Options For Eating On A Budget ($14/day)

When I travel, eating is one of my favorite pastimes.  So why go on a food budget of $14 a day?  Wouldn't I just end up eating fast food all day, every day?

No, I would not.  In fact, I probably won't at all unless the only other option is cannibalism.  Here's some things I could do to save money on food that do not involve fast food or Soylent Green:

• For breakfast, have a pastry and a coffee from a local cafe.

• Have brunch and dinner instead of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

• Or have breakfast, but eat at a decent, local buffet instead of lunch and dinner. 

• Spend more on lunch (a cheaper main dish) and less on dinner (maybe just a side dish).  Most restaurants charge more for dinner, so I can use that to my favor.

• Go to happy hours at bars and pubs that serve food.

• Food carts are often delicious and always cheap.

• If there's a lunch or dinner special, go for it.  Be cautious about "brunch specials"; they're often expensive.

• Ethnic restaurants are often cheap and good.  Watch out for restaurants specializing in "fusion cuisine", they're often too expensive.

• As a general rule, stay away from places frequented by tourists and go towards those frequented by locals.  Asking locals about their favorite place to eat is usually a good idea.  If you see a person with a camera around his or her neck, wearing a flower-patterned, buttoned t-shirt, and whining loudly about how the city they are visiting did not meet their grandiose expectations, run like the wind.

What Exactly Is 'Home'?

'Home.'  It means a lot of things to different people.  The most literal meanings seem to be "where you currently have a place to sleep" or "where you were born".  But when these things are different, the meaning becomes more complex.

For me, I consider Arcata, California my true home.  I only lived there for two and a half years, and I lived most of my time (and was born) in Redding.  So why consider Arcata home?

It boils down to what geographers call a "sense of place".  A sense of place consists of all experiences in or impressions of a place or region.  When these are combined, it forms an opinion of what you think of a place in general.

To me, 'home' ultimately means where you have the strongest personal attachment to a sense of place.  For me, that is Arcata.  It's where I had the most good experiences with lasting friends.  It's where people regularly invited me over for potlucks, outings, and the like without me having to ask them.  It's where I feel at home, and the place I know best.

Arcata Community Forest, Arcata, CA

Being A Traveler Starts At Home

In my last post, I discussed how to travel without acting like a tourist.  It's something even I've been working on in my recent trips.  I've been thinking of ways to do this, and realized that if I was a tourist in my hometown, I'd be doing at least one key aspect of it wrong.  I'm not asking myself questions about my surroundings.

In Redding, where I currently live, my curiosity has been jaded by being 'at home'.  However, once I travel, I will no longer be at home.  So if I am going to follow my own advice, I may as well start doing it now.

Later today, I will post an example of this.  If you have any comments, feel free to add them.

Be A Traveler, Not A Tourist

We all know the stereotype of a tourist: a person who visits somewhere just to be there, doesn't do their research about a place that they're unfamiliar with, and then expects all the comforts of home and more in a place that is not really their home.  Most locals hate tourists, and if you act like one, expect to be smiled at when you're looking, but shunned and reviled behind your back (and in my opinion, rightly so).

If you want to get to know a place, and not just experience the things that the local tourism boards feed you (hint: they don't want to give you an honest picture of a place, they want you to do the things that will give them the most money), you do not want to act like a tourist when you travel.  These tips should clear up how this can be accomplished.

• Do your research.  No matter where you travel, things will be different than at home.  Learn those differences, and how you can get familiar with them.

• Don't focus solely on where you are.  Ask yourself why things are and how things work around you, based on where things are and where things are going around you.  That's what I learned to do as a geography major, and it helped a lot with this because that's what the study of geography is.  Also, if you train your brain to think this way, you're never bored; you'll find yourself wondering about questions on everything around you.  It also helps you learn more about a place as you travel.

