Mini-Retirements

EMBRACING THE MOBILE LIFESTYLE

Upon Sherwood’s return from Oktoberfest, dazed from killing neurons but the happiest he’s been in four years, the remote trial is made policy and Sherwood is inducted into the world of the New Rich. All he needs now is an idea of how to exploit this freedom and the tools to give his finite cash near-infinite lifestyle output.

If you’ve gone through the previous steps, eliminating, automating, and severing the leashes that bind you to one location, it’s time to indulge in some fantasies and explore the world.

Even if you have no ache for extended travel or think it’s impossible—whether due to marriage or mortgage or those little things known as children—this chapter is still the next step. There are fundamental changes I and most others put off until absence (or preparation for it) forces them. This chapter is your final exam in muse design.

The transformation begins in a small Mexican village, in a parable that’s been shared in various forms around the world.

Fables and Fortune Hunters

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.

“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.

“I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.

“But … What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?”

To which the American replied, “15–20 years. 25 tops.”

“But what then, señor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos …”

I RECENTLY HAD lunch in San Francisco with a good friend and former college roommate. He will soon graduate from a top business school and return to investment banking. He hates coming home from the office at midnight but explained to me that, if he works 80-hour weeks for nine years, he could become a managing director and make a cool $3–10 million per year. Then he would be successful.

“Dude, what on earth would you do with $3–10 million per year?” I asked.

His answer? “I would take a long trip to Thailand.”

That just about sums up one of the biggest self-deceptions of our modern age: extended world travel as the domain of the ultrarich. I’ve also heard the following:

“I’ll just work in the firm for 15 years. Then I’ll be partner and I can cut back on hours. Once I have a million or two in the bank, I’ll put it in something safe like bonds, take $80,000 a year in interest, and retire to sail in the Caribbean.”

“I’ll only work in consulting until I’m 35, then retire and ride a motorcycle across China.”

If your dream, the pot of gold at the end of the career rainbow, is to live large in Thailand, sail around the Caribbean, or ride a motorcycle across China, guess what? All of them can be done for less than $3,000. I’ve done all three. Here are just two examples of how far a little can go.⁶⁸

Question: What did you spend your last $400 on? It’s two or three weekends of nonsense and throwaway forget-the-workweek behavior in most U.S. cities. $400 is nothing for a full eight days of life-changing experiences. But eight days isn’t what I’m recommending at all. Those were just interludes in a much larger production. I’m proposing much, much more.

The Birth of Mini-Retirements and
the Death of Vacations

In February of 2004, I was miserable and overworked.

My travel fantasy began as a plan to visit Costa Rica in March 2004 for four weeks of Spanish and relaxation. I needed a recharge and four weeks seemed “reasonable” by whatever made-up benchmark you can use for such a thing.

A friend familiar with Central America dutifully pointed out that it would never work, as Costa Rica was about to enter its rainy season. Torrential downpours weren’t the uplifting jolt I needed, so I shifted my focus to four weeks in Spain. It’s a long trip over the Atlantic, though, and Spain was close to other countries I’d always wanted to visit. I lost “reasonable” somewhere shortly thereafter and decided that I deserved a full three months to explore my roots in Scandinavia after four weeks in Spain.

If there were any real-time bombs or pending disasters, they would certainly crop up in the first four weeks, so there really wasn’t any additional risk in extending my trip to three months. Three months would be great.

Those three months turned into 15, and I started to ask myself, “Why not take the usual 20–30-year retirement and redistribute it throughout life instead of saving it all for the end?”

The Alternative to Binge Traveling

If you are accustomed to working 50 weeks per year, the tendency, even after creating the mobility to take extended trips, will be to go nuts and see 10 countries in 14 days and end up a wreck. It’s like taking a starving dog to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It will eat itself to death.

I did this three months into my 15-month vision quest, visiting seven countries and going through at least 20 check-ins and checkouts with a friend who had negotiated three weeks off. The trip was an adrenaline-packed blast but like watching life on fast-forward. It was hard for us to remember what had happened in which countries (except Amsterdam),⁶⁹ we were both sick most of the time, and we were upset to have to leave some places simply because our pre-purchased flights made it so.

I recommend doing the exact opposite.

The alternative to binge travel—the mini-retirement—entails relocating to one place for one to six months before going home or moving to another locale. It is the anti-vacation in the most positive sense. Though it can be relaxing, the mini-retirement is not an escape from your life but a reexamination of it—the creation of a blank slate. Following elimination and automation, what would you be escaping from? Rather than seeking to see the world through photo ops between foreign-but-familiar hotels, we aim to experience it at a speed that lets it change us.

