tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69445496593713691092024-03-08T12:04:34.614-08:00The Perpetual TravelerAdvice on extreme budget travel from a non-stop traveler. Six years on the road!Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-87764694979848685352015-06-09T23:51:00.001-07:002015-06-20T07:17:45.545-07:00Fake Reviews of Dubai Hostels on HostelWorld.com<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell</a>, June 15, 2015<br />
<br />
I love <a href="http://hostelworld.com/">HostelWorld.com</a>. It has opened the world to me more than any other tool apart from the airplane. Whenever I travel to a new city, this website means I can find a safe, comfortable place to sleep, endorsed by the reviews of previous guests.<br />
<br />
But what happens when those guests aren't real? In the course of my planning for a round-the-world trip, I stumbled on a hostel operator in Dubai<b> who has fabricated at least 39 positive reviews for his properties</b>, obviously attempting to counteract his many negative reviews. Generating fake reviews is easy enough to do: You just create a bogus account on HostelWorld, make a reservation for your property, then leave a review after the reservation date has passed. (You pay a reservation fee but don't have to pay for the bed.)<br />
<br />
Check out the hostels in question (2 in Dubai and 1 in Minsk) and look carefully at the reviews.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/EasyFlat-12-Dubai-Hostel/Dubai/85860">EasyFlat 12 Dubai Hostel</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/BackPacker-Hostel/Dubai/91171">BackPacker Hostel Dubai</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Hostel-EasyFlat/Minsk/84777">Hostel EasyFlat Minsk</a></li>
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Notice that all of the positive reviews are from "Novice Nomads" whose only activity on HostelWorld consists of glowing reviews of these three properties. Each of these reviewers has changed their nationality, sometimes their language and even their gender in the course of writing superlative reviews each of these properties and no others. All of these reviews are in the 85% to 100% range.<br />
<br />
Most of the reviews from experienced travelers are poor. Here is one offering a 34% rating....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>There is no facilities at all and the toilet is extremely dirty and disorganized. The place is an "office" in a commercial building with 5 bunk beds, one toilet and one sink. There is a small round table for four people and a wardrobe.</i></blockquote>
I count seven dubious Novice Nomads who have each left reviews for only these three properties. Here they are: <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16492839/reviews">User1</a>, <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16492801/reviews">User2</a>, <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16492824/reviews">User3</a>, <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16492774/reviews">User4</a>, <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16517636/reviews">User5</a>, <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16517623/reviews">User6</a>, <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16532540/reviews">User7</a>, How likely is it that one person, new to hosteling, would just <i>happen </i>to stay at all three hostels from the same operator? Furthermore <i>their nationality changes in each review</i>. How likely is is that one person would stay at all three hostels <i>and </i>change their nationality twice? There are 9 more Novice Nomads who reviewed only the two Dubai hostels while switching nationalities. All the positive reviewers are "Anonymous", whereas many of the negative reviews are not.<br />
<br />
One <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/16532540/reviews">reviewer</a> not only changed their nationality (from Norway to Czech Republic to Canada) but also changed their gender.... (See review at top and click to enlarge)<br />
<br />
The value of HostelWorld depends entirely on the veracity of their user reviews. My faith in their system has been shaken because they have taken no action more than two weeks after I first alerted them. In that time, at lot of innocent travelers have been seduced by an fraud facilitated by HostelWorld. It seems they are not really committed to keeping reviews honest.<br />
<br />
My two emails to HostelWorld received replies but no action. When I first emailed on May 24, 2015. Alejandro at HostelWorld wrote: "We will appreciate your feedback and we will look into this matter internally in order to clarify if there is any sort of issue."<br />
<br />
Two days later (May 27), I emailed Alejandro links to all 16 of the fake reviewers I identified (Novice Nomads who reviewed more than one of the properties and no others). He wrote back: "We are investigating this issue directly with the hostel in order to clarify if there was any sort of irregularity."<br />
