Life Nomadic: Traveling without Planning

by Tynan on

Ahh, and we’re back. After a semi-hiatus of a few months, Todd and I are back to the full nomad lifestyle. I say semi-hiatus because within those four months we both spent a good amount of our time traveling around the US, Mexico, and Canada. And even when I was in Austin, where my family and most friends are, I lived in a 21′ RV on the side of the road.

Once a nomad, always a nomad?

Our trip this year is going to be very different from last year, but our first stop is the same as last year’s first stop: Panama.

I’m not sure why exactly we chose Panama last year, but this year we chose it because we’d fallen in love with the country. The people are universally friendly and warm, as is the weather, the food is dirt cheap and amazing, and there’s no shortage of adventure to be found.

Not to mention that Todd and I are both nearing fluency in Spanish and Panamanian Spanish is actually known for being very clear.

One hallmark of our trips is that we usually don’t plan much. We often go to a city with no place to stay and no plans, assuming we’ll figure it out once we get there. That’s probably where our mantra, “everything always works out” comes in.
When our flight landed in Panama, it was two in the morning. We have a few friends in Panama from last year, but imposing on them to sleep on their couches at 3am seemed a bit cruel. Getting a hotel was an option, too, but it doesn’t make much sense to pay for a hotel you’re going to be in for just eight hours, even at Panama’s bargain rates.

And so we chose the third, less obvious option. In our backpacks we cram in luxury-lite cots, giving us the ability to sleep in perfect comfort just about anywhere.

(side note: if you have the foresight, check www.sleepinginairports.net before deciding to sleep in an airport. They have a good database, though most of the complaints people register are negated with a luxury-lite.)

We headed upstairs to the waiting lounge, where a dozen or so fellow travelers were awkwardly sleeping on the hard tile floor or slumped over in chairs. I hate to admit it, but I felt pretty smug knowing we were about to rest in perfect comfort in an otherwise inhospitable environment.

And we did. A security guard gently woke us up at 7am, we packed up our cots, and headed in to one of our favorite cities in the world with no plans or accommodations to speak of.

Fare alert: check out those tickets to Panama City

by Grant Martin on

I hear that Costa Rica is all blown out by tourists and that Panama is the new hot destination in Central America. Why not check things out for yourself with some secret sales going on today bound for Panama City (PTY)?

Delta and American Airlines got into it this morning with some discounted fares from each other’s hubs. And while as of lunch time Delta availability is starting to dry up, I’m still picking up tickets in the sub 250$ range on American from several domestic cities into PTY. A quick dummy booking from Atlanta from June 12 to 16th yielded a paltry 227$ fare, while Cincinnati was 241$ and Salt Lake City was 227$.

The sale only seems to be good for flights only taking place in June. Time to buck up and commit to that summer vacation that you were going to take the wife and kids on. Too bad I’m all booked up for June.

Don’t forget about the double elite miles promotion that’s going on at American through June 15.

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How I became a modern day nomad, and how you can too

by Tynan on

I no longer have a simple answer to the question, “Where do you live?”, so I usually launch into an explanation of exactly what I’m doing. I almost always get the same response.

“Wow. I wish I could do that.”

But here’s the thing: almost anyone can do what I’m doing. Despite being a much more interesting lifestyle, it’s not particularly difficult or expensive.

This is the story of how I became a modern day nomad, and how you may become one too if the idea appeals to you.

I quit my job a year ago. It was a great job by any metric, but something about sitting inside on a computer on sunny spring days seemed wrong. What was I doing with my life?

A couple months later I was free. I wrote a book about my knowledge and experiences gained from living with the most famous pickup artists in the world, and I began selling it.

I still had to work, but my work was totally mobile. My book was sold online only. I could write from anywhere, take care of customers from anywhere, and make phone calls from anywhere.

This led to questions like, “Why am I living in Austin?”, which led to questions like, “Why am I living in the U.S.?”, which led to questions like, “Why pick just one place to live in?”

And so the idea was hatched. I’d pick six different countries to live in, and would move every two months.It wouldn’t be vacation, though. I’d work just like usual, except instead of taking a break to see a movie I’d take a break to walk on the Panama Canal.

And I didn’t want to backpack either. Staying in a dorm room in some dirty hostel didn’t hold much appeal. I wanted to live like a local and really experience the country and the culture.

My good friend Todd listened as I explained the plan.

“Count me in.”

We wrote a dream list of all the countries we’d like to visit in the first year. Narrowing the list down was difficult, but we cut it down to six main destinations as well as a few small side trips.