This is also different from a sabbatical. Sabbaticals are often viewed much like retirement: as a one-time event. Savor it now while you can. The mini-retirement is defined as recurring—it is a lifestyle. I currently take three or four mini-retirements per year and know dozens who do the same. Sometimes these sojourns take me around the world; oftentimes they take me around the corner—Yosemite, Tahoe, Carmel—but to a different world psychologically, where meetings, e-mail, and phone calls don’t exist for a set period of time.

Purging the Demons: Emotional Freedom

True freedom is much more than having enough income and time to do what you want. It is quite possible—actually the rule rather than the exception—to have financial and time freedom but still be caught in the throes of the rat race. One cannot be free from the stresses of a speed- and size-obsessed culture until you are free from the materialistic addictions, time-famine mind-set, and comparative impulses that created it in the first place.

This takes time. The effect is not cumulative, and no number of two-week (also called “too weak”)⁷⁰ sightseeing trips can replace one good walkabout.⁷¹

In the experience of those I’ve interviewed, it takes two to three months just to unplug from obsolete routines and become aware of just how much we distract ourselves with constant motion. Can you have a two-hour dinner with Spanish friends without getting anxious? Can you get accustomed to a small town where all businesses take a siesta for two hours in the afternoon and then close at 4:00 P.M.? If not, you need to ask, Why?

Learn to slow down. Get lost intentionally. Observe how you judge both yourself and those around you. Chances are that it’s been a while. Take at least two months to disincorporate old habits and rediscover yourself without the reminder of a looming return flight.

The Financial Realities: It Just Gets Better

The economic argument for mini-retirements is the icing on the cake. Four days in a decent hotel or a week for two at a nice hostel costs the same as a month in a nice posh apartment. If you relocate, the expenses abroad also begin to replace—often at much lower cost—bills you can then cancel stateside.

Here are some actual monthly figures from recent travels.

Highlights from both South America and Europe are shown side by side to prove that luxury is limited by your creativity and familiarity with the locale, not gross currency devaluation in third-world countries. It will be obvious that I did not survive on bread and begging—I lived like a rock star—and both experiences could be done for less than 50% of what I spent. My goal was enjoyment and not austere survival.

Airfare

• Free, courtesy of AMEX gold card and Chase Continental Airlines Mastercard⁷²

Housing

• Penthouse apartment on the equivalent of New York’s Fifth Avenue in Buenos Aires, including house cleaners, personal security guards, phone, energy, and high-speed Internet: $550 U.S. per month

• Enormous apartment in the trendy SoHo-like Prenzlauerberg district of Berlin, including phone and energy: $300 U.S. per month

Meals

• Four- or five-star restaurant meals twice daily in Buenos Aires: $10 U.S. ($300 U.S. per month)

• Berlin: $18 U.S. ($540 U.S. per month)

Entertainment

• VIP table and unlimited champagne for eight people at the hottest club, Opera Bay, in Buenos Aires: $150 U.S. ($18.75 U.S. per person x four visits per month = $75 U.S. per month per person)

• Cover, drinks, and dancing at the hottest clubs in West Berlin: $20 U.S. per person per night x 4 = $80 U.S. per month

Education

• Two hours daily of private Spanish lessons in Buenos Aires, fives times per week: $5 U.S. per hour x 40 hours per month = $200 U.S. per month

• Two hours daily of private tango lessons with two world-class professional dancers: $8.33 U.S. per hour x 40 hours per month = $333.20 U.S. per month

• Four hours daily of top-tier German-language instruction in Nollendorfplatz, Berlin: $175 U.S. per month, which would have paid for itself even if I had not attended classes, as the student ID card entitled me to over 40% discounts on all transportation

• Six hours per week of mixed martial arts (MMA) training at the top Berlin academy: free in exchange for tutoring in English two hours per week

Transportation

• Monthly subway pass and daily cab rides to and from tango lessons in Buenos Aires: $75 U.S. per month

• Monthly subway, tram, and bus pass in Berlin with student discount: $85 U.S. per month

Four-Week Total for Luxury Living

• Buenos Aires: $1533.20, including round-trip airfare from JFK, with a one-month stopover in Panamá. Nearly one-third of this total is from the daily one-on-one instruction from world-class teachers in Spanish and Tango.

• Berlin: $1180, including round-trip airfare from JFK and a one-week stopover in London.

How do these numbers compare to your current domestic monthly expenses, including rent, car insurance, utilities, weekend expenditures, partying, public transportation, gas, memberships, subscriptions, food, and all the rest? Add it all up and you may well realize, like I did, that traveling around the world and having the time of your life can save you serious money.

Fear Factors: Overcoming Excuses
Not to Travel

Most excuses not to travel are exactly that—excuses. I’ve been there, so this isn’t a holier-than-thou sermon. I know too well that it’s easier to live with ourselves if we cite an external reason for inaction.