<br />
It is now June 15. In the meantime, dozens of innocent traveler have probably been booking these hostels thinking the ratings are higher than they really are. What sort of investigation is needed? At least 39 reviews are provably fake, and dozens more are suspicious (Novice Nomads who have produced only one review). How long does HostelWorld need?<br />
<br />
I can't see the necessity to "clarify with the hostel" when their reviews are physically impossible (like the reviewer changing both their nationality and gender).. What kind of clarity can be expected?<br />
<br />
I have now doubt that these phony hostels will eventually be removed from HostelWorld, especially if I keep harassing them about it. The real question now is how long it will take. Here we have overwhelming evidence of fraud by an operator who isn't very bright. If HostelWorld can't act quickly on this one, you begin to question every hostel listing.<br />
<br />
When HostelWorld finally does remove these hostel listings, what is going to happen to people who have already booked these hostels. Are they going to arrive in Dubai to a hostel that isn't what it claims to be or that might not even exist? Will they be informed of the fraud?<br />
<br />
My own solution: I booked a regular hotel on Expedia for only about $10 more.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>MORE EVIDENCE - June 20, 2015</b><br />
<br />
Looking through the <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/EasyFlat-12-Dubai-Hostel/Dubai/85860/reviews">reviews for Easyflat 12 Dubai</a>, I find some interesting new data. Here are the latest reviews to date, which are pretty dismal. (Click to enlarge.)<br />
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But scrolling down one page, here are the reviews right after the 71% one...<br />
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All in the 97-100% range! There is a series of 6 reviews like this, all from people who supposedly stayed at the hostel between March 15 and March 17, 2015, then it's back to the dismal reviews again, spread over a wider range of time.<br />
<br />
Those six glowing reviews are from Novice Nomads with only one review each. That means they aren't even counted in my official tally of 39 verified fakes. (I can't <i>prove</i> they are fake, but they are certainly suspicious.)<br />
<br />
Reading the authentic reviews is quite enlightening. The owner is said to have five apartments. He is regarded as a nice guy, but he is clearly in over his head.<br />
<br />
- G.C.<br />
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-91882197142259287482015-05-29T04:36:00.002-07:002015-05-29T04:44:35.349-07:00My Gezi Park video in "Mein Leben unter Erdogan" Documentary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell</a><br />
<br />
A least one of the videos I shot during the Istanbul Gezi Park protests in 2013 now appears in a German documentary available online.<br />
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The documentary, in German, is <a href="http://dbate.de/videos/mein-leben-unter-erdogan-videotagebuch-aus-istanbul-13/"><i>Mein Leben unter Erdogan</i></a> (<i>My Life Under Erdogan</i>). The 3-part program consists mainly of Skype interviews with participants in the protest. I haven't located my own footage yet, but it is probably shots of the peaceful parts of the protest on June 6.<br />
<br />
My original video was <a href="https://youtu.be/Z_21Q5UvuLA">Turkish Woodstock</a>, a 16-minute video taken June 6, 2015. I also experienced the joy of teargas on June 15 in this 9-minute video during the crackdown: <a href="http://youtu.be/2B7qy3tMPz8">Teargas for Everyone</a>.<br />
<br />
My still photos from the protest are in several albums, starting with <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/detail/gezi">Gezi Park</a>. Other albums are found in my <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/detail/turkey">Istanbul Index</a>.<br />
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I'm glad I could be of assistance to real journalists.<br />
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My videos...<br />
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-76377613093851804952014-09-05T09:05:00.000-07:002014-11-29T05:33:25.415-08:00My Encounter with Eric Harroun, American Jihadist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell</a>, Sept. 5, 2014<br />
<br />
When I travel, I don't go looking for trouble. I am deeply concerned about my own safety. I may visit places like Kosovo and Bosnia that were <i>once </i>dangerous, but I'm careful to avoid active war zones and places my government <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/alertswarnings.html">advises me not to go</a>. I would never go anywhere near the Syrian conflict, but I have been to <a href="http://facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4733586129937.2177810.1003315385&l=2c9cfb0e65">Istanbul </a>several times, and on one of these trips, I encountered an American who was heading there to fight.<br />
