Category: Travel
Financial Mechanic goes abroad
The Ultimate [Updated] Packing List For Traveling Light
Last year I traveled for six months with just a personal item. This year, I went back to Southeast Asia and improved my kit with the lessons I learned. Like last time, I fit everything in a 28L Cotopaxi Allpa bag and a small backpack. On this trip, I went to Thailand, Sri Lanka, and […]
Early Retirement Month 17: Sri Lanka Snippets
How did we go from Early Retirement Month 7 in the last post to Month 17? Well… after the months of traveling last year, I went back home and did not have many more travel updates to give. However, I’m traveling again, doing another two months in Southeast Asia, visiting Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the […]
Early Retirement Month Seven: A Bucket-List Trip to Australia and New Zealand (Part 2)
After a wonderful bop around the Southern half of New Zealand, we booked flights to head up to Auckland in the North. After renting a car in a super sketchy, dark parking lot, we made it to the attic-turned-Airbnb where we crashed for the night. We were raring to go on hikes, so we only […]
Early Retirement Month Seven: A Bucket-List Trip to Australia and New Zealand (Part 1)
Thirty plus years ago, a woman in England left her hometown to travel the world. On the bus going to the Milford Track, in New Zealand, a young man sat next to her. Originally from Long Island, his job laid him off and gave him a pretty decent severance package, so he was also going […]
Cracking The Code To Early Retirement: 17 Revealing Insights To Your Burning Questions!
A hundred years ago, we thought technological advances would mean we would work less. Instead, we are working more than ever. There is not much of a blueprint for early retirement. I want to help demystify what early retirement might look like. So I recently sent out an email to ask for reader questions. Thank you for everybody who submitted theirs! Here are my 17 answers to your burning questions about early retirement.
Early Retirement Month Six: Unveiling the Marvels of Japan
Tokyo, Sapporo Ice Festival, Skiing in Hokkaido, Kyoto, and my friend’s farmhouse Stepping off the plane in Japan felt like stepping into another dimension. My previous experience with anything Japan-related now felt like a weird knock-off version of the real thing. I had a mangled impression, built on grocery-store sushi, a few video games, and […]
Early Retirement Month Five: Taste of Taiwan — A 2-Week Itinerary for an Unforgettable Trip
Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life. By month five of early retirement, I was traveling solo to Vietnam and Taiwan, and feeling a world away from home. I usually don’t know what I’m going to be doing more than a day in advance. It’s often not until I arrive in a city that […]
Osprey Fairview 40 Travel Backpack [New & Updated!] My Perfect Carry-On?
When I was searching for the “perfect” bag, the Osprey Fairview 40 Travel Backpack was on the top of my list. I was planning on travel indefinitely in just one bag, so I needed it to check a lot of boxes. However, one downside many people complained about with that bag is that the laptop […]
A Personal Item For 6 Months Around The World
After moving abroad to Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to travel a lot around Europe. With each trip, I perfected my packing game. European budget airlines have started to charge for carry-ons, so I worked to fit everything into a personal item. Little by little, I’ve managed to trim down what I carry to a […]
Why I’m Leaving Vietnam Early
After a memorable month in Thailand, I took a short flight to Vietnam. I had very high hopes, and was especially excited for the food! Disembarking the plane with a big smile on my face (having just come from Land of the Smiles), I headed off to Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city. I knew it would […]