I’ve since met paraplegics and the deaf, senior citizens and single mothers, home owners and the poor, all of whom have sought and found excellent life-changing reasons for extended travel instead of dwelling on the million small reasons against it.

Most of the concerns above are addressed in the Q&A, but one in particular requires a bit of preemptive nerve calming.

It’s 10:00 P.M. Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

The prime fear of all parents prior to their first international trip is somehow losing a child in the shuffle.

The good news is that if you are comfortable taking your kids to New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., or London, you will have even less to worry about in the starting cities I recommend in the Q&A. There are fewer guns and violent crimes in all of them compared to most large U.S. cities. The likelihood of problems is decreased further when travel is less airport and hotel-hopping among strangers and more relocation to a second home: a mini-retirement.

But still, what if?

Jen Errico, a single mother who took her two children on a five-month world tour, had a more acute fear than most, one that often woke her at 2:00 A.M. in a cold sweat: What if something happens to me?

She wanted to prime her kids for worst-case scenario but didn’t want to scare them to death, so—like all good mothers—she made it a game: Who can best memorize the itineraries, hotel addresses, and Mom’s phone number? She had emergency contacts in each country whose numbers were loaded into the speed dial of her cell phone, which had global roaming. In the end, nothing happened. Now she’s planning to move to a ski chalet in Europe and send her kids to school in multilingual France. Success begets success.

She was most afraid in Singapore, and in retrospect, it was where she had the least reason to be worried (she took her kids to South Africa, among other places). She was scared because it was the first stop and she was unaccustomed to traveling with her kids. It was perception, not reality.

Robin Malinsky-Rummell, who spent a year traveling through South America with her husband and seven-year-old son, was warned by friends and family not to visit Argentina after their devaluation riots in 2001. She did her homework, decided that the fear was unfounded, and proceeded to have the time of her life in Patagonia. When she told locals that she was originally from New York, their eyes widened and jaws dropped: “I saw those buildings blow up on TV! I would never go to such a dangerous place!” Don’t assume that places abroad are more dangerous than your hometown. Most aren’t.

Robin is convinced, as are other NR parents, that people use children as an excuse to stay in their comfort zones. It’s an easy excuse not to do something adventurous. How to overcome the fear? Robin recommends two things:

1. Before embarking on a long international trip with your children for the first time, take a trial run for a few weeks.

2. For each stop, arrange a week of language classes that begin upon arrival and take advantage of transportation from the airport if available. The school staff will often handle apartment rentals for you, and you will be able to make friends and learn the area before setting off on your own.

But what if your concern isn’t so much losing your children but losing your mind because of your children?

Several families interviewed for this book recommended the oldest persuasive tool known to man: bribery. Each child is given some amount of virtual cash, 25–50 cents, for each hour of good behavior. The same amount is subtracted from their accounts for breaking the rules. All purchases for fun—whether souvenirs, ice cream, or otherwise—come out of their own individual accounts. No balance, no goodies. This often requires more self-control on the part of the parents than the children.

When More Is Less: Cutting the Clutter

I know the son of one deca-millionaire, a personal friend of Bill Gates, who now manages private investments and ranches. He has accumulated an assortment of beautiful homes over the last decade, each with full-time cooks, servants, cleaners, and support staff. How does he feel about having a home in each time zone? It’s a pain in the ass! He feels like he’s working for his staff, who spend more time in his homes than he does.

Extended travel is the perfect excuse to reverse the damage of years of consuming as much as you can afford. It’s time to get rid of clutter disguised as necessities before you drag a five-piece Samsonite set around the world. That is hell on earth.

I’m not going to tell you to walk around in a robe and sandals scowling at people who have televisions. I hate that kashi-crunching holier-than-thou stuff. Turning you into a possession-less scribe is not my intention. Let’s face it, though: There are tons of things in your home and life that you don’t use, need, or even particularly want. They just came into your life as impulsive flotsam and jetsam and never found a good exit. Whether you’re aware of it or not, this clutter creates indecision and distractions, consuming attention and making unfettered happiness a real chore. It is impossible to realize how distracting all the crap is—whether porcelain dolls, sports cars, or ragged T-shirts—until you get rid of it.

Prior to my 15-month trip, I was stressed about how to fit all of my belongings into a 14 x 10-foot rental storage space. Then I realized a few things: I would never reread the business magazines I’d saved, I wore the same five shirts and four pairs of pants 90% of the time, it was about time for new furniture, and I never used the outdoor grill or lawn furniture.

