J’aime Paris! Paris has so much to do and see, but you don’t want to see Paris; you want to experience it. Like a good French meal, this city begs to be enjoyed slowly, in small bites, and savored. It’s easy to imagine how the impressionist movement got its start in this town. For us, Paris wasn’t about running around town to check off a long list of all the tourist sites and attractions (and there are plenty). It was about getting an impression of the city, the people, the culture, its history and, of course, its food. With a new girlfriend, you don’t get to know her by reading her yearbooks and hastily touring her childhood stomping grounds. Rather, you take her for a walk along the Seine, you share a glass of Bordeaux, and you engage her in conversation over a slow, drawn-out meal. We found Paris to be much the same. Besides, you can’t see everything when you travel. Money or time will always become a constraint. Instead of stressing out over what I haven’t seen, I've learned to throw up my hands, slow down my pace, and experience what I can right in front of me. In tourism, as in French life, choose quality over quantity. Below are 5 ways we slowed down and got to know our girl, Paris:
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I decided to take a little break this week, so Tom is doing the blog post for a change. He has done a stellar job tracking our budget for us and his post is all about our expenses so far. Take it away Tom! Enter Tom: We often get asked how we can afford this year of travel? It has been a combination of saving, paying off debt, creating passive income sources, and budgeting. I will spend the remaining portion of this post on the latter – budgeting. When we originally started planning this trip, I aggressively searched the Internet for expected costs of a trip of this magnitude, looking to learn from others that have done something similar. It varied immensely from person to person, and when the trip required many intercontinental flights, the costs skyrocketed. Hence, our plan right now is to spend our time on just two continents, Europe and South America. I also discovered that our first stop, Western Europe, would probably be the most expensive spot in the world to travel. I knew going into the first 3 months of our trip, that our overall travel budget would take a beating right out of the gate. So here we are, one month into our travels, and our first monthly travel budget complete. We found it extremely helpful when other travel blogs posted their expenses, so we are doing the same. We hope it can benefit you as you plan future trips to Europe. In true “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” fashion, Tom and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to add Wales to our itinerary once we decided on going to London. After all, our friend Mark lives just hours outside of London in the small Welsh town of Caerleon. And with Caerleon on the list, we figured we ought to see Caerphilly, Swansea, and the Gower Peninsula too. Wales is not exactly on the backpacker circuit, which has both its advantages and disadvantages. Accommodations were a bit more expensive than we had budgeted, but on the flip side, we had a reprieve from the hoards of tourists, long lines (or as they say here, queues), and entrance fees to see every attraction. I don’t mean to imply that they don’t have attractions, they do! But many of them are free or very inexpensive. In short, we got tourism without the tourists! And the few tourists we did encounter were mostly Welsh natives exploring their homeland, so it enhanced the authenticity of our experience instead of cheapening it. How else would we learn the distinct sound of the Welsh accent and their quirky, nonsensical sayings like, “Whose coat is this jacket?” or “I’ll have it now again in a minute.” Although London is a wonderful city, its increasing globalization makes it harder to find the “England” I imagined growing up. So Tom and I ventured out of the city for two day-trips, one to Bath and one to Oxford. And we are sure glad we did. Bath Bath, held so much beauty that it seemed to glisten among the ideal green hillsides. It has almost always been a popular destination from the Roman era till today. During the Roman era, the Romans constructed temples and bathhouses here because of its proximity to 3 natural springs. The ancient Roman baths have been excavated and remain the primary tourist attraction in the town. Starting with the Roman baths, you can literally walk through the ages as you tour the town from the magnificent Medieval Abbey to the pervading Georgian architecture. The whole town felt otherworldly and like one royal palace. The buildings were stately and so well-maintained that they looked new, and yet their style made it perfectly clear that they were not. Perhaps this is why the town made us feel like we were stepping back in time as opposed to looking back in time. It left us nostalgic for a different era. And the fact that it was the hometown of Jane Austen added to the romanticism of the place. London was the first stop on our trip. Tom and I originally had no intention of traveling here, but we found a killer rate (less than $550) for a non-stop flight from LA to London, so we added it to our itinerary. With so much shared pop culture and a common language, we thought we would be bored by its similarities to the US. And there were a lot of similarities, but the subtle differences in our language and cultures delighted us. Peter, our gracious host, insightfully joked that the US and England are “two nations divided by a common language” (quoting George Bernard Shaw). As we did a little pub crawl one evening, we felt at home at a fantastic little pub, Lamb & Flag, that opened out the backside to a small cobblestone walking street used as a patio. We stood there, Tom enjoying his cask ale, and I, my cider, surrounded by young professionals mingling over a pint after work. We eavesdropped on their conversations and marveled at how an English accent made even the most crass comments sound sophisticated and smart. The Eagle has landed. We safely arrived in London on Tuesday. Our friend, Peter, that picked us up from the airport was shocked at how light we traveled. We each had one carry-on backpack plus one personal item, a small purse for me and a small daypack