Panama, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Qatar, France, Australia, New Zealand.

Deciding to do the trip was the hardest part. Once you pick a date to leave and decide that you’ll do it no matter what, the rest falls in place.

We sold everything. I had an RV, a condo, a car, as well as tons of computers, clothes, and other junk like that. Even if we didn’t have existing online businesses, our fire sales would have bought us enough time to start our businesses on the road.

With just a few hours to go, we were both down to just one small 28L Backpack each. Over the prior few months we had researched the very best gear to buy, and our bags were full of our findings. In those tiny backpacks we stuffed everything we’d need to live and work comfortably for the rest of the year.

Leaving people behind is difficult too, of course. I left a girlfriend, and Todd and I both said goodbye to a lot of friends and family. Internet makes that a lot better, though. Making calls with our VOIP Enabled phones is the same as using them as cell phones, and AIM and e-mail keep us in touch too. Some of our friends even come out and visit us on the road.

We anticipated that life would be totally different once we left, and that it would be a lot harder. This hasn’t been true at all. Once you adjust to a new country after a day or two, it’s business as usual.

There are a lot of differences, but the basics are the same. People are friendly and helpful everywhere. Good food can be found everywhere. Supermarkets are all basically the same.

It isn’t very expensive either. We bought our plane tickets through Airtreks, which averaged less than $500 per month. In Panama we had a two bedroom apartment with a large balcony overlooking the harbor. In Tokyo we have a large room with two beds in a big house in Shibuya, one of the best areas downtown. Both accommodations cost us only $550 per month each.

Because anything purchased has to be lugged to the next destination, we don’t buy anything other than food, which might be another $500 a month each. For just over $1000 a month we have the luxury of living all over the world, learning and experiencing more every month than we used to in a year.

There are no significant hidden costs or hassles. Living as a nomad is just as manageable as living in a single location, but a lot more fun and exciting.

Even if you don’t want to start your own internet business, there is a lot of work that can be done by contract. To start, check out eLance, or rentacoder.com. Between those two sites you can get paid to write, edit, create web pages, research, or program. If you can’t do any of those things now, you could surely teach yourself within a few months using free resources online and a little practice.

Thanks to technology, becoming a nomad is in reach of most people. If you’re interested enough to read this far, it’s probably something you could do too.

What’s stopping you?

Cockpit Chronicles: Taken for a ride in Panama City

by Kent Wien on

I called my friend Captain Dave the day before our trip.

“Dave, we’re going to hit the ground running in Panama City so we can check out the canal. I’ve got it all figured out. Just get to bed early,” I said.

Dave was up for this. He actually traded one of his Barbados layovers to fly this trip with me. Sometimes it’s worth it to fly an ugly trip with a good friend. We’ve been flying together for about five years and we always have a good time discussing current events and hanging out on layovers.

I studied up on the Wikitravel Panama City entry and figured we could get a taxi over to the Miraflores Locks where there was supposed to be a decent restaurant overlooking the canal.

When I met up with Dave in operations, he had quite the story to tell. He went to bed the night before at 7 p.m. and, you guessed it, woke up at about 10 p.m. After tossing and turning a while longer, he figured he might as well come into work a few minutes earlier than normal for what he thought was a 5:30 a.m. departure. It wasn’t until he arrived at the Boston airport that he realized the flight departed at 6:45 a.m. He was almost three hours early. He tried to nap on a recliner in the crew lounge, but I imagine it’s hard to get much sleep when you’re kicking yourself all the time.

%Gallery-17310%I showed up on time and relatively well rested. I have to give credit to Dave. He was as determined to see the canal as I was, even after what would be a long day of flying. We left on time from Boston to Miami and continued on to Panama City just an hour later. Flying south to Panama took us directly over Cuba, which has excellent controllers, then through Jamaica’s airspace before finally talking to Panama control.

We landed in Panama City at 2 p.m. and made it to the hotel an hour later. Surprisingly, Dave was still willing to take the trip to the canal. We changed clothes and checked with the concierge about getting a cab to the locks. The Wikitravel entry mentioned a flat rate of $25 if you want to hire the cab for the entire day. The concierge spent a few minutes talking to a cab driver before deciding that we’d be better off with a private taxi since the cabby couldn’t speak much English.

Louis was probably close to eighty years old and he looked harmless enough. We hopped in the car and he drove about 50 feet before he turned to us and said, “No drugs!”

“What’s that?” I said, while sitting in the front seat.

“No drugs. I can take you anywhere you’d like, show you anything, just nooo drugs.” He said.