Even getting rid of things I never used proved to be like a capitalist short-circuit. It was hard to toss things I had once thought were valuable enough to spend money on. The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die. I hadn’t exercised my throwing-out muscles in some time. It was a struggle to put nice Christmas clothing I’d never worn into the “go” pile and just as hard to separate myself from worn and ragged clothing I had for sentimental reasons. Once I’d passed through the first few tough decisions, though, the momentum had been built and it was a breeze. I donated all of the seldom-worn clothing to Goodwill. The furniture took less than 10 hours to offload using Craigslist, and though I was paid less than 50% of the retail prices for some and nothing for others, who cared? I’d used and abused them for five years and would get a new set when I landed back in the U.S. I gave the grill and lawn furniture to my friend, who lit up like a kid at Christmas. I had made his month. It felt wonderful and I had an extra $300 in pocket change to cover at least a few weeks of rent abroad.

I created 40% more space in my apartment and hadn’t even grazed the surface. It wasn’t the extra physical space that I felt most. It was the extra mental space. It was as if I had 20 mental applications running simultaneously before, and now I had just one or two. My thinking was clearer and I was much, much happier.

I asked every vagabond interviewee in this book what their one recommendation would be for first-time extended travelers. The answer was unanimous: Take less with you.

The overpacking impulse is hard to resist. The solution is to set what I call a “settling fund.” Rather than pack for all contingencies, I bring the absolute minimum and allocate $100–300 for purchasing things after I arrive and as I travel. I no longer take toiletries or more than a week’s worth of clothing. It’s a blast. Finding shaving cream or a dress shirt overseas can produce an adventure in and of itself.

Pack as if you were coming back in one week. Here are the bare essentials, listed in order of importance:

1. One week of clothing appropriate to the season, including one semiformal shirt and pair of pants or skirt for customs. Think T-shirts, one pair of shorts, and a multipurpose pair of jeans.

2. Backup photocopies or scanned copies of all important documents: health insurance, passport/visa, credit cards, debit cards, etc.

3. Debit cards, credit cards, and $200 worth of small bills in local currency (traveler’s checks are not accepted in most places and are a hassle)

4. Small cable bike lock for securing luggage while in transit or in hostels; a small padlock for lockers if needed

5. Electronic dictionaries for target languages (book versions are too slow to be of use in conversation) and small grammar guides or texts

6. One broad-strokes travel guide

That’s it.⁷³ To laptop or not to laptop? Unless you are a writer, I vote no. It’s far too cumbersome and distracting. Using GoToMyPC to access your home computer from Internet cafés encourages the habit we want to develop: making the best use of time instead of killing it.

Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS

If this is your first time considering a commitment to the mobile lifestyle and long-term adventuring, I envy you! Making the jump and entering the new worlds that await is like upgrading your role in life from passenger to pilot.

The bulk of this Q&A will focus on the precise steps that you should take—and the countdown timeline you can use—when preparing for your first mini-retirement. Most steps can be eliminated or condensed once you get one trip under your belt. Some of the steps are one-time events, after which subsequent mini-retirements will require a maximum of two to three weeks of preparation. It now takes me three afternoons.

Grab a pencil and paper—this will be fun.

Check current health insurance coverage for extended overseas travel. Get the wheels in motion to rent, swap, or sell your home—renting out is most recommended by serial vagabonds—or end your apartment lease and move all belongings into storage.

In all cases where doubts crop up, ask yourself, “If I had a gun to my head and had to do it, how would I do it?” It’s not as hard as you think.

Two months out—Automate

After eliminating the excess, contact companies (including suppliers) that bill you regularly and set up autopayment with credit cards that have reward points. Telling them that you will be traveling the world for a year often persuades them to accept credit cards rather than chase you around the planet like Carmen Sandiego.

For the credit card companies themselves and others that refuse, arrange automatic debit from your checking account. Set up online banking and bill payment. Set up all companies that won’t take credit cards or automatic debit as online payees. Set these scheduled checks for $15–20 more than expected when dealing with utilities and other variable expenses. This will cover miscellaneous fees, prevent time-consuming billing problems, and accrue as a credit. Cancel paper bank and credit card statement delivery. Get bank-issued credit cards for all checking accounts—generally one for business and one for personal—and set the cash advances to $0 to minimize abuse potential. Leave these cards at home, as they are just for emergency overdraft protection.

Give a trusted member of your family and/or your accountant power of attorney,⁷⁷ which gives that person authority to sign documents (tax filings and checks, for example) in your name. Nothing screws up foreign fun faster than having to sign original documents when faxes are unacceptable.

One month out—

Speak to the manager of your local post office and have all mail forwarded to a friend, family member, or personal assistant,⁷⁸who will be paid $100–200 per month to e-mail you brief descriptions of all nonjunk mail each Monday.

Get all required and recommended immunizations and vaccinations for your target region. Check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/travel/). Note that proof of immunizations is sometimes required to pass through foreign customs.