<br />
In November 2012, in a hostel in Istanbul, I met an American military veteran named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harroun">Eric Harroun</a>, who was heading to Syria to fight against the forces of Assad in Syria. I happened to share a hostel bunkroom with him, and he became <a href="https://www.facebook.com/eric.harroun">my Facebook friend</a>. Eric is deceased now, but not from anything that happened in Syria. He died of a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/10/american-jihadist-who-fought-in-syria-dies-of-an-overdose-in-arizona.html">drug overdose</a> in Arizona in April 2014. While the <i>manner </i>of his death was unexpected, the <i>fact </i>of his death did not surprise me at all. I knew it was coming from the day I met him. Now that it has actually come to pass, I want to tell you why I believed his days were numbered.<br />
<br />
There has been plenty written about Eric <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?q=eric+harroun#q=eric+harroun">on the web</a> (including an article in the<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/world/eric-harroun-who-fought-with-syrian-rebels-loses-a-court-fight.html">New York Times</a> and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harroun">Wikipedia entry</a>), but all of the articles I have seen have neglected a key fact: He was profoundly brain damaged.<br />
<br />
Eric was a US Army veteran during the early era of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, but according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harroun">Wikipedia</a>, he never saw combat: "He was discharged after a jeep crash at his base in Fort Riley, Kansas, which left him with a serious head injury, resulting in a metal plate being inserted into his head by doctors" (apparently in 2003). This is consistent with what he told me in Istanbul.<br />
<br />
Here is a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10203151021284871">Facebook video of Eric</a> taken by another guest at the hostel. You can see the scar from his brain surgery, and you can gauge his general frame of mind.<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10203151021284871" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96euvvs1XXy9C-3AAY4CL7IJmTKL-JOTDpIQyF5_UdwHLosC95alTtW4PLcu-y5iqq8dCZrQMrwzu6eMPXjoh4UwIyQaQNuD2t58KPbpPPBzvGESje-rmWLDFdro2Md4qZP3E6Hz_yzE/s1600/Eric+Haroun.jpg" height="362" title="Eric Harroun in a Facebook video" width="400" /></a></div>
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It was obvious to me that Eric was mentally disabled. You couldn't tell it from the outside, but if you spent a little time with him, you could see how skewed his judgment was, even in a relatively safe place like Istanbul. We shared a bunkroom at <a href="http://facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200917135102974.1073741899.1003315385&l=4b8d241c55">the hostel</a> for at least a week, during which time he exhibited numerous lapses of judgment in normal everyday tasks, like navigating the city. His brain just didn't work right.<br />
Eric spoke Arabic. I asked him how he learned it, and he said his father came from an Arabic country. (I don't recall; Lebanon perhaps?) I don't know how much of the language he learned from his father and how much he learned later, but obviously having a parent who knows a foreign language gives you a running start. In Eric's case, I think speaking Arabic was a very dangerous thing. It gave him a pass to visit all the danger zones of the Middle East, and his brain injury meant he had no critical judgment holding him back.<br />
<br />
In short, <i>there was not an ounce of common sense in that boy</i>. In heading for Syria, he had no clear idea what he was fighting for or against. He seemed to have little grasp of the factional nature of the Assad opposition. I think he was seeking out an adrenaline thrill but had none of the critical thinking skills or self-preservation instincts that keep any normal thrill-seeker alive.<br />
<br />
My very first memory of him was in the hostel common area one afternoon (somewhere around Nov. 27, 2012). He had just come in from the streets of Istanbul after an hours-long expedition, and he was describing the ordeal he had gone through. He was trying to find an address in Istanbul. According to his own account, he kept asking people for directions, but he spoke to them in Arabic. He would have been much better using English. People said, "We don't speak Arabic here. We speak Turkish." It was incomprehensible to Eric that a Muslim country would not speak Arabic, so he kept using it. Eric eventually found the address he was looking for, but it took him many times longer than it would take anyone else.<br />
<br />