I know we’d been awake for close to 14 hours at this point, but how bad did we look?

“We’d just like to go to the Miraflores Locks for dinner.” I told Louis.

Louis said he’d be willing to do that, but he could also take us to Casco Viejo and some other interesting locations as well. And for all that, the total would be $80 for the day.

Now here’s a tip. Don’t get INTO a taxi until you have the price negotiated. Since we were already in the cab, our negotiating leverage was pretty much nil.

“$40 a person, OK, fine, I suppose.” This better be one heck of a tour, I thought.

Louis drove us toward the locks and explained that it was a great way to see the canal. Had we gone to the observation deck, it would cost $16. But if we went to the restaurant, we could eat at a buffet for $21. That worked for us. I was happy to save some money after agreeing to pay for Louis’s car payment for the month.
The traffic northbound out of the city was really slow going. It was the Friday before Mardi Gras and the celebrations were just starting, which meant a main road was closed in the city. Our drive took about 45 minutes, but Louis did his best to give us some of the details of his city. But it was hard to hear all the stories over the snoring that Dave was doing in the back seat.

Dave hasn’t stopped nagging me about the time I took him on a packed subway so we could find my favorite bathroom in Paris, so I knew I’d be hearing about this extravagant cab ride for many months to come.

We made it to the Miraflores Locks, which are the last locks before the Pacific Ocean. After climbing a few flights of stairs, we picked up some free passes that would get us past the guards to the restaurant. It was 5:30 p.m. when we sat down for dinner by ourselves on the balcony overlooking the locks. The view was spectacular and we soon realized that we needed to stay there for a full dinner, even if we had to miss out on touring any other parts of Panama City.

In order to see how the canal works, take a look at this 30 second animation showing the entire canal, and then this one that illustrates the way a lock operates.

Any visit to the canal wouldn’t be complete without a few mind-blowing facts about what some call the eighth wonder of the world:

  • 27,000 workers died during the construction.
  • On a New York to San Francisco trip, the canal saves 7800 miles.

  • Each canal door needs to be replaced every ten years and weighs 750 tons (the same as 12 Boeing 757’s).
  • Ships are prioritized by a bidding system. The more you’re willing to pay, the sooner you can enter the canal.
  • The canal averages 40 ships per day or 14,000 a year.
  • A typical passage by a cargo ship takes 9 hours to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
  • Crossings cost as little as $650 for a sailboat to $141,000 for a cruise ship.

Dave and I watched three or four huge ships pass through during our two-hour dinner there. I’ve included a gallery showing the view from the restaurant as well as some aerial shots of the canal I took when we passed overhead earlier in the day.

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The buffet dinner couldn’t have been better and we enjoyed the local Balboa beer as well. Every country we fly to in the Caribbean and Central America seems to have their own beer and surprisingly they all taste exactly the same. I’m not complaining as I do like them all, but I can’t tell the difference.

Louis came up twice to check on us; probably to be sure we weren’t skipping out on his taxi bill, but also to let us know that we were going to miss seeing the other parts of town. We knew we’d be back, and we had found the perfect place to eat and enjoy the monumental view.

The drive back to the hotel took an hour because of the traffic. I marveled at all the construction and found a few open wi-fi spots with my iPhone as we crept through the city. Dave slept in the backseat. Fortunately we didn’t have to leave for another eighteen hours, so he could catch up on a lot of sleep back at the hotel.

The next day we flew to Miami and then on to Caracas, Venezuela where we laid over for sixteen hours. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but I did manage to get some nice shots of the sun going down on the way from Caracas to Miami.

One of the benefits of this job has been the ability to travel to some interesting places that I might have otherwise missed. If you don’t think you’ll ever make it to Panama, at least you can check out this webcam from the top of the building where we had dinner. It’s the next best thing. If that’s too slow for you, take a look at this almost hypnotic video below of a week’s worth of traffic through the Miraflores Locks compressed down to a few minutes.


Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on each of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston.

Mandatory Mandarin in Panama

by Jerry Guo on

News is out today that pretty soon, Panamanians will be bilingual in Spanish and Mandarin. The National Assembly has conditionally approved a bill requiring all schools to teach Mandarin, a nod to the sheer power of China’s economy.

China is the biggest user of the Panama Canal, and the bill states that Mandarin is an “indispensable language,” though it recognizes English is the international language of business. Curiously the country also holds diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

There’s been a lot of coverage lately about eclectic countries all seeing a huge boom in Chinese tutoring and classes. Here’s a great article from a colleague from the TIME Beijing bureau who wrote about this phenomenon.