Our Nomad Travel - It's Not a Vacation, It's a Lifestyle!
 

We are often asked ' What's it like being on vacation all the time?

Our answer is simple: 'We aren't on vacation. Traveling is how we live our lives - it's our lifestyle.'

But there's more to it than this simple statement. A Nomad Life takes some forethought and planning. There are definite tasks that we do to make our lifestyle work. We offer our ideas below.
 

Research and Trip Planning
The first step is deciding where to go, a task that each person must do for themselves, but if you are looking for ideas, you might peruse the stories of our travels, on the 'Searching the World for People Friendly Cities' pages elsewhere on this website. For us, this is a continuous job as the end of each trip is the beginning of the next.

Research to learn as much as possible before the next journey is essential as it vastly enhances appreciation and enjoyment of the place - its history, culture, customs, cuisine. A good guide book is a prerequisite - one for each country, most recent edition. We prefer Rough Guide, others use Lonely Planet and there are other good ones, too. Most countries and cities have good websites with information. Country and city maps are valuable navigation aids - more on this later.

As our research progresses - we develop lists of specific places that are of interest. Included are the more well known tourist attractions, of course, as well as museums, buildings of special architectural design or civic, religious, or historic importance. As we continue our research on what makes cities 'People Friendly', we also include walks through various residential neighborhoods and parks, search for transportation centers and ride buses, trams and subways.

Once we have a good list of places to visit, we estimate the number of days to stay in each one. Adjustments are then made so that the total equals the number of days we plan to be gone. (For us, there are always reasons to return to our home base, so our trips usually have a defined beginning and end.)

We then arrange the list of cities to visit into a logical itinerary. We always consider our itinerary 'tentative' to allow for changes as the trip proceeds.

We then make the travel arrangements, which means checking schedules and buying plane, train or bus tickets.

For longer trips, we usually make a hotel reservation for the first night or two before we leave. After a long flight or train ride, it really helps to be able to book a taxi to take you to a specific hotel, especially if we're arriving late. Alternatively, in some places (much of Europe for example), there are 'Tourist Hotel Desks' at the airport and in major train stations, that will book a hotel for us for a small fee. If we are arriving during the day we often use them.

After that, we pick a hotel in our next destination either from our guidebook or from a website listing and either call or email ahead to make a reservation.

How Do You Get Around? How Do You Figure Out Where Things Are and How To Find Them?
We learn about where things are from our maps. Most guidebooks have fairly good maps and we purchase better ones at book stores or news stands, wherever we can.

Before arriving, we study the maps to get a general idea of the city plan. We note where the airport or station is relative to the city center and our hotel. We then identify a good route to get to our hotel, whether by taxi, transit or on foot.

Once we're settled in our new 'home', we are ready to explore and find the places of interest we want to visit. From our maps we know where metro and tram stations are and a with a short walk we can usually locate bus stops.

We almost always use the public transit systems to experience traveling the way the local folks do. Transit is also less expensive and often more convenient than taking a taxi when we need a ride.

Finding our way around on a Metro system is fairly easy. The stations are noted on any decent map and maps of the routes are posted in the stations, with the transfer points and the major points of interest usually marked. To ride most systems, we note the station at the end of the line as it designates the direction the trains are traveling on a particular track. Trains usually run quite frequently, so knowing the schedule is not necessary. The only disadvantage is they are usually underground, especially in city centers, so the sightseeing is minimal.

Trams or street cars are also fairly easy to use as they follow designated routes, which are shown on most maps. They also run quite frequently, so knowing the schedule is not necessary. As they usually run on the city streets, the sightseeing is great. Sometimes we just pick one to ride, and get off at an interesting looking area to explore and then ride the same line back to where we started - an easy adventure at first until we get to know our way around.

Local buses are also a good option as they travel on city streets so the sightseeing is good. But for visitors like us, they are also a bigger challenge, simply because it's more difficult to learn where they go. We have a few tricks that help with this.

  • We first look for a map that includes the bus routes. If successful, this makes the job easy as we then know what buses travel to places we want to visit.
  • Many cities have websites with maps of their bus systems that we can view online or download. Some also have a 'Trip Planning' facility that displays the buses to ride between points we choose.

