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Worlds best (and most memorable) travelers

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2 weeks ago

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Tim Viall
 |  For the Record

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We recently hosted two traveling couples who rank as the world‘s best travelers (at least, the best that we have met in many a year). They’re both members of the Affordable Travel Club (ATC), and each shared their secrets for traveling widely through the United States and finding unique travel gems without spending a lot of money. Their frugality and creativity allow them to travel three to six months each year.

They also rank as some of the most widely-traveled people we’ve ever met, seeing more of the United States in their journeys than most of our US friends. Let’s take a look at how they save money while traveling while cultivating their delight in finding unique travel destinations. Our visitors had Canada in common, here are their stories.

Ron and Sandar Grant, Brisbane, Australia, members of the Affordable Travel Club, and a similar club on the East Coast, the Evergreen Travel Club (The ATC is a bit larger, though the Evergreen Club has more East Coast members). They also use roadsideamerica.com and Atlas Obscura, each with handy phone app. To find travel gems and the weirdest places in the US, such as the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory in the East Bay, and Vermont Street in San Francisco, where 300 adults staged a big wheel race down the city’s crookedest street on Easter Sunday (Vermont is shorter but steeper and crookeder than SF’s better known Lombard Street).

The Grants shared their 1995 world trip, with two weeks in numerous locations, a month in the USA where they bought a car, and used buses, backpacks, and rented motorcycles to get around. They borrowed the car in Wales; the trip lasted four months total. At the time travel was relatively cheap, they spent $1200 in total. Between 1993 and 2000, he did five round-the-world trips. With motorcycle travel, tent camping, using his Canadian, and now his Australian citizenship and outgoing personality, he has often scored free lodging, often at colleges. At his current age, he’s matured to travel clubs and relying on international friendships.

A most interesting couple, Ron met Sandar when he was teaching math at the same school in Burma where she was a computer science teacher. While traveling, the Grants usually dress in distinctive clothing, Ron often looking like Crocodile Dundee, Sandar dressing in unique skirts tied to her Burmese background.

The grants arrived in an eight-year-old Toyota Prius they had rented through Turo in the San Francisco area. Though the car had some miles and a dated GPS system, the Turo rental saved them about 2/3 of the money they might’ve spent renting through Hertz or Avis. They have also traveled in the past on service travel projects, through groups like Servas.org.

Ron is a man of my heart in saving on food. Instead of my spouse’s typical traveling lunch of two McDonald’s McDs and splitting a small drink, they will often shop snacks (and lunch) from Dollar Tree, and tote a small cooler for carrying drinks.

Doug and Nicole Brown, from Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada; they are Canadians who use Affordable Travel Club to its maximum. Doug uses the list of ATC members who occasionally need housesitters, writes personal notes to many of them, and each year nets three to almost 6 months of housesitting across the USA. They’ll sometimes drive to locations in the west, occasionally fly, linking housesitting gigs of 2 to 4 weeks with occasional overnight “bridge stays” with fellow ATC members.

They also utilize other ways to score free lodging, such as playing MGM online games, like Pop! Slots, allowing them to pile up thousands of points with no money investment, earning overnight stay at places like the Peppermill casino and resort in Reno, Nevada. And, the Browns will invest several days with fellow ATC members, tipping the host member $20 per night when they depart, while pluming the host’s local knowledge of unique and high-interest local and regional attractions.

Doug is very outgoing, and his 21-year career as a Canadian Air Force pilot gives him a wealth of contacts across the US and Canada, as well as interesting stories to share. Nicole is a real creative, making custom aprons. Both are very good cooks and happy to share their culinary experience with their travel hosts. They both enjoy the inexpensive food pricing in the US, with Doug being a true barbecue and smoked meats aficionado.

We have looked into other housesitting resources and have met users of these groups: trustedhousesitters.com, $129 to $259 per year; rover.com, where sitters are paid $40 to $100+ a night and pay a percent of earnings to the company; housesittersamerica.com, $30/year. 

For travel club info: Affordable Travel Club, affordabletravelclub.net; Evergreen Club, evergreenclub.com. Travel book and phone apps: Atlas Obscura, by Foer, Thuras and Morton; Weird California, by Bishop, Osterly and Marinacci; Highway 99, an anthology edited by Stan Yogi. The first two books offer web sites and phone apps.

Contact Tim, tviall@msn.com; happy affordable traveling!

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