for Tom. It wasn’t easy, but we did it! In order to pack for this trip, we did quite a bit of shopping. We had to be intentional about what to bring in order to live out of one bag for a year. The items needed to be dual-purpose, able to be mixed and matched, dressed up or down, and comfortable enough for walking. As mentioned in past blog posts, I’m a typical girl in the sense that I want to look nice while footing my way through Europe, but I am very atypical in that I hate to shop. It’s not that I don’t like clothes, but decisions in general overwhelm me. To solve this problem in the past, I have used the services of Tog & Porter. I highly recommend them and you can read more about them on their website (togandporter.com). In short, they offer personal shopping services to the average person. In the past, my Tog & Porter stylist skyped with me at no cost to learn about my needs, wardrobe, style, and budget. Then she sent me a box of clothes to try on. I kept what I wanted and returned the rest. Brilliant. Unfortunately, when I contacted Tog & Porter to send me clothes for this trip, it was too late to get the box in time. Nevertheless, they were kind enough to put together a style guide for me and it set me in the right direction. You can view it on their blog here. Listed below are the specifics of what we packed: What is a souvenir that is free, takes up no room in our bag, cannot be stolen, and grows more precious over time? Relationships. As Tom and I said goodbye to friends this past weekend and packed up our apartment in Newport, I realized how much more my life is enriched by people than by possessions. I especially felt the burden of our things as Tom and I cleaned, sold, packed and stored all of our stuff. Every object we have worked so hard and spent so much money to acquire now drained us of time, effort, space, and more money during our last week in Newport. As I looked at all our stuff, I felt exhaustion and discontentment. On the other hand, I had a heightened experience this week of the richness and blessing of the relationships with friends and family we invested in over the years. As Tom and I squeezed in every last second with the people we love, we found ourselves physically tired, but spiritually refreshed. It reminded me that relationships, like things, require time, effort and work to maintain. Without such intentionality, they slowly deteriorate. Our good friends sum it up best in their toast to friendship (thanks Ziyalyan’s and Hovsepyan’s): Friends are easy to make, but hard to keep, because friendship requires effort. But unlike possessions, friendships leave us humble, appreciative, and strengthened. Nevertheless, we will always have things in our lives, and that isn’t necessarily bad. As I whittled my belongings down to the bare minimum this week, I took note of the objects that are worth buying and keeping. I found that the most precious of my objects either commemorated or facilitated a relationship. A good example is our party hats! People continually ask Tom and I how we can afford to travel for a year. But maybe the better question is how we can afford not to? We jotted down a quick list of annual and monthly expenses that we won’t have to pay while traveling. We know the nomadic life comes with its own price tag and some new extra expenses (which we will track and share in future blog posts), but it also gives us reprieve from having to spend money on maintaining life at home. Just imagine your checkbook if you didn’t have any expenses related to rent, mortgage, or cars. Below is a list of some actual post-tax annual expenses we paid in the past 12 months that we won’t have to pay in the next 12 while traveling: What is it about vacation that makes us fall out of our routine, eat poorly, drink more, grow facial hair, and wear clothes we would never be caught dead in back home (hello Hawaiian shirt)? Perhaps it is an escape from life, a chance to forget our troubles back home and just relax. This is, of course, fine for a week or two. But Tom and I will be traveling for a whole year. I don’t think our bodies or minds can handle a year long vacation. So we aren't viewing this trip as a vacation. Rather, we are approaching it as a year of living abroad while traveling. We still need to do life while away; we need to maintain friendships and community, refresh our marriage, worship, learn, work, exercise, and eat healthy. So, in the absence of continuity of location, beds, food, languages, people, and weather, we plan to find some consistency, enjoy a break from change, and maintain our "lives" by establishing a few simple routines. Tom needed new pants. He had been wearing the same Dockers for way too long and they looked pretty tattered. However, Tom hates to shop, and unfortunately, so do I. So when Tom needs new pants, he’s on his own. But when faced with the option to go buy new pants or do pretty much anything else, he undoubtedly chooses "anything else.” One day about two years ago, Tom recognized that he needed to force himself to go shopping. He knew that if he were sporting new pants, I wouldn’t be able to resist squeezing his little ass, and then he'd be glad he shopped. So what did Tom do? He walked into the bedroom picked up his Dockers and ripped them down the middle. He looked at me as I stared back at him in shock and he said, “now I have to go buy new pants today.” He gave himself no other option. From that day on, “ripping your pants” became a metaphor in our family for intentionally doing something in order to leave you no other option, but to do the very thing you don’t want to do, yet know is best. So when Tom quit his job last week, he “ripped his pants.” He left us no other option but to continue our plans to travel. We no longer had his job as a security blanket on which to fall back. We no longer had a reason to stick around Southern California. Now people keep asking us how we could leave “good” jobs. Below are 10 beliefs that led us to our decision. For years we said we held these beliefs, but we realized that we weren't acting accordingly. So we finally decided to align our actions with our beliefs and the result was quitting our jobs to travel: |
AuthorI'm Jaime. My husband is Tom. Suburbanites, backpackers, and expats...we've been them all! Categories
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