Set up a trial account with GoToMyPC or similar remote-access software and take a dry run to ensure that there are no technological glitches.⁷⁹

If resellers (or distributors) still send you checks—the fulfillment house should handle customer checks at this point—do one of three things: give the resellers direct bank deposit information (ideal), have the fulfillment house handle these checks (second choice), or have the resellers pay via PayPal or mail checks to one of the people you are trusting with power of attorney (far third). In the last case, give the person with power of attorney deposit slips so he or she can sign or stamp and mail in the checks. It is convenient to become a member of a large bank (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, Citibank, etc.) with branches near the person assisting you so that they can drop off the deposits while running other errands. No need to move all accounts to this bank if you don’t want to; just open a single new account that is used solely for these deposits.

Two weeks out—

Scan all identification, health insurance, and credit/debit cards into a computer from which you can print multiple copies, several to be left with family members and several to be taken with you in separate bags. E-mail the scanned file to yourself so that you can access it while abroad if you lose the paper copies.

If you are an entrepreneur, downgrade your cell phone to the cheapest plan and set up a voicemail greeting that states, “I am currently overseas on business. Please do not leave a voicemail, as I will not be checking it while gone. Please send me an e-mail at __@__.com if the matter is important. Thank you for your understanding.” Then set up e-mail autoresponders that indicate responses could take up to seven days (or whatever you decide for frequency) due to international business travel.

If you are an employee, consider getting a quad-band or GSM-compatible cell phone so that the boss can contact you. Get a BlackBerry only if your boss will be checking to see if you are working via e-mail. Be sure to disable the dead giveaway “Sent from a BlackBerry” signature on outgoing e-mail! Other options include using a SkypeIn account that forwards to your foreign cell phone (my preference) or a Vonage IP box that allows you to receive landline calls anywhere in the world via a phone number that begins with your home area code.

Find an apartment for your ultimate mini-retirement destination or reserve a hostel or hotel at your starting point for three to four days. Reserving an apartment before you arrive is riskier and will be much more expensive than using the latter three to four days to find an apartment. I recommend hostels for the starting point if possible—not for cost considerations but because the staff and fellow travelers are more knowledgeable and helpful with relocations.

Get foreign medical evacuation insurance if needed for peace of mind. This tends to be redundant if you are in a first-world country and can buy local insurance to augment your own, which I do, and it is useless if you are a 10-hour flight from civilization. I had evacuation insurance in Panama, as it’s a 2-hour flight from Miami, but I didn’t bother elsewhere. Don’t freak out about this; it’s just as true if you’re in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the U.S.

One week out—

Decide on a schedule for routine batched tasks such as e-mail, online banking, etc. to eliminate excuses for senseless pseudo-work procrasterbating. I suggest Monday mornings for checking e-mail and online banking. The first and third Mondays of the month can be used for checking credit cards and making other online payments such as affiliates. These promises to yourself will be the hardest to keep, so make a commitment now and expect serious withdrawal cravings.

Save important documents—including the scan of your identification, insurance, and credit/debit cards—to a small handheld storage device that plugs into a computer USB port.

Move all things out of your home or apartment into storage, pack a single small backpack and carry-on bag for the adventure, and move in briefly with a family member or friend.

Two days out—

Put remaining automobiles into storage or a friend’s garage. Put fuel stabilizer like Sta-Bil® in the gas tanks, disconnect the negative leads from batteries to prevent drain, and put the vehicles on jack stands to prevent tire and shock damage. Cancel all auto insurance except for theft coverage.

Upon arrival (assuming you have not booked an apartment in advance)—

TOOLS AND TRICKS

Brainstorming Mini-Retirement Locations

Virtual Tourist (www.virtualtourist.com)

The single largest source of unbiased, user-generated travel content in the world. More than 1,000,000 members contribute tips and warnings for more than 25,000 locations. Each location is covered in 13 separate categories, including Things to Do, Local Customs, Shopping, and Tourist Traps. This is one-stop shopping for most mini-retirements.

Escape Artist (www.escapeartist.com)

Interested in second passports, starting your own country, Swiss banking, and all the other things I wouldn’t dare put in this book? This site is a fantastic resource. Drop me a note from the Caymans or jail, whichever comes first. Also search “How to Be Jason Bourne” at www.fourhourblog.com.

Outside Magazine Online Free Archives (http://outside.away.com)

The entire archive of Outside magazine available online for free. From meditation camps to worldwide adrenaline hotspots, dream jobs to Patagonia winter highlights, there are hundreds of articles with beautiful photos to give you the walkabout itch.

GridSkipper: The Urban Travel Guide (www.gridskipper.com)

For those who love Blade Runner-like settings and exploring the cool nooks and crannies of cities worldwide, this is the site. It is one of Forbes’s Top 13 Travel sites and is “high-falootin’ and low-brow all in the same breath” (Frommer’s). Translation: Much of the content is not G-rated. If four-letter words or a “world’s sluttiest city” poll bother you, don’t bother visiting this site (or Rio de Janeiro, for that matter). Otherwise, check out the hysterical writing and “$100 a day” info for cities worldwide.

