Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

Tag: travel (page 6 of 7)

Monthly Expenses – June 2017

Expenses - image

Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting and relatively adventurous life without being rich. Or even without owning/earning a lot of money. That being said, Mark and I seem to manage one big expense a month for some reason, whether it is car, plane, travel or computer-related. Luckily, we live totally rent-free, wherever we end up. 🙂

This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for the two of us. Under groceries we incorporate all the food, produce and non-alcoholic drinks (100% orange juice, oat milk for Mark and organic 2% milk for me) predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and Mark's vitamins and supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor's visits. Utilities are always Skype-related, since that is how we make phone calls. 

Health insurance and costs are related to my health care. Mark is still eligible for free health care in the state of Massachusetts as of today. If a non-emergency were to happen outside of that state, it will be expensive! Every six months, we have to fly or drive to the East Coast for cancer check-ups. I still pay a small quarterly fee in Belgium for health care (required to keep my citizenship), which I mention in my year report.

June was not the most usual month for us either, what with being in Belgium until June 19th, having a quick stop-over in Reykjavik, Iceland and a long journey back to the West Coast of the US, where we picked up this current three-week house sit the evening we arrived. You will not find any expenses from our remaining days in Belgium in this overview, because my wonderful parents took care of all the grocery shopping, fuel and train rides, and, because I sold enough of my belongings (my African drum - sad to see it go - being the biggest provider) to pay for our other, modest, expenses. The cost of our vacation in Budapest is included, but, the hotel was "paid" with miles.  The flights were part of last month's report. Our biggest expense category for June 2017 was no doubt travel, followed by a hefty grocery bill when we arrived in Oakland, California.

Continue reading

Monthly Expenses – May 2017

Expenses - image

Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting and relatively adventurous life without being rich. Or even without owning/earning a lot of money. That being said, Mark and I seem to manage one big expense a month for some reason, whether it is car, plane, travel or computer-related. Luckily, we live totally rent-free, wherever we end up. 🙂

This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for the two of us. Under groceries we incorporate all the food, produce and non-alcoholic drinks (100% orange juice, oat milk for Mark and organic 2% milk for me) predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and Mark's vitamins and supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor's visits. Utilities are always Skype-related, since that is how we make phone calls. 

Health insurance and costs are related to my health care. Mark is still eligible for free health care in the state of Massachusetts as of today. If a non-emergency were to happen outside of that state, it will be expensive! Every six months, we have to fly or drive to the East Coast for cancer check-ups. I still pay a small quarterly fee in Belgium for health care (required to keep my citizenship), which I mention in my year report.

Everything on the blog is a bit delayed this month, due to our travels and busy schedule. May and June are unusual spending months, partly because of this, and partly because of a new development I will report on later. Here is an overview of our normal expenses in May. Mark and I were located in Massachusetts for three weeks of the month, followed by ten days in Belgium/the Netherlands.  We passed the $1000 mark, because of our long weekend in Friesland (or our upcoming travel in the US). Driving an SUV around instead of our economical Prius raised our fuel budget. The price for all the plane tickets have been calculated in the expense reports of previous months.

Continue reading

Wordless Wednesday – Anticipation

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “anticipation“.

Anticipation is an interesting theme. It lifts the spirit, makes your heart jump, creates excitement, and can be fun, unless reality turns out to be nothing like you predicted. Anticipation does not prepare you for what will actually happen, which can be better, or worse. Anticipation can create dread if faced with something you don’t look forward to. When the situation is entered, things might turn out better than expected, leading to relief.

Anticipation’s big brother is expectation. Continue reading

Wordless Wednesday – New Horizon

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “new horizon“.

What is to be found across the new horizon?

What is to be found across the new horizon?

Now this is a theme I can resonate with, since one of my mottos is “Expand your horizons!” Continue reading

Then and Now – My Birthday

Last week, Donna from Retirement Reflections suggested I do a “Then and Now” post about my birthday. While the thought had crossed my mind, I was hesitant to pursue it, because I thought I could do something bigger with that topic than “just” a blog post. See, a little while back, I played with the brief idea to make my variety of birthdays a thread in the memoir I am writing, or at least incorporate my last decade into an article, “Sailing through My Thirties” or something like that. As always with most of my genius ideas, not much ever happens with them. So, why not turn the thought into a blog? Some parts will still make it into my book, so I can’t reveal any juicy details or you won’t buy it. 🙂 The photos will not be able to make it into the memoir,  so… here are some birthday galleries!

