NYC’s Wastewater Treatment Plant Queen is Now a $%&# Canadian
I was delighted to get a comment recently on my story about Jessi Highet and Mike Varley, who walked 26 miles a day for a year through the streets of NYC, sampling scallion cream cheese bagels. It was from a reader who had her own themed walking adventure to relate:...
It’s a real hassle to move to Canada
Far more people talk about moving to Canada than actually make the move. This is true, despite the high likelihood that there’s a way for many Americans to legally move to Canada. If you have a US passport, you could probably be living in Canada a few weeks from...
An escape guide for Americans
How far can your US passport take you? Here are your options for a temporary or permanent escape.
How to learn a new language when you’re too old to learn a new language
There’s a popular idea that it’s easy to learn a language as a child and after a certain age it’s just not possible. When you look beyond the headlines, there’s not a lot of support for this theory. It’s no surprise that there’s...
I probably spend less on travel than you do
In The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett quotes an elite travel agency saying that the normal traveler spends $10k a year. I was pretty sure that their idea of a normal traveler is a skewed. I was also certain I spent...
Everything you need to know about house sitting
Most people leave their homes empty while they travel, while also renting a place to stay at their destination. Paying for housing twice is part of what makes traveling so expensive (and why home swaps are so popular). Traveling gets even more expensive if you have...
13 of the Strangest Places People Quarantined During the Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has shaped many different aspects of our lives throughout the year so far, including how and where we live. When states began issuing shelter-in-place orders in March and restrictions were placed on various types of travel, a lot of us...
That thing I packed and never used
Somehow, no matter how much I travel and how light I pack, I always end up with something I never ended up using. Often, the item that’s indispensable on one trip ends up being totally unnecessary on another. Other times it’s a product of hope — the...
Adjusting to life at home after traveling
It’s no secret that it’s a challenge to adjust to life in another country or life on the road. However, many people assume they’ll be able to pick up right where they left off when they return home. Nope. It can be just as challenging to get back...
I Want Out: How to go abroad during COVID-19
Despite all the rhetoric that we need to #stayhome, there’s no requirement that you literally stay home. Those whirlwind tours of 14 cities in 14 days are verboten, but it’s easy to travel while following all restrictions and guidelines for staying safe...
Quarantine reads to embrace staying home
People are eagerly sharing tips on how to “travel without leaving home.” What about accepting where we are? Is travel about finding the “exotic” or is it a way of seeing the world? As Jonathan Franzen reminds us, “The first lesson reading...
Staying home when going home isn’t an option
The news is listing off a daily COVID-19 death toll. The world has shut down to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Everyone is frantically learning to adapt to working from home, homeschooling kids, living without cleaners, personal care assistants, and someone else to...
Early retirement: What happens when the unexpected occurs?
Financial independence and early retirement – known as the FIRE movement – requires devotees to relentlessly save, tirelessly work, and aggressively invest to free themselves of a full-time job by their 30s, 40s, or 50s. Despite their best-laid plans, what happens...
The best books I read in 2019
To celebrate releasing the fourth edition of Moving to Canada and my 2019 Cross Border Tax Guide, here are the books I’ve found fascinating recently: Understanding Canada A History of Canada in Ten Maps It’s a challenge to find books on the history of...
Cat lady world tour
I wish I could have the tour start in San Francisco’s nascent cat museum, but alas, the fledgling museum and it’s pop-up shows seem to have fizzled out. Who’s ready to revive the project? Instead, let’s begin in Ohio. Feline Historical Museum,...
Gated communities and the legacy of the kollektivhus
I grew up as the kind of person who scoffed at country clubs and gated communities. Scoffing is actually a generously polite description of my feelings on the matter. I viewed the type of people who are members of country clubs as part of the problem. When I thought...
Who I am in the beds of strangers
I have stayed in a lot of different homes. I spent three years subletting apartments in Prospect and Crown Heights, Brooklyn in an era before AirBnB. I have stayed in well over 100 homes through CouchSurfing and the personal networks that have sprouted up through the...
Washington DC: A digital nomad’s guide
Sure, any tourist knows what to see for a weekend in DC. But what about those of us who aren’t just any tourist? As a nomad we have time to explore, but we’re there for a lot longer than the typical tourist. While I’m free to spend an afternoon in a...
Everything you need for your cat’s quinceañera
Far too few cat owners take the time to mark a important milestone in their cat’s life: their quinceañera. It’s time to change this. In order to help correct this oversight, I’ve put together a basic quinceañera party planning guide for you. View...
How to stay connected on the road – without going broke
Your life may be location independent, but your cell phone plan isn’t. If you’re getting directions on Google Maps, posting to Instagram, or using your phone as a mobile hotspot, you don’t want to wind up with an astronomical bill. Sure, you can turn off your data and...
Dog friendly bars in Toronto
Toronto has a lot of things going for it as a place to live, but one of the things that is a source of constant heartache is just how not dog friendly it is! Sure, there are plenty of restaurants where you can clip your pup to the patio railing and they can look at...
A CouchSurfer’s Guide to New York City
Sometimes the big, obvious choices are must-sees. Other times you’re better off skipping the crowds and going someplace totally weird. As a Brooklyn CouchSurfing Ambassador, I would get asked for recommendations all the time. Here are my top recommendations for what...
How I became a remote managing director
I spoke with Kathryn Hunter, host of Compass Pod. Her podcast is all about women who have built location independent careers. We chatted about using your multidisciplinary background, scaling back when ambition is exhausting, and the power in simple ideas. You can...