Lonely Planet: The Thorn Tree (http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com)

Discussion forum for global travelers with threads separated by region.

Family Travel Forum (www.familytravelforum.com)

A comprehensive forum on, you guessed it, family travel. Want to sell your kids for top dollar in the Eastern Bloc? Or save a few dollars and cremate Grannie in Thailand? Then this isn’t the site. But if you have kids and are planning a big trip, this is the place.

U.S. Department of State Country Profiles

(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/)

World Travel Watch (www.worldtravelwatch.com)

Larry Habegger and James O’Reilly’s weekly online report of global events and odd happenings relevant to travel safety, sorted by topic and geographic region. Concise and a must-see prior to finalizing plans.

U.S. Department of State Worldwide Travel Warnings (http://travel.state.gov)

Mini-Retirement Planning and Preparation—Fundamentals

Round-the-World FAQ (includes travel insurance) (www.perpetualtravel.com/rtw)

This FAQ is a lifesaver. Originally written by Marc Brosius, it has been added to by newsgroup participants for years and now covers nuts and bolts from financial planning to return culture shock and all in between. How long can you afford to be away? Do you need travel insurance? Leave of absence or resignation? This is an around-the-world almanac.

Removing Clutter: 1–800-GOT-JUNK (www.1800gotjunk.com), Freecycle (www.freecycle.org), and Craigslist (www.craigslist.org)

I used Craigslist’s “Free” category to get rid of four years of accumulated possessions in less than three hours on a Saturday evening. There were some for-sale items that I also cleared out at 30–40% of original retail. I then hauled off the last remaining items using the überfast 1–800-GOT-JUNK paid service. Freecycle is comparable to Craigslist for giving away, and getting, things for free when you’re short on time. Get unattached and you’ll make it a habit. I purge every 6–9 months, often including donations to Goodwill (www.goodwill.org), which can do pickups for free with advanced notice.

One-Bag: The Art and Science of Packing Light (www.onebag.com)

One of PC magazine’s “Top 100 [Can’t Live Without] Sites.” Pack light and experience lightness of being.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/travel)

Recommended vaccinations and health planning for every nation in the world. Certain countries require proof of inoculations to pass through customs. Get the shots well ahead of time, as some take weeks to order.

Tax Planning (www.irs.gov/publications/p54/index.html)

More good news. Even if you permanently relocate to another country, you will have to pay U.S. taxes as long as you have a U.S. passport! Not to fret—there are some creative legal sidesteps, such as form 2555-EZ, which can provide up to an $85,700 income exemption if you spend at least 330 days of a consecutive 365 days off U.S. soil. This means you have 35 days in a given 12-month period to spend in the U.S. as you like, but no more. That’s part of the reason my 2004 trip extended to 15 months. Get a good accountant and let them do the detail work to keep yourself out of trouble.

U.S.-Sponsored Overseas Schools (www.state.gov/m/a/os)

If the idea of pulling your children out of school for a year or two isn’t appealing, stick them in one of more than 190 elementary and secondary schools sponsored by the U.S. Department of State in 135 countries. Kids love home work.

Homeschooling 101 and Quickstart Guide (http://bit.ly/homeschooling101)

This subsection of http://homeschooling.about.com/provides a step-by-step process for considering homeschooling options that can be applied to education during extended travel. Children can often return to traditional public or private schools ahead of their classmates.

Home Education Magazine (www.homeedmag.com) Rich collection of resources for homeschoolers, traveling families, and unschoolers. Links include curriculum, virtual support groups, legal resources, and archives. Good reasons to learn the law: Some U.S. states offer up to $1,600 of funding per year for qualified homeschooling expenditures, as it saves the state money to not educate your child in the public school system.

Universal Currency Converter (www.xe.com)

Before you get caught up in the excitement and forget that five British pounds does not equal five U.S. dollars, use this to translate local costs into numbers you understand. Try not to have too many “Those coins are each worth four dollars?” moments.

Universal Plug Adapter (www.franzus.com)

Carrying bulky cables and connectors is irritating—get a Travel Smart all-in-one adapter with surge protection. The size of a pack of cards folded in half, it is the only adapter that I’ve used everywhere without problems. Note that it is an adapter (helps you plug things in), but it is not a transformer. If the foreign wall outlet has twice as much voltage as in the U.S., your gadgets will self-destruct. Yet another reason to purchase necessities abroad instead of taking them all with you.

World Electric Guide (www.kropla.com)

Figure out outlets, voltage, mobile phones, international dialing codes, and all sorts of things related to electric mismatching worldwide.

