Some people HAD to have it
Tell someone who doesn’t travel much that you spent a year circling the globe and they automatically assume that either a) you’re really wealthy or b) your parents are really wealthy and they supported you. As any long-term traveler knows though, spending a year traveling around cheap countries is far less expensive than being home and paying all the bills a first-world life entails.
You do have to save up a good bit of money before taking off, however, which is the biggest obstacle for people living paycheck to paycheck. The only way to get there is to save more money and the only two ways to do that are to earn more or spend less—or both.
It helps to turn off the part of your brain that gets enchanted by shiny new objects. For some that’s new shoes, for others something they collect. For a few million people who will buy anything with a particular fruit logo on it, it’s electronics. You really need to ask yourself, do I need this? And do I need it now?
Apple is the master of making you want overpriced gadgets that make you spend more once you have them. It’s a great cycle for them, one that leads to the highest profit margins in the tech industry, but it’s not so good for you if you’re trying to be frugal and save money. You’ll spend more up front, you’ll spend more on the road, and you won’t know what to do with yourself when that gadget you’re permanently attached to goes missing.
Being an early adopter is a bad trait for a traveler. You can make the choice to budget for travel or to budget for the shiny gadgets. Most of us have a limited amount of disposable income and when $500 can pay for a few weeks to a month of travel, dropping that amount on a flawed piece of electronics that will soon be obsolete (or quickly improved in a new version) is downright nuts.
I promise, you didn’t need a Newton and you don’t need whatever flavor of the month is out now. Wait for the bugs to get worked out. Wait for the price to drop in half (it almost always does). Wait for something better to come along. Wait until you have a real job again and can afford a new toy, price be damned. Or just grab a perfectly good alternative that does what you need when you travel: connect to the internet and back up your photos. You’re on the road to soak up new experiences and meet new people, remember? Not do the same things you do now at home.
The ad at the top is from Wired magazine, 1993. A product review in the same issue said, “…the Newton has its share of flaws, bugs and limitations, but it’s still an amazing device that heralds a major revolution in personal computing.”
Sound familiar?
For more back to the future moments like this, check out the great blog Wired Reread , where I got the photo above. (Click on the photo for the actual story.)
