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Monthly Archives: November 2012

How I Flew Around the World for Less than $220

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Last Update (2/6/15):

Also check out my FAQ on the best frequent flyer credit card. It’s a quick read and will give the main points + show you where you can get one of these cards today.

This year I flew around the world and visited 11 countries over a period of 6 months. The cost of my ’round-the-world’ ticket? Less than the price of a domestic flight in the US.

Can you do the same thing? Absolutely, read on:

Budapest, Hungary—It’s a question I got more than once: “So, are you rich?” And, more specifically: “How can you afford to travel so much?”

These questions are upsetting because they highlight the dominant perception that travel is a luxury restricted to the wealthy. And I don’t like people thinking I can only afford to do this because I’m rich (far from it).

In fact, for the last 15 months I’ve been living on a stipend that most people would associate with the poverty line in the United States, or about $1200 a month (see 20 things I Learned While Traveling around the World).

But international flights are expensive, no matter how cheaply you decide to live once you get to your destination. I thought trans-oceanic flights would be the death of my RTW travel budget.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My Round-the-World (RTW) Flight Itinerary

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  • April 3rd, 2012 –  San Francisco (SFO) to Brussels (BRU). Cost: $7.50
  • August 1st, 2012 – Istanbul, Turkey to Bali, Indonesia. Cost: $0.00*
  • September 29th, 2012 – Bali to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cost: $140.00
  • October 2nd, 2012 – Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles (LAX) via Tokyo. Cost: $72.00
  • On the same day I flew from LAX to SFO for $0.00.

Grand Total: $219.50

And here’s the punchline: the only reason these flights cost me anything at all is that I opted to pay for the really cheap ones. That’s correct, I decided to pay actual money for them. You’ll understand why below.Continue reading >>

The Key to Freedom isn’t Making More, it’s Spending Less

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Photo: El Hombre, the most chilled out man in the world. Chicama, Peru.

If you’re trying to cast off the anchors of modern society, the key isn’t making more money, it’s needing less. Doing this requires voluntarily self-destructing the mindset that makes you think you need more in the first place.


After traveling through ‘less-developed’ countries around the world, returning to the US is a shock. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would need a Chevy Tahoe, the newest version of the iPhone, or any of the other nearly unlimited and arguably useless consumer products available to anyone with a credit card.

I used to be a part of this system, but I’ve been progressively weaning myself from it. Turns out there are some amazing benefits to be had from completely checking out.

Continue reading >>

Off to Kiteboarding Mecca La Ventana this Week

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Tomorrow we’ll be driving from Central California to the tip of Baja Mexico: about 1,500 miles of desert, sagebrush, and endless Negra Modelos.

Destination: La Ventana, a massive sandy bay on the sea of Cortez with absolutely ridiculous kiteboarding conditions.

La Ventana is a of freak of nature in a geographical sense: Every day at about 1pm all hell breaks loose as winds sweep off the Sea of Cortez right into the lower part of the bay. For 4-5 hours the scene resembles a natural disaster that collided with a kite-flying convention. Then, as if someone flipped a switch, the wind shuts off. You can laze on the beach and watch the moon come up over perfectly flat water.Continue reading >>