• Don't expect the comforts of home, and don't expect everything to be like home.  If this is one of the most important things to you when you travel, you really should save yourself some money and stay at home.

That's about it.  If you have some more tips, be sure to write them in the comments section.  Thanks for reading!

Traveling with Bipolar and Aspergers

Traveling with a mental disability is entirely different than traveling if you don't have any.  Having two of them can be a very annoying (to say the least) obstacle if you are a traveler.  I happen to have bipolar and Aspergers, so I have ways of making travel a lot more enjoyable.


Traveling with Bipolar Disorder 

• Take any prescribed medication with you, make sure you have more than enough for your trip.

• If you take bipolar medication, do not consume uncooked alcohol on your trip.  Being drunk and on bipolar meds is not a good combo, trust me on this.  Cooking with alcohol should be fine.
  

• Going through customs with medication can be nerve-wracking if you don't know what to expect.  Contact your consulate for any other country you visit besides your home country on what to pack to get through smoothly.

•  Meditation can help you calm down in certain situations.  For example, once when I was in the Chicago airport, a disgruntled TSA employee who seemed to hate working with the public (it escapes me why he picked that job) yelled at me when I asked if I should get a boarding pass a bit ahead of time.  I was a bit frantic, as I had just gotten yelled at by an official on my very first international flight that I went by myself on.  I ended up meditating at one of the seats by the gate to keep my head level, and it worked.  Do it for 2 minutes, and you should be fine.
  

 

• If you feel you don't need some of your medication, more power to you, but be sure to ask your psychiatrist to wean off of it gradually, getting the amount of meds you take to the minimum you need before traveling.  More meds equals more side effects, and those suck.  If he or she tries to put you on more medication instead (I've had this happen to me before), get a new psychiatrist who is more competent.

You want less medication?  M'kay, let's see... I'll cut down on the Depakote, but to counteract the side-effects of reducing that, I'll put you on Vicodin, Risperdol, and just for the hell of it, Ritalin.  I'll just have you sign here, m'kay?

Traveling with Aspergers Syndrome

• There is no medication I know of that treats Aspergers.  Therapy is a good option if you have the money.  If not, join a social group (some aspect of the group meetings should be face-to-face) that focuses on a topic of interest that suits you.  When I was growing up, I had a very low-functioning form of Aspergers.  After I started attending social events in my school's Geography Club (yes, I majored in Geography, more on that in the next post), I rapidly got increasingly more high-functioning to the point where I was able to travel without any problems.

• Hostels are also a great way to connect with people, not only to improve social skills, but often to find lifelong friends.

I hope all this was useful to others who have one or both of the diagnoses I have.   If you have additional tips, feel free to mention them in the comments.  Thanks for reading!

Budget Travel Plans: September 2014 to January 2015

When I have told my friends that I'm traveling long-term starting September, they often are surprised.  I'm not rich, and I happen to have bipolar and Aspergers (a bit more detail on my experience traveling with mental disablities will be in the next post).  I'm not the most fortunate person in the world, but I still travel.

I do this by budgeting my money very carefully, and spending as little as possible.  Hostels, Couchsurfing, and Airbnb are all fair game when it comes to lodging.  Regional transit is often a cheap method of transportation, and Amtrak is also becoming more affordable.

Food... that's my white whale as far as budgeting is concerned.  Starting in September, I plan to spend $15 a day on food, as opposed to $25.  It will be a challenge for me, but after looking at restaurant menus for destinations I'd like to go, I think I can pull it off and still eat well.

Here's what I plan to do in the next several months:

September

First week and a half: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Rest of September: Seattle/San Juan Islands/Port Angeles/Olympia area, Washington State, USA

Vancouver, BC, Canada

San Juan Islands

October

(Not sure, except that I'll probably spend a week in Redding, California and a week in Arcata, California)

Arcata, CA, USA

November

New England region, USA

Providence, RI, USA

December

Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal

January

Spain

La Rioja province, Spain