Cheap and Round-the-World Airfare

Orbitz (www.orbitz.com), Kayak (www.kayak.com), and Sidestep (www.sidestep.com)

Search 400+ airlines worldwide for each service. Orbitz is my starting point for pricing comparisons, after which I check both Kayak and Sidestep. Sidestep has proven most effective when searching for flights that start and end outside of the U.S.

TravelZoo Top 20 (http://top20.travelzoo.com/)

Moscow for $129 one-way? These last-minute weekly travel specials might be the push you need to pull the trigger.

Priceline (www.priceline.com)

Start bidding at 50% of the lowest Orbitz fare and move up in $50 increments.

CFares (www.cfares.com)

Consolidator fares with free and low-cost memberships. I found a round-trip ticket from California to Japan for $500.

1–800-FLY-EUROPE (www.1800flyeurope.com)

I used this to get the $300 roundtrip from JFK to London that left two hours later.

Discount Airlines for Flights within Europe (www.ryanair.com, www.easyjet.com)

Free Worldwide Housing—Short Term

Global Freeloaders (www.globalfreeloaders.com)

This online community brings people together to offer you free accommodation all over the world. Save money and make new friends while seeing the world from a local’s perspective.

The Couchsurfing Project (www.couchsurfing.com)

Similar to the above but tends to attract a younger, more party-hearty crowd.

Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org)

Meet locals worldwide who can provide free tours or housing through this well-run network of more than 200,000 members in 200+ countries.

Free Worldwide Housing—Long Term

Home Exchange International (www.homeexchange.com) This is a home exchange listing and search service with more than 12,000 listings in more than 85 countries. E-mail directly owners of potential homes, put your own home/apartment on the site, and have unlimited access to view listings for one year for a small membership fee.

Paid Housing—from Arrival to the Long Haul

Otalo (www.otalo.com)

Otalo is a search engine for vacation rentals that searches across the Internet’s many different vacation rentals sites and 200,000+ homes. Otalo is like a Kayak.com for vacation rentals. The site scours a variety of other rental search sites and aggregates the results in one easy-to-use search tool.

Hostels.com (www.hostels.com)

This site isn’t just for youth hostels. I found a nice hotel in downtown Tokyo for $20 per night and have used this site for similar housing in eight countries. Think location and reviews (see HotelChatter next) instead of amenities. Four-star hotels are for binge travelers; this site can offer a real local flavor before you find an apartment or other longer-term housing.

HotelChatter (www.hotelchatter.com)

Get the real scoop on this daily web journal with detailed and honest reviews of housing worldwide. Updated several times daily, this site offers the stories of frustrated guests and those who have found hidden gems. Online booking is available.

Craigslist (www.craigslist.org)

Besides local weekly magazines with housing listings, such as Bild or Zitty (no joke) in Berlin, I have found Craigslist to be the single best starting point for long-term overseas furnished apartments. As of this writing, there are more than 50 countries represented. That said, prices will be 30–70% less in the local magazines—if you have a tight budget, get a hostel employee or other local to help you make a few calls and strike a deal. Ask the local helper not to mention you’re a foreigner until pricing is agreed upon.

Interhome International (www.interhome.com)

Based in Zurich, more than 20,000 homes for rent in Europe.

Rentvillas.com (www.rentvillas.com)

Provides unique renting experiences—from cottages and farmhouses to castles—throughout Europe, including France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal.

Computer Remote Access and Backup Tools

GoToMyPC (www.gotomypc.com)

This software facilitates quick and easy remote access to your computer’s files, programs, e-mail, and network. It can be used from any web browser or wireless device and works in real time. I have used GoToMyPC religiously for more than five years to access my U.S.-based computers from countries and islands worldwide. This gives me the freedom to leave all computers at home.

WebExPCNow (http://pcnow.webex.com)

WebEx, the leader in corporate remote access, now offers software that does most of what GoToMyPC offers, including cut and paste between remote computers, local printing from remote computers, file transfers, and more.

DropBox (www.getdropbox.com) and SugarSync

(www.sugarsync.com); then JungleDisk (www.jungledisk.com) and Mozy (www.mozy.com) Both DropBox and SugarSync perform backups and synching of files between multiple computers (home and travel computers, for example). JungleDisk and Mozy—I use the latter—have fewer features and are more specifically designed for automatic backups to their online storage.

Free and Low-Cost Internet (IP) Telephones

Skype (www.skype.com)

Skype is my default for all phone calls. It allows you to call landlines and mobile phones across the globe for an average of 2–5 cents per minute, or connect with other Skype users worldwide for free. For about 40 euros per year, you can get a U.S. number with your home area code and receive calls that forward to a foreign cell phone. This makes your travel invisible. Lounge on the beach in Rio and answer calls to your “office” in California. Nice. Skype Chat, which comes with the service, is also perfect for sharing sensitive log-in and password information with others, as it’s encrypted.