30 – Monterrey, California, USA

My birthday in 2005 was a bit stressful and exciting at the same time, since our sailboat F/Our Choice/s (on which we were living) was getting hauled out of the water in the morning and undergoing an inspection to be sold. Or not… We spent part of the afternoon in the amazing aquarium and went out to dinner. We both love Monterrey, especially the wildlife, like sea otters swimming by the boat.

31 – Belize, Central America

Continue reading

Wordless Wednesday – Local

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

I have archived thousands of photos over the years and can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “local“.

Since Mark and I don’t own or rent a house, our location changes with every trip we make or house sit we take. Therefore what’s local to us depends on which place we call home for the time being. For over a decade we have been roaming about, by truck camper, by sailboat and by car. “Local” has been areas in Belgium, Mexico, Central America, Texas, Maryland, the Bahamas, the Caribbean islands, Panama, the Galapagos, most archipelagos of French Polynesia, New England, and now Northern California. Home is, literally, where we are. This website and my older It’s Irie website have an incredible amount of photos of our ever changing backyard. Here are a few of them:

Continue reading

IWSG Monthly Writing Update – A Short One!

Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) encourages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement or anything really about their writing.  Since August, the IWSG would like to see a particular question answered in each blog post. This month that question is “How do you know your story is ready?”

This IWSG post will be one of the shortest I have ever written, for a very simple reason: I have not worked on my book at all during the month of September. Not a word written, not a page edited, not an exercise practiced. Nada. Nothing! The good thing is that I do not feel bad or guilty about it. Mark and I knew September would be a crazy month, what with moving out of the last house where we took care of Jenny, the dog, and the maple farm for five months, our five-day vacation in Acadia, spending some quality time at our home base in Newburyport seeing friends and family, running errands and going to doctor appointments, and an unexpected week-long house sit on Cape Cod. That concluded September!

Even writing a blog has not always been easy in September!

Even writing a blog has not always been easy in September!

Continue reading

WW – Cherry on Top While Traveling

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays. I hope you enjoy them. Also, I can’t do completely “wordless”, but I try my best with “almost wordless”. 🙂

My theme “Cherry on Top” for this week comes from The Daily Post. While I am totally passionate about traveling and enjoy many aspects of it, my highlights remain wildlife encounters. Therefore, “meeting” and interacting with animals is the cherry on top of my explorations, in the world or in the back yard!

For more “Cherry on Top” shots of nature, check out this gallery post, which was part of my A-Z Blogging challenge this year.

Who or what is your cherry on top, in the day-to-day life or on vacation?

Recap of My Book Writing

Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) encourages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement or anything really about their writing. Starting this month, they have added a question as a prompt to get the juices flowing: “What’s the best thing someone has ever said about your writing?” It has been a while since my last “book update”, so today is a good day for some insights and an answer to that question.

The Background

As some of you know, my biggest passion is traveling. Since graduating at 22, I have been on the road or on the water full-time for 14 out of the 18 years. I’m not sure whether to count our current lifestyle of house and pet sitting as traveling, since we are semi-settled “abroad” (for me anyway), but still explore different parts of the country while at it.

The other thing I have been doing most of my life is write. I have always enjoyed writing and have been pretty engrossed by it since I started my first diary at the age of 10. Continue reading

Full Moon of the Past

Full moon on our sailboat in Deltaville, VA (October 2007)

Full(-ish) moon on our sailboat Irie in Deltaville, VA (October 2007)

… to stay with the theme of our most recent summer solstice full moon. Not much luck photographing that one, so I searched my archives.

I like Wordless Wednesdays.

Because I have been known to talk and write too much (here I go again).

Because a photo sometimes says more than a thousand words (depends on those words and what the shot does NOT reveal).

Because I finally have an excuse to post pretty cool, but disregarded photos of our travels.

Did you see or photograph the full moon (also called a strawberry moon in June) on June 20th? Did you go outside and let romance overtake you? Did you see fireflies and stars, and felt many mosquitoes upon your skin, like I did?

Older posts Newer posts

© 2024 Roaming About

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