I was reclining in my favorite chair this morning, and enjoying a cup of black Assam with just the right amount of honey and sugar and a pipe of my favorite morning blend from Margate, dreaming of drinking really fine bourbon on a trans-continental train trip, when I recalled a website I read from time to time called The Art of Nonconformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel.  All three of those are useful things to approach unconventionally when one is interested in an affordable life of leisure, but his articles on "travel hacking" are interesting and outstanding.

His latest article on this subject includes some funny anecdotes, odd tricks for accruing frequent flier miles, and information on various travel hacking projects he's had in the past.  This got me to thinking about any travel anecdotes I might be able to share, and I couldn't come up with any.  I remember times when I've had issues bringing flasks through security and all of the times the TSA guys have had a problem with my pipe tool, but terribly interesting.

Travel is something everyone with a leisure based lifestyle should do frequently, but in this climate of expensive airlines and wallet gouging hotels, even short duration stays and travel to the nearest city can be prohibitive. So what can a man of low means and high tastes do to get himself to the nearest worthy destination, with funds left to partake of the many pleasures to be found there? In short, use the greatest leisure tool ever invented, the Internet.


In my upcoming series on cheap travel, I'll be exploring tools and practices for planning and executing a trip, using my upcoming trip to San Francisco as an example.  In my planning article I'll be covering the use of craigslist.org ride sharing for movement, and couchsurfing.com for rest. I'm probably making planning sound more glorious than it is, as I'm the ultimate anti-planner. Plans are overrated, when you have nothing pressing to get back to. I never would have found that bizarre Asian hooker bar in San Francisco if I had been following a plan, after all.