At this point, I had no idea about his Syrian aspirations. I was only thinking, "What a jerk!" I had seen it many times: One of my fellow countrymen making a fool of himself in a foreign country. Some people should never be given passports because they only get themselves in trouble overseas, and I pegged Eric as one of them. Nonetheless, our relationship from that point on was friendly.<br />
<br />
A few hours later, we were in the bunkroom together, exchanging the usual pleasantries—Where are you from? Where are you going? etc. That was when he told me about his plans to go to Syria to fight Assad. I was aghast! Here was a guy who couldn't even navigate the streets of a "safe" city, and he was heading into a war zone where nothing is clear. At this point, the Syrian Civil War had been going on for a year and a half, and things were already messy. There were factions fighting Assad who couldn't be regarded as any better (what we now know as "ISIS").<br />
<br />
Eric was completely unable to grasp any nuance in the conflict. To him, things were black and white: Assad was bad, and anyone opposed to Assad was good. As I learned about his brain injury, I began to see that his lack of nuance judgment was probably organic. Some part his brain's higher functions had been damaged. It might have been an interesting case for Dr. Oliver Sacks to study, but in these circumstances I quickly saw that his disability would inevitably lead to death.<br />
<br />
Eric and I were roommates for a little more than a week, so I got to know him fairly well. He told me about his previous visits to Egypt during their unrest. I had been to Egypt, too—during a lull in the storm—but even in a period of relative peace, the country frightened me. Eric had been deliberately diving into the most dangerous protests, with no regard for his own safety. One of the people he met in Egypt was now fighting in Syria, and Eric planned to hook up with him at the border. I can't remember why Eric was staying so long in Istanbul, but it may have been related to difficulties in contacting that person. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harroun#Activities_in_Syria">Wikipedia</a>, Eric crossed into Syria on Jan 7, 2013, about 6 weeks after I met him, and was already in trouble three days later, separated from his unit and apparently as lost as he was on the streets of Istanbul.<br />
<br />
Things got interesting when I told Eric I had been to Israel several times. You could tell he had trouble processing this, since it was neither black nor white. In his simple world-view, anyone who had anything to do with Israel was automatically the enemy. His brain couldn't differentiate any subtleties within a category. On the other hand, I was an American, standing right in front of him, obviously not a threat. I pointed out that I had also visited Palestine and Egypt and that visiting Israel didn't mean I agreed with their policies. From that point on, Eric referred to me as a Mossad agent, but our relations remained warm. When he accepted my friend request on Nov. 30, he understood I was a potential Israeli agent (in his view) but apparently felt okay about it.<br />
<br />
Getting to know Eric, I started becoming really worried about him. He had an obvious mental disorder, and I felt he faced almost certain death in Syria. If I were a rebel leader, I wouldn't want him fighting on my side because his judgment was so poor. Because he was an American, he was more likely to become a political pawn. Even if Assad was bad, Eric was not going to help anyone's cause by going to Syria. He was just going to get himself killed—or worse: captured by one side or the other.<br />
<br />
One evening, I decided to give him a friendly talk, trying to dissuade him from going to Syria. I gave it my best. I repeated back to him his own observation that his brain had been "totally fucked up" by his injury. I said something to the effect of: "You have no judgment, dude! Your brain injury has taken it away from you. It took you three hours in Istanbul finding an address anyone else could find in twenty minutes. If you get out there in a war zone, you won't be able to tell friend from foe. Not everyone fighting Assad is good. Some of those guys could be just as dangerous as Assad's forces, but because of your brain injury, you won't be able to tell the difference. If you go to Syria, you are going to die, dude. I don't know how to put this more bluntly: <i>You are going to die!</i>"<br />
<br />
Eric listened respectfully and said he would think about what I said, but I knew I didn't have any effect on him. His actions weren't under rational control, so nothing I said would stop him.<br />
<br />
I felt comfortable after that. At least I tried.<br />
<br />
I friended him on Facebook and followed his posts. A few weeks after I left Turkey, he posted photos and videos of himself in Jihadist garb, seeming to wage war against Assad's forces. In my mind, it was all for show. I think the social media postings making him <i>seem </i>like a Jihadist fighter were more important to him than anything he actually did in Syria. According to the Wikipedia page, he was only in Syria for a little more than a month (Jan 7 to Feb 10, 2013), just enough time to collect some war stories and lots of good material for Facebook.<br />
