Testing the waters on Martha’s Vineyard

We originally envisioned our visit to Martha’s Vineyard last week as our final farewell to New England. But as soon as we disembarked the ferry, we started using it as a practice run for our year of budgeting on the road. (Though technically it was more like a practice power walk: We paid for the Airbnb months ago and set aside a separate slush fund specifically for the trip. Because $100/day on the Vineyard? Impossible.)

Chocolate lollipop, Inkwell Beach, Martha’s Vineyard

Sean and I are generally very frugal people. In our regular life, we make our own iced coffees and avocado toast, wait for new releases to come to Redbox, and wear clothes we’ve owned since college. But when we’re traveling? The purse strings get a bit looser. We’ll have a cocktail with brunch before heading to a museum, then perhaps do a bit of browsing prior to dinner. Now that traveling is becoming our regular life, we have to adjust our habits.

So while we were on the Vineyard, we strolled around the Gingerbread Cottages on our own instead of paying for a tour. We took the city bus and walked instead of Ubering. We shared two huge appetizers for lunch and a huge ice cream for dinner instead of buying four separate meals.

Gingerbread Cottage, Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard

We ate donuts from our Airbnb in the morning and snacks from the grocery store on the beach in the afternoon so we could enjoy dinner and drinks on the waterfront in the evening.

Fish tacos & cider, Coop DeVille, Martha’s Vineyard

We still allowed ourselves to splurge, but only for the things we truly wanted: our last New English lobster rolls ($40), beers at a brewery ($20), a ride on the country’s oldest carousel ($7). And we actually put thought into things we might’ve otherwise spent money on impulsively: a $36 museum visit just to get out of the rain? No. $10 to climb to the top of a lighthouse? We did that already in Maine for free. $80 for a bus tour to the Aquinnah cliffs? We could get there on a city bus for $16. And aren’t we going to see better cliffs in Portugal next month anyway? (Yes.)

Flying Horses Carousel, Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard

When all was said and done, we ended up saving a few hundred dollars just by being a little more mindful. And we still had a great time. That’s what our year of budget travel is about: cutting back on frivolous expenses so we can indulge in the experiences we don’t want to miss out on.

Sunset, Oak Bluffs harbor, Martha’s Vineyard

Our travel blueprint

Sean and I have done a lot of research into our year on the road—reading books and blogs, watching Youtube videos, talking to friends and family members who’ve gone before us. But plenty of details are still up in the air. And that’s by design: We’re both natural-born planners, and leaving things to chance is part of the challenge (and the thrill) of this next chapter. Here’s everything we know (and all the things we don’t):

The timeline

The trip is bookended by two big events: Oktoberfest in Munich this September, and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo next August. What we do in between those two tentpoles is (roughly) up to chance. We’ve got a one-way ticket to Portugal booked for early September, with the goal of returning to the States around the holidays. After Christmas, we’ll head to Central and South America for a few months, and then trek over to Asia (and Australia?) in the spring.   

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Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria & Apfelwein, Frankfurt, Germany

The budget

Our goal is to spend an average of $100 per day (though we’ve saved quite a bit more than that if and when we need a buffer). “How,” you ask? By sticking to off-the-beaten-path destinations; staying in hostels and private rooms in Airbnbs; traveling at off times like Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and late nights and early mornings; taking public transit whenever possible; and minimizing meals out. We’ll also plan plenty of down time to counterbalance pricier days (we can swing a $100 riverboat tour in Portugal’s Douro Valley if we spend a couple of days lounging on the beach in the Algarve). It’s going to be tougher in Western Europe, but we’re hoping it’ll even out in less expensive locales like Southeast Asia.     

The destinations

Someone asked me recently where I’m most excited about going. But other than Portugal, Germany, and Japan, we truly have no idea where we’ll end up. We have a list of places in mind—Italy, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Belize, Colombia, Argentina, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, China—but it all depends on the availability of cheap transportation. And that might be what I’m most looking forward to: looking back on our adventure one year from now and being surprised by all the places we visited.    

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Tokyo & Mount Fuji, Japan

The luggage

We’re going carry-on only throughout our journey. It’s one part money-saving strategy (we’d rather not pay to check bags on budget airlines) and one part logistical (I don’t want to drag a heavy suitcase through a jungle or share a cot on a sleeper bus with a giant backpack). That means we’ll be doing a lot of outfit remixing and washing clothes in the sink. The good news is, we plan on returning to the States in between continents, so we can swap out our wardrobe to suit the next climate. (The cozy sweater I’m packing for Europe in November will be entirely useless in Asia in June.) 

The things we’re leaving behind

We’re getting rid of A LOT. Way more than we ditched when we moved to Boston five years ago. We’re loading what’s left into a U-Haul and driving home to Texas to store it near my parents’ house. The only things we’ll see between now and next fall are our clothes and the handful of knick-knacks we’ll set up in my old room to make it feel a little more “ours.” And what of my sweet angel, Layla? Thank you so much for thinking of her! She’ll live with my parents temporarily before moving in with my brother when he gets settled in a new place.

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Layla