Cognitive Dissonance August 6, 2008

Playing catch on the playa with a local friend back in January

Last night I was chatting with a guy on the internet about traveling. He has been to many different countries. More importantly, he has lived abroad. He taught English in Japan and was a dive instructor in Costa Rica. And he’s only 24! I was very impressed at his ability to just up and move to other countries and actually work in these countries for peanuts. He uses his parents’ address for everything…so I’m guessing he lives back home in SLO for the time being.

Then we started talking about how expenses are cut when you travel to other countries in Asia, Central America and South America. Rent is obviously cheaper, especially in my case since I live in San Francisco which is probably the second most expensive city in the nation.

I don’t want to give up my apartment. And he said that that is a big reason why many people don’t want to travel. They do not want to give up their homes, cars, jobs, etc.

I didn’t even realize that I’m falling into that category of non-travelers but I really do love SF enough to want to spend at least several months out of the year here.

Also, I pay a very good rate for rent due to good ol’ rent control. I also have a roommate and that really helps my situation. I LOVE my apartment. I love the location, my sunny room, the cute kitchen, I love love love love love it – at least in the Summer and Fall. It’s weird how our seasons are awkward. Fall feels more like summer than summer itself does!

I want to be able to travel for months at a time to save money (aside from experiencing other cultures and learning new languages of course) but unfortunately for me, subletting is against our month-to-month lease. This means that if I want to keep the apartment I have to keep paying rent, even though I won’t be there!

So what are my options? Here they are in order of preference:

1. Temporarily add another person to the month-to-month lease for the months I am gone. (Well if this first one is even an option) This way I can legally still keep my apartment. I hope my landlord will go for it since my roommate is pretty cool and I’m sure he’d keep a good eye out on the place. The only thing I’d have to worry about would be the PG&E bill, since it’s under my name. I could always just kindly ask my roommate to open his own account after cancelling my own? (Only if it’d be cheaper for the both of us). The only downside to this is that because the lease will end at a specific time, I’d probably have to come back…or at least start paying for my half of rent again.
2. Move out of my SF apartment so that I can travel. I can always just stop my paper bills anyway and just receive and pay for them on the internet. The only downside with this option is that if I do choose to come back to the states, where would I stay? Do I even really want a home base at this point? I mean…would I even want to come back to San Francisco? I’ve been living here for two years now and I feel that it’s been a long time already. Hmmm. I have that itch.

I may have some thinking to do but I think I already know what I am going to do. Either way, I am going to get my ass out there and travel.