On a more practical level:

  • As we walk around in our new neighborhood we note the numbers of the buses that pass by. This gives us a list of choices to get home as we need them.
  • As we travel to places around the city we note the bus numbers that pass by, focusing on those that go to our neighborhood.
  • Asking the bus driver or conductor where the bus is going can be a good confirmation we are going to our destination and can keep us off buses going in the wrong direction. In places where little English is spoken, we try to learn a simple name or phrase we can use, like the word for railway station or cathedral - you get the idea.
  • Carefully following our route of travel on a map of the city can be very useful, so we know when we're going in the right direction, and will alert us if the bus starts going in the wrong direction so we can get off.

These approaches to getting around vary widely by country and region. In Europe, for example, we have found it very easy to learn how to use all of the transit systems. In comparison, in Mexico City and Delhi, using the Metro was easy, but learning about the buses was more difficult as there is far less useful information about the routes available in English.

Where Do You Stay?
The usual hotel room is, of course, the easy choice, but often isn't the most economical or the most interesting choice. A willingness to try alternative accomodations enhances the travel experience and can also save money! We have stayed in hostels in rooms with shared bathrooms down the hall, or in separate rooms in someone's home, and we've even slept in a mixed dorm room. While the idea of staying in a room with people you don't know may not appeal to everyone, we have met fascinating people in these instances.

In some cases, we choose to live in a city for a longer period of time - at least a month or more. For these situations, we arrange for short term rental of a furnished studio apartment, which gives us good accomodations and a small kitchen. We've had good luck locating these on the internet.

What About Food?
We find that one of the joys of travel is eating the typical local foods. We do our best to learn about the local cuisine, including the special local dishes that are offered. We seek out the places where the local folks eat, places recommended by our guide book, or places that look friendly and inviting (beware of places with a guy out front selling too hard!) It's a good idea to check the menu first to make sure it has the food you would like to eat at the prices you are willing to pay.

On days when we're out exploring, picnics are fun and economical. We buy bread, cheese, fruit, and drinks at a neighborhood market and sit in a nearby park or even on the steps of a nice building. Remember to carry spoons and a knife in your daypack if you plan to do this.

When breakfast is included in the hotel, this is a plus. It saves us having to go out a find and restaurant every morning and if we can get our fill, it allows us to have smaller lunches or even get by with street food snacks, or picnics.

Street food is a real temptation, but also a potential risk. Just peeled fresh veggies or just squeezed fruit juices make great mid-day snacks, but just be sure they don't include local water or ice, if you're not sure it's safe.

When we have access to a kitchen, we make simple meals at 'home'. This frees us from the daily search for eateries and enables us to go shopping at the local food shops and markets. We always take along our own sack and a dictionary!

What Do You Take for Such Long Trips?
We take only what we can easily carry. This usually means what will fit in a backpack and a carry-on size 'wheely bag' (suitcase with wheels and an extendable handle to pull it). We try not to overload either with heavy stuff like books as a heavy backpack is hard on the shoulders and there many places where wheely bags must be carried up or down stairs or lifted onto the overhead racks on a train or a plane.

We take only what we really need. For us this means a limited complement of clothes, so we don't necessarily wear different outfits every day and know we will need to frequently do laundry.

Following is the list of what we carry. It currently includes our laptops as we are writing stories for our website and need to stay in touch by email.

Wheely bags

  • Underwear, socks - 5 to 6 sets/pairs
  • Shirts - 5 to 6
  • Slacks/Jeans - 3
  • Sweater- 1
  • Packable light jacket -1
  • Shoes - 2 to 3 pairs
  • Day bag/backpack for days when laptops are not needed
  • Toiletries (in zipped, plastic lined bags)
  • Nutritional supplements/Vitamins/Meds
  • Packs of tissues
  • Adapters for various electric plugs (with two round prongs in most of the world)
  • 220 to 110 volt transformer, if you're taking any 110 volt appliances.
  • Hair dryer (optional, dual voltage if possible), shaver (guys)

Backpacks (or in our pockets or wallet)

  • Credit cards
  • Laptop PC, power cord, mouse
  • Books, travel journal, maps
  • Snacks, water (but you can't take bottles of liquid through airline security)
  • TP, tissues
  • Plastic forks, knives, & spoons (for picnics)
  • Comb, pen, pencil
  • Passport with required visas
  • Business cards
  • Small bag for shopping
  • Camera, including the charger.

Documents
We carry only the papers we need for our trip and leave the rest at home.

