Living Someplace Else For A Month

[Haselsmasher]

My wife and I are toying around with the idea of living someplace for a somewhat extended timeframe - a month or so. I'm wondering what others have done and what experiences you've had.

I know "Where should we go?" is exceptionally dependent on what we want to do. In general we're thinking big city (i.e. we're not looking for a remote or rural / "outdoorsy" type of experience).

We've thought Paris would be cool to try this way. Or maybe New York City.

What have others done? Any experiences to pass along?

Thanks!

Jim

 

[Totoro]

Only that a month can be quite short

The longer you stay, the more cost efficient your stay becomes. Look into alternative housing options in particular. Depending on the geography and season you can get some neat deals for longer stays. And avoid long lines.

And also less worry about "wasting" a day staying in.

 

[Haselsmasher]

Only that a month can be quite short

The longer you stay, the more cost efficient your stay becomes. Look into alternative housing options in particular. Depending on the geography and season you can get some neat deals for longer stays. And avoid long lines.

And also less worry about "wasting" a day staying in.

We've heard "a month might be too short" from others.

I mean to say in the opening: We're not thinking a FL or AZ type of scenario; i.e. not a class snow bird.

We're also hoping that finding a cool apartment on VRBO - coupled with a relatively long stay - will result in a neat experience relatively reasonably.

Thx.

Jim

 

[gayl]

Whenever I travel to Israel, Ireland, or London I go for a month. But I'll be watching responses as I just rent a room on a home (Israeli tourist bureau) or smaller hotel

 

[SecondCor521]

I would consider looking at house sitting or house trading opportunities and see what cool options might pop up that way. Cheaper than VRBO (I think) and also filtering down the options would help with analysis paralysis for me.

 

[bingybear]

I lived in the UK for a couple years. Great experience. If I was looking to move in FIRE, I would expect I would spend some time in candidate locations. Not sure a month is enough.

 

[rodi]

Welcome to the forum Haselsmasher.

We've considered it - but haven't done it yet. Last summer we did 9 weeks in Europe - 11 cities, most of the stays were 1 week.

I can easily see staying in several of the places we rented for longer stays. Doing day trips out - but also getting to know the area really well, living like a local.

Paris is expensive... that would be my concern there. NYC is also expensive. But both are fantastic cities. We were in Paris last year and will be in NYC in a week or so.

I think Brussels or Amsterdam would be great. I'm a coastal type person - so I can also see someplace like Barcelona having a nice appeal.

 

[Souschef]

There is a couple named Lynne and Tim, who write about "Home Free Adventures". They go from place to place and usually stay about a month in each place.

 

[bearkeley]

Do it! We just returned from a trip where we house sat for 6 weeks in an awesome location just outside Sydney and another 6 weeks just outside Melbourne Australia. It was very different than staying at a hotel or other trips we've taken because we were able to live with the 'locals' (which I'm sure you can do with a vrbo type of thing as well). I don't think you need to go across the world like we did (it was a way for us to try out ER for 5 months under budget), but some things you might find useful when picking your spot....

1) Weather - we wanted to get away from the cold so only picked locations that were, on average, 70 degrees or warmer!

2) Easy access to Activities / sights - or whatever your objectives are for your trip. For us, we wanted to travel and experience the world. We are not city type of people and prefer nature, so both our house sits were about 45 minutes from the city. We lived in a 4 bedroom water view home in Sydney's Central Coast, where they had about 20 beautiful beaches within a 25 minute drive (yes, house and car were free because we were house sitting). There were hiking and biking trails, quaint small towns, and even a local sailing club where we took a 6 week sailing course and joined as crew at the weekly sailboat races (that of course ended up with a few beers with the locals). A day trip to the city was also easy with public transportation....better than driving, especially when enjoying Australian wine at a festival!

3) Budget - is this a vacation budget or a traveling lifestyle you want to have? We wanted this to be a trial before we RE so we wanted to see if we can travel under the same monthly budget we have when we are at home. We were able to travel for 5 months and stay under our monthly budget despite big expenses on a month long scuba diving trip in the Philippines, sailing lessons and certification, buying two bicycles, renting a Campervan for 3 weeks to explore other parts of Australia, going on a week long tour to Australia's Red Center, flights across Australia (it's a big country!) as well as to / from the Philippines with a stop in Singapore, all food, hotels, car rental, etc. We did well and now scheduled,to leave again in November!




