Discount Airlines: How to Fly Around Europe for Cheap

Forget rail-passes, the way to travel cheaply around Europe is via super-discount airlines, where tickets cost as little as €10.

In a particularly frenzied bout of travel in July of 2012 I jumped on and off 6 flights in 6 weeks, crisscrossing the entire continent several times (Barcelona to Berlin, Paris to Budapest, etc).

Total Cost for 6 flights: Less than $200

In rare form I didn’t keep track of these expenses because it was too cheap to worry about (my flights averaged $18 US total). I even bought flights I didn’t use just in case I was in a particular city a few weeks down the road.

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How to Find Cheap Accommodation Almost Anywhere

This month I had to find a reasonably-priced place to stay in one of the most expensive cities on earth.

The average price of rent here in San Francisco is $1200+ per month for a shared apartment, but I found a place to stay indefinitely, last minute, for $25 a night ($750 a month).

This basic process can be used to find a place to crash just about anywhere, but in general this much effort is only required in big cities. Outside the city I’ve never failed to find something by asking people on the street.Continue reading >>

4 Gmail Hacks to Dominate your Inbox and Cure Email Addiction

Update: Revised on 2/7/15 from 3 hacks to 4 hacks!

If you check your email every 5 minutes, I’ve got news for you: this not the best way to get things done, and it may be adding a lot of needless working hours to your day.

Unless your primary responsibility is “respond to any and all email,” or there’s a mission critical contract out that needs to get signed, or your project management solution has completely failed and there is absolutely no other way to get a hold of you, I would suggest another approach.

Email is, after all, asynchronous communication. It’s not a chatroom, it’s not a project management tool, and it won’t substitute for talking to someone on the phone or in person. It can also wreak havoc on brain-intensive tasks (28% of your time could be wasted by interruption).

Like any tool, there are efficient and not so efficient ways to use email. Here are a few game-changing productivity hacks, some I’ve been doing for years and a couple game-changers I’ve implemented just recently:

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The No ATM-Fee, Bulletproof Travel Financial System

Don’t let your checking account get cleaned out by ATM fraud, and don’t get robbed by the banks while traveling.

Note: This post was partially inspired by reading my new #1 favorite book on money: I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi. It’s the 4-Hour Workweek for your personal finances and highly recommended!

A friend of mine once used an ATM in Honduras, and 24 hours later found her entire travel savings had evaporated. That’s right, $15,000 disappeared from her checking account. She was stranded with a credit card, $200 cash, and a promise from her bank that they would ‘look into it in the next 45 days’.*

This post outlines a simple way to make sure that never happens to you.

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Why I Stopped Booking Airline Tickets in Advance

Or how I nearly blew $1500 booking tickets I didn’t need last year.

Back in the day, airline tickets were really expensive and inflexible. Not anymore.

Welcome to the world of low-cost, flexible world travel.

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While visiting family in February I decided not to get on my flight home. I wanted to spend some additional quality time there so I just didn’t show up for my flight.

Mom was flabbergasted: “You can do that?!”

Yep. You’d be amazed by what airlines let me get away with last year.

This conversation led me to the realization that in the last 19 months, every single flight I pre-booked more than a few weeks in advance I either didn’t get on or had to change for a lot of $$$.

If I no longer have pre-defined location constraints, and if pre-booking flights is both “a major turnoff” and expensive, why would I still do it?Continue reading >>

Essential Entry-Level Work Gear for Digital Nomads

Want to work on your laptop while traveling around the world? There are a few things you can’t live without.

[Editors Note: And… we’re back! Q1 ate my lunch, but I’m hoping to post weekly for the forseeable future.]

The equipment that allows me to work from almost anywhere was thoughtfully accumulated over the last 18 months, and it’s a balance of price, weight, and power. There’s no need to go gear-crazy if you’re just starting out (or ever). All you really need is a decent laptop, some cheap headphones, and a place to work.

There are plenty of “top # pieces of gear for digital nomads” out there, but most of them range from borderline excessive to absolutely ridiculous. I’m assuming here that a) you have a budget or you’re just starting out and b) you don’t want to carry 80lbs of extra gear with you (that can also be damaged or stolen).Continue reading >>

The Top 10 Spartan Travel Adventures of 2012

It’s amazing what’s possible when you free up your time and the need to be in a single location.

My wildest dreams couldn’t have predicted the outcome of 2012. The original plan (launched in August 2011) was 15-18 months of travel, circling the globe while mixing in a bunch of adventure sports.

What actually happened was a frantic potpourri of world travel, randomly divergent adventures, and moderately successful online business shenanigans.

The adventure starts when everything goes wrong. -Yvon Chouinard

While the plan itself was fluid, the framework certainly wasn’t: back in 2011 I deliberately opened up my time (and bank account) to make these adventures possible. It turned out that everything was easier and less expensive than I thought it would be, and I’ve repeatedly tried to convince my friends that they too–if they choose–can do something like this.

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How I Flew Around the World for Less than $220

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.

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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

• 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

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.

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Off to Kiteboarding Mecca La Ventana this Week

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 >>