my secrets for squirreling away money for travel. That in itself will be worth the price of a subscription. Because you never know when you might want to get out of the country pronto for a while, or even know how to save a little for a rainy day.

JFK

But first, not only do you have to understand two things, you must believe them with all your being.

1) Probably the most important thing in life is knowing what you really want. I mean really want deep down in your being.

2) Pretty much everything we do in this life is a choice.

Got it?

So here we go.

In this post, I’m going to focus on travel. But everything I write here, you can just swap out the word, travel, for art, and you’d end up in the same place.

Pro Tip: Don’t be greedy.

You can’t have everything, unless you’re independently wealthy. If you are, this isn’t the post for you. Skip it and go play polo. Or whatever it is rich people do. I have no idea.

But I’m not wealthy and I’m guessing if you’re reading this you’re not either.

But, most of us can have one or two things we dearly love and want. But you have to know what they are, and decide to focus your entire being on them.

Pretty much everything Sue and I do is focused on art and travel and travel and art. They are intertwined. And they are the two things we both love.

De-icing A Plane

Understand that travel is paying for three things: Getting there, accommodations, and food.

We have two credit cards, both are American Express, and for every dollar we spend, one earns mileage, the other earns points. We charge everything on these two cards: groceries, gas, medical bills, you name it: If we’re buying it, we’re putting it on American Express.

We pay them off every month. We have zero credit card debt.

On this trip, our airfare was paid with frequent flyer miles.

We paid around $115 for fees, taxes, and trip insurance.

We always book an apartment that is far from expensive or luxurious from someplace like AirBnB or Vrbo. We don’t splurge, we just make sure it’s comfortable and near the practical things we’ll need, like public transportation and grocery stores.

I think we rented a car maybe three times on all of our of our trips, twice in the American Southwest and once in Puerto Rico a bunch of years ago. Otherwise we look for apartments either in the city central, or somewhere outside the city easily accessible by public transportation.

We make sure it has a decent kitchen so, just like at home, we can cook and eat in. Not a lot of eating out, which is expensive. Just like we buy food at home, we buy it traveling, which means the cost for food is a wash, but we do enjoy the occasional meal out. We are traveling to enjoy life, after all.

So got it? For this six-week trip, all we’re paying extra from our normal expenses at home is for our accommodations.

De-icing a plane. These images were made out the porthole (those things on planes can't be called windows) of the plane that we flew on to Madrid. They remind me of the images of the universe we're seeing first from the Hubble telescope, and now the JWT. All l do is focus on how I see the world, how I want the world to be, and then share what I see.

More about money.

Sue and I are really good at cutting corners. (Although I do say eventually our lifestyle will just be a circle and there won’t be any more corners to cut.)

We haven’t owned a television for almost twenty years. Not just the big screen(s) most people have hanging on their wall (over the fireplace, all the furniture facing the screen, the central focus of the room), but also the content that goes into it every month. And what goes into your brain.

Let me ask you a personal question: How much do you pay per month for television? For all of the content and streaming that you can’t live without?

Now multiply that by twelve.

That’s how much you’d be able to put toward travel. Add in the cost of the television(s) and the cost of electricity to run them, and I bet right there you suddenly would have enough for a couple of international tickets.

Travel means more to Sue and me than television, so that’s an easy choice.

Pro Tip: Twenty years ago I understood that this thing called the Internet was an incredible source of information and entertainment. You can still keep in touch, and you have so much more control over what you consume.

We use our library. We go there a couple of times a week. I can’t remember the last time I went to the movies. (You want how much for popcorn??) While we do subscribe to Netflix, we also stream movies on Kanopy and Hoopla for free. We use library passes to go to museums. We take the subway.

We drive late model cars (an ’08 Ford pickup and a ’10 Toyota.) Of course they’re both paid for. How much do you pay per month in car payments? Times twelve? And how much do you pay to insure them?

Are you starting to get it?

We pay twenty dollars per month to Xfinity for two phones. (You know the question by now, then multiply it times twelve.) We bought our iPhones used over the Internet. I’ve also bought a lot of my camera equipment used. You just have to educate yourself on the technology, which you’ll have time to do once you’ve gotten rid of your television.

We do have a washer, but no dryer. A perfectly good dryer comes up every day in the east.

In the summer we have a garden that cuts down on food costs.

We rent an apartment. It’s a lifestyle choice. What if something happens to your landlord? we’re asked by people who own their own houses. Unless you own your house outright, what if something happens to you and you can’t make payments to the bank? Plus, we don’t have to tie up a chunk of money if the water heater breaks or we need a new roof. Money that could be used for…you guessed it. Travel.

Almost every financial decision we make revolves around travel (and art.) Do you want to eat out? That fifty-dollar restaurant bill could buy a night at an AirBnB. Or a large canvas. If I see a nickel on the sidewalk I pick it up and say, we’re five cents closer to Paris.

I know all of this may sound intense to some of you, and I might sound slightly insane. But what’s wrong with being passionate about something in your life? And my attitude works. Once, when I was describing how Sue and I live, a person asked if we had indoor plumbing. I’m not sure if they were serious or sarcastic, but the answer is, yes, we do.

Just like any lifestyle change, you can’t do this all at once. Baby steps.

It was 2002, and I was getting laid off once again from a writing job at a software company after years of working for a truly abusive manager in a truly toxic environment, although at the time I didn’t know that was what all that was called.

He was giving me the news; I could see he was enjoying himself but I really wasn’t listening. Instead I was looking over his shoulder out the window thinking to myself, what a beautiful day for a bike ride.

I had had enough.

That was one of those moments when I took control of my life. I decided to freelance, swearing to myself I would only work for people who I respected and organizations I felt were making the world a better place.

The first two years were hard. There were days on end when all I ate was a fifty cent burrito and some ramon. Homelessness and starvation are really good motivators. But I set goals that were achievable; I wasn’t greedy. I factored in time for bike rides and a little bit of travel. I didn’t want to be tied to a desk or property so I could concentrate on the things I really cared about, which at the time were basically my kids and my dog.

And do you know what? I did it. I signed on clients like The Museum of Science, Eastern Mountain Sports (I used to write a portion of their catalog), Boston College and Northeastern University.

That was more than twenty years ago. Passion can take you places. Like Madrid, where I’m sitting and telling this to you now.

My last bit of encouragement, if that’s what you want to call what I just wrote, is this: Dreams can come true. If I can do this, so can you.

Madrid