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[Alan]

We've stayed for 3 or 4 weeks in several places since retiring and loved it every time. It has always been VRBO or equivalent. A month is a good time to get to know a location somewhat, and we always feel that we could have stayed longer when the time comes to leave.

Starting in 2010 we have stayed for 3 to 4 weeks in a single location in a rented apartment, house or cabin, in Vancouver (CA), Canmore (CA), Salida (CO), MacKay (AUS), Brisbane (AUS), Hobart (AUS), and Donegal (IRE) as well as the UK where we currently are.

Great fun.

 

[ElizabethT]

We have done one-month VRBO rentals, and it has been really enjoyable. Our strategy in deciding where to go was to first determine the type of things we wanted to have access too, then come up with a seven day game plan, which we repeated four times in slight variation to fill in the month.

As an example, we determined we wished to have access to city living, hiking trails, and wine tasting one summer, which pointed us in the direction of Portland. We then came up with a rough per week game plan of two days of hiking, one day of wine tasting, one day of city exploring, two days of long distance site seeing, and one down day for chores/church/grocery shopping/etc. I'm not suggesting we stuck to this schedule like glue by any means, but it gave us a great framework for filling up our month.

 

[NoiseBoy]

I love reading threads like this one because they get me excited about the things that become possible when I no longer have to work. Visiting new places and staying for a month or more is definitely on my list too.

When I travel now, I pay up to stay near the city center because I don't want to lose a bunch of time on commuting during my precious week of vacation. Obviously that issue goes away if you're going to spend a month in one spot. You can look for rentals that are on the outskirts of town as long as you're near a train or metro station. Paris has really cheap passes for the Metro and I thought that food and drink prices in the stores there were more reasonable than in London or NYC. One day trip that I did not have time for was a visit to Normandy. Oh, I'm a bit jealous this morning.

 

[W2R]

I thought this was called "vacationing for a month in Paris" (or NYC). People do it all the time.

It's probably cheaper now than it once was, with short term rentals so ubiquitous.

 

[Disappointed]

Foe some more ideas, check out this book

https://www.amazon.com/Revisiting-America-Inda-Lambert-Schell-ebook/dp/B00LPAA50Y

The author spent one month in each city for about a year.


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Mp

 

[savory]

We spent a month in a small town in Portugal. And then walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. In Portugal we were fortunate to have rented an apartment at a good price.

We also took about a six week trip in the US and stayed in 3 towns using AirBNB and house sitting. We wanted to check out Memphis, Nashville and Little Rock.

Otherwise, we have gone on bicycle touring trips for 4 to 8 weeks. This includes camping, hotels and home stays. But I know this approach is not for everyone

If you feel it would help financially or you just want to have the experience, I would look into house sitting. There are sites and you can simply get the word out. We have found there are lots of people with pets or otherwise looking for some help from time to time.

When we decided to travel in this way, we also decided not to own a home. We rent now in order to limit our concern since we want to be able to pick up and go without the concern of a major house problem.

 

[brett]

I think it depends on where you do your month. IF you can use the location as a convenient and cost effective base to do day and weekend trips etc. it may well be too short.

We did a seven month trip. One month was spent in a condo in Costa Rica. We were very thankful that we selected a 2br. condo that was fairly large. Lots of room. At some point we plan to do a two-three month rental in Europe and another in Puerto Vallarta. It was good to be in one place for a month and we did not find it too long.

A month is not really a long time if you are in a locale that you like.

 

[YeahNo]

Absolutely do it! My wife and I (33/34) did it last November/December in Key West with our 6 month old son. So eye opening being able to vacation that long. We did 6 weeks total. We looked at it as a test to see if we could "stand" being away from home that much. Of course, just like everyone says, a month, or in our case 6 weeks, was not enough. Next time we will shoot for 2 months and see how that goes.

I think my biggest advice would be to find a place that is close to things (restaurants/grocery/beach/gym). It was extremely convienient to be able to just hop on your bike or walk a block or two and get to pretty much everything we needed.

Also, since you are able to choose a location, choose a place that has an appealing climate during the time of your visit.

 

[Jsailor]

We (I) are thinking about doing something similar (live in a foreign city for a month at a time). The wifey is not that keen on it so I suggested she read the book, Home Sweet Anywhere. She is starting to warm to the idea.




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[texcurtis]

I've stayed in Florence, Italy for a month twice. Rented an apt, took art & cooking classes, visited local towns via the train, ate a lot and walked a lot. Had a fantastic time. Each time I had friends meet me for parts of the month. Kept it fun & interesting. Planning another month in May '16.


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