Boston Apartment (Feb 28, 2009)

I was on the phone with Sarah, and she got me started on this idea about the concepts which I employ on these travels. This was brought about by an ideology called as NR (New Rich).

This is a concept I read about in a book titled: ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’, which Ben had given me a few days back. The concept states that you don’t have to be rich to enjoy your life (It just makes it wayyy more easier!). Instead of spending your life making money to spend on a final great vacation, why not have something called as mini-vacations. This gets you refreshed often, and also you get to see a lot more and enjoy a lot more in your daily life, as compared to waiting for it.

Ok…so you might be asking me – You still need to be rich to take these mini–vacations. My answer is no, you need not. To put it in a nutshell, as one of the greatest movie roles played by any actor would say: “It’s all part of the plan” (Heath Ledger deserved the Oscars, and I am so glad he won it).

I will elaborate on this concept in my future blogs about the NRT (New Rich Traveler).

To get this topic started one of the main concepts is – Plan Early.

There are many types of travel, one is the unplanned travel. This according to me is the best sort, where you and your friends just decided to go somewhere on a whim, and end up doing it. But, for a backpacker or a lone traveler like myself, or even for a family, this is tough. You need to plan, if not everything atleast the dates, the places you want to visit, and so on. Here is my way, which may not be right, but this is my blog!

Take for example 2009. I plan of visiting UK. I see that I need atleast a week of vacation. First step, apply for it. I have found it very helpful to inform your company or project about your plans way in advance. It gets your dates confirmed, and makes it harder to reject as you have given advance information. There is no harm in applying say for April. If you ultimately don’t end up going, you can just cancel the vacation.

Also, what this makes you do is take action. Now you have applied for leave in April. You have a milestone set, which believe it or not helps a lot.

More of this boring lecture in future posts.