Rock Me On The Water: The Budget Travel Olympian

Shoestring Travel / Hotel @nyware / Field Notes

The Budget Travel Olympian

No matter how low the budget bar gets, I always manage to limbo my way under it.

Opening Statement

No matter how low the budget bar gets, I always manage to limbo my way under it. I am the Wilt Chamberlain of shoestring travel—putting up numbers so unthinkable that mere normals will never, ever reach them.

As the Morgan Freeman of travel writers, everyone recognizes me, but I never gain any due recognition. Hotel @nyware (edreif.com) has not exactly been the Edgar Allan Poe of knockouts, the Emily Dickinson of ground-and-pound, or the Robert Frost of whoopings.

The Number

300

ports in 38 months

Archive Image

The View from the Moving World

Milford Sound as proof that the best travel stories do not require a luxury budget—only movement, timing and nerve.

Milford Sound, New Zealand, with steep fjord walls and waterfalls

Milford Sound, New Zealand

Majesty without the markup.

Field Note 01

CNN Versus the Alphabet

Some people need essays. Some people need images, sound and movement.

So I shoot pictures and videos, then post them for the auditory and visual crowd. I call it CNN versus the alphabet.

Field Note 02

The IN to My Sane

A Ph.D. in throwing things against the wall and seeing what survives.

It is just me, born with a Ph.D. in throwing junk against the wall and seeing what will stick. Looking back, it has been the Colonel Kurtz of experiences. I have gone native and insane so many times—but in a Lance Armstrong, Barbara Bush sort of way.

Sometimes I am the census taker. Sometimes I am the cannibal psychiatrist.

“Any man beyond the age of 26 who rides a bus should consider himself a failure.”

Margaret Thatcher

I would add: any man working on a cruise ship. It is good to know, however, that failure is always an option.

Archive Image 02

At Sea, On Budget

The second supplied image is preserved exactly as provided in the source.

Traveler posing before a scenic ocean view

The Budget Travel Olympian

Resourcefulness is the real upgrade.

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