Vonage (www.vonage.com) and Ooma (www.ooma.com)

Vonage offers a small adapter for a monthly fee that connects your broadband modem to a normal phone. Take it on your travels and set it up in your apartment to receive calls to a U.S. number. Ooma has no monthly fees and doesn’t require a landline, but it offers similar hardware you can connect to broadband for a local U.S. number anywhere in the world.

VoIPBuster (www.voipbuster.com) and RebTel (www.rebtel.com)

Both VoIPBuster and RebTel can provide “alias” numbers. Enter a friend’s overseas number on their sites, and both will give you a local number in your area code that will forward to your friend. VoIPBuster also acts as a cheaper Skype with free calls to more than 20 countries.

International Multi-Band and GSM-Compatible Phones

My World Phone (www.myworldphone.com)

I’m partial to Nokia phones. Ensure whichever phone you purchase is “unlocked”—that the SIM card can be swapped out in different countries with different providers.

World Electronics USA (www.worldelectronicsusa.com)

Good explanation of which GSM frequencies and “bands” function in which countries, which will determine which phone you purchase for travel (and perhaps home).

Tools for Off-the-Beaten Path

Satellite Phones (www.satphonestore.com)

If you will be in the mountains of Nepal or on a remote island and want the peace of mind (or headache) of having a phone nearby, these phones work via satellite instead of towers. Iridium has been recommended for widest reception (pole to pole), with GlobalStar in second place (three continents). Rent or purchase.

Pocket-size Solar Panels (www.solio.com)

Satellite phones and other small electronics are of little use (skipping stones, perhaps?) if their batteries die. Solio is about the size of two packs of cards and fans out into small solar panels. I was surprised to find that it charged my cell phone in less than 15 minutes—more than twice as fast as a wall outlet. Adapters are available for almost anything.

What to Do Once You Get There—Career Experiments and More

Verge Magazine (see Restricted Reading appendix)

Meet Up (www.meetup.com)

Search by city and activity to find people who share similar interests all over the world.

Become a Travel Writer (www.writtenroad.com)

Get paid to travel the world and record your thoughts? This is a dream job for millions. Get the inside scoop on the travel publishing world from veteran Jen Leo, author of Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures: Funny Women Write from the Road. This blog was a Frommer’s Budget Travel Top Choice and also features great practical articles about low-tech travel and going gadgetless.

Teach Engrish (www.eslcafe.com)

Dave’s ESL Café is one of the oldest and most useful resources for teachers, would-be teachers, and learners of English. Features discussion boards and “teachers wanted” job postings worldwide.

Turn Your Brain into Play-Doh (www.jiwire.com)

Travel the world so you can instant message (IM) with your friends in the U.S. This site lists more than 150,000 hotspots where you can feed your information OCD. Be ashamed if this becomes your default activity. If you’re bored, just remember—it’s your fault. I’ve been there, so I’m not preaching. It happens to the best of us from time to time, but get more creative.

Test a New Career Part- or Full-Time: Working Overseas (www.workingoverseas.com)

This encyclopedia is an exhaustive menu of options for the globally minded, compiled and updated by Jean-Marc Hachey, former international careers editor of Transitions Abroad magazine.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (www.wwoof.com)

Learn and then teach sustainable organic farming techniques in dozens of countries, including Turkey, New Zealand, Norway, and French Polynesia.

Chat and E-mail in a Language You Don’t Know

Google Chat Bots (http://bit.ly/imbot)

Use this to chat in real time using almost any language. Instant message (IM) directly from your Gmail e-mail account with anyone in the world.

Nice Translator (www.nicetranslator.com) and Free Translation (www.freetranslation.com)

Translate text from English into a dozen languages and vice versa. Surprisingly accurate, though the lost-in-translation 10–20% can get you in trouble. Nice Translator is faster and can be used on the iPhone.

Become Fluent in Record Time

Language Addicts and Accelerated Learning

For all things language related, from detailed how-to articles (how to reactivate forgotten languages, memorize 1,000 words per week, master tones, etc.) to mnemonics and the best electronic shortcuts, click on “language” at www.fourhourblog.com. Learning languages is an addiction of mine and a skill I have taken apart and reassembled to be faster. It is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in 3–6 months.

Find Language Exchange Partners and Materials

LiveMocha (www.livemocha.com),

EduFire (www.edufire.com), and

Smart.fm (http://smart.fm/)

I particularly like their BrainSpeed learning game.

About.com (www.about.com)

Some of the more popular languages have excellent tutorials on About.com:

http://italian.about.com

http://spanish.about.com

http://german.about.com

http://french.about.com