Items we take:

  • Passport with necessary visas
  • Credit cards we will use to pay expenses while on the trip. Any others are left at home
  • Drivers License, in case we need to rent a car (we rarely do this).
  • International Drivers License, in case we need to rent a car.
  • Vaccination certificate
  • Copies of our passports and Drivers License to carry when sightseeing, in case we need to show ID
    (this hasn't happened to us yet, but just in case). We leave the originals in the hotel or other safe place.
  • Extra passport pictures (needed for some 'on the spot' visas or permits and local ID cards, like monthly transit passes.

Items we leave home. These are things we don't need on the trip and they are difficult to replace if lost or stolen.

  • Library cards,
  • Supermarket cards,
  • Membership cards
  • Electronic ID cards from work or for the place we live
  • Etc - you get the idea

As we travel, we always gather a selection of maps and the books and brochures of the places we visit. When they get too bulky to carry, we pack them in a box and send them home. The local postal service works fine for most places, but pay a little more to be sure it goes by air, and not by ship. Where the postal service is questionable (Italy comes to mind), we use Fedex or UPS - it's more expensive, but at least it works.

How Do You Deal With Money?
There is a short answer to this question - ATMs. They are everywhere, including smaller and more remote towns.

Some cautions:

  • Check with your credit card company to verify what form of a PIN you need. Some foreign ATMs won't allow a PIN longer than 4-digits.
  • Have more than one credit card you can use to obtain cash, just in case. If you lose a card or the account is blocked for some reason, you will still have a way to get cash. Don't carry both cards in the same place.
  • Notify your credit card companies that you will be traveling, the dates you will be gone and where you are going. That way they won't suddenly block access to your account when cash requests from a faraway place start to occur.
  • Be sure to note the customer service phone numbers for the credit card company so you can call and straighten out a problem should it occur (calls from almost anywhere in the world to the US aren't that expensive or difficult these days).
  • To reduce the risk of unauthorized charges, we normally use our credit cards only in more secure situations: to get cash from ATMs, to buy plane and rail tickets, or to pay at more upscale hotels. We use cash for less expensive hotels, meals, local transport, etal. (these sorts of places don't often accept credit cards in any case).

To avoid the risk or losing or being robbed of all our cash, we usually divide our cash between us, and store some of it in our backpacks or suitcases instead of in our wallets or pockets.

What Do You Do About Phone Service
When we are in the US, we have our cell phone, and use a US phone number (it's the one listed on this website). When we leave the US, we change the message to indicate it will not be answered and ask people to contact us by email.

While we are traveling, we buy another sim card for our cell phone that gives us a local phone number in the country we're in (ie India). We use a 'pay as you go' plan, buying a set amount of time when we start and add to it if we need to. Having a phone in this way helps a lot for contacting hotels as we go, or being able to contact new friends we meet along the way, and if set up properly allows us to call virtually anywhere in the world (like the US from India). If you want more details on this, let us know.

When we have a fast internet connection, we make phone calls using Skype. Calls from our computer to numbers in the US are inexpensive (2-3 cents/minute). Calls to another computer, anywhere in the world, are free. The only challenge is finding a good time to call when we are many time zones away from the person we're calling.

How Do You Pay Your Bills Back Home?
We either arrange for automatic payment, or we pay our bills on line.

What Do You Do About Your Mail?
Our mailing address in the US is a mail service that accepts all our mail for us. Periodically we request them to package it up and forward it to us (minus the magazines and junk mail). Alternatively you could ask a relative or friend to send you anything that looks important. Fedex and UPS deliver almost anywhere in the world for a moderate fee.

What About Your Home?
Our home is a 5th wheel travel trailer that we store when we will be gone for an extended period of time. We leave our pickup truck with a friend. Everyone's situation is different - be creative!

Don't You Get Tired of Traveling?
We find that exploring a new place is exciting, fun and challenging but after several weeks of moving from place to place, we're ready to 'perch' for a while. That's when we plan an extended stay.

Staying 2 nights or more in each place is best. We always say that any place we stay for two nights or more is 'Home'. Avoiding one night stands helps prevent travel fatigue.

Traveling in non-english speaking places often gives us a feeling of 'isolation'. Not understanding the local language means we can't read the newspapers or understand the TV news, thus leaving us with limited knowledge of local events and happenings.

Interestingly enough, we have found two places, besides England, that are exceptions - India and China. Both, especially India, have numerous newspapers and magazines in english, which we found to be of very good quality.

Is there anything we've missed or you think should be included? Is there something you would like to ask us?
Let us know. Send us an email to tripideas@pioneerwest.net

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