Recently a Facebook friend of mine was lamenting the difficulties of life in New York, and wishing that she could afford to live elsewhere. My reaction was something along the lines of: “GIRL! If you can live in New York City you can afford to live pretty much anywhere on this planet!” It did get me…

My Year Using SPG Amex Credit card travel hacking. Have you heard of it? Despite the moniker, it has nothing to do with gaining illegal access to someone else’s funds and using them to fund a yachting trip. Rather, it’s a totally legal way to game the travel industry to travel better, smarter, and longer. While…

Once upon a time, I wrote a Budget Breakdown post for my trip to Honduras — one I cobbled together from data diligently recorded on the back of an envelope containing my lempiras. I intended to do so frequently along my travels, but it didn’t really work out. Most of my trips just aren’t suited to…

On the morning of my third day in the Cordilleras, I jolted awake and rolled over to look out the window. Had I dreamed how beautiful it was? The view that answered me back assured me it was very much reality. Despite, or perhaps even partly because of, the total isolation from the outside world, I…

Getting to Batad is not for the faint-hearted. This remote Filipino village, famed for having arguably the most beautiful rice terraces in the world, is not accessible by motorized vehicle. First, you get to Banaue, a remove village in Northern Luzon, accessible by bus from Manila. Then, you set out towards Batad, and go as far…

I have an air-tight plan for money management on the road. Two credit cards, two debit cards, all thoroughly vetted for ease of use overseas and stored in separate location so I always have a backup. I track my daily expenses with an iPhone app and each month do a full accounting analysis of my spending…