<br />
To me, his most remarkable accomplishment in Syria was that he came out alive!<br />
<br />
Via Istanbul, he eventually made his way back to the USA, where he was arrested. The only reason he was arrested (I read in another article) was that he went to the U.S. Government and explicitly told them he had been in Syria fighting Assad. The government didn't come to him; he want to them! This is consistent with the Eric I knew, seeing things in black and white and possessing no critical judgment whatsoever. As far as I knew, he was incapable of lying or hiding his intent—which isn't necessarily a good thing. He was a loyal American, so why shouldn't he tell his government what he had been up to? His prosecution was public, and there were a lot of news articles about it. None of the articles seemed to pick up on his brain injury.<br />
<br />
When I learned of Eric's arrest, I was relieved! At least that meant he was safe. Up to that point, his intention was to return to Syria to continue the fight (or so he claimed). At least being arrested meant he would stay alive a little longer.<br />
<br />
But Eric couldn't escape his brain injury. When I learned he had died a few months ago, I wasn't surprised. One way or another, he was a time bomb waiting to go off. Dying of a drug overdose was plausible to me, because he didn't have the judgment to, say, decide how much drugs were too much. There were worse ways to die, like being beheaded on an ISIS video. Eric at least died painlessly without causing as much distress to others as he might have.<br />
<br />
I don't regret meeting Eric. It was a window into a piece of history. The important thing to me is that I made a reasonable effort to dissuade him. I probably wasn't the only one. I'm sure his family was deeply distressed by the direction his life went, but I doubt there was anything they could have done either. It all came down to that brain injury in 2003. From that point on, his critical judgment was gone and his fate was sealed.<br />
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-21802848573220207382013-09-19T08:02:00.001-07:002014-09-22T14:23:36.730-07:00Transatlantic Airfare Tips: How to Hop the Pond for Less<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell</a> (updated Sept. 22, 2014)<br />
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I fly to Europe from the USA about twice a year, always on an extremely tight budget. Compared to airfares within the USA, transatlantic fares are atrocious, but here are some ways to find the lowest fares. I never spend more than $800 for a roundtrip, even with some fancy stopovers, and I have occasionally found fares as low as $600. The article contains my tips for getting across the pond for the lowest airfare possible, honed over about 5 years of active travel.<br />
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Airfare is the most significant trip component for a budget US visitor to Europe. You can speculate about where you may want to go and stay, but you have to nail down your airfare before anything else. Once you have a cheap airfare across the pond, everything else can be worked out. Cheap airfares within Europe often mean your best bet is to land in an obscure city then take a train or cheap flight to your intended destination. If you are into hosteling, then your ground accommodations can be quite affordable, but you have to get across the pond first.<br />
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Taxes and fees make up a huge portion of transatlantic airfares, far more than flying either within USA or within Europe. They often dwarf the actual fare (as shown above: my 2013 NYC-Warsaw trip with a stopover in London: Airfare $128. Taxes/fees $670.). The taxes and fees are the main reason low airfares are so fare. <b>A round-trip airfare of about $700 is the best you can expect.</b> In the summer (June-August) fares go sky-high. In that case, anything
under $1000 r/t would be golden. The rest of the year, even around
Christmas, you are aiming for a fare of $700-800. <br />
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Whatever time of year you travel, don't get discouraged when the first fares you see are high. There is always a way if you are willing to be creative and land in an unexpected place. Once you hop the pond, airfares within Europe are comparable to those within the USA, and there are plenty of bargains to be had.<br />
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To find the lowest fares, just plug a lot of different city pairs into <a href="http://expedia.com/">Expedia </a>or another travel site. Start with the cities you most want to visit then experiment with others. Think of creative ways to get where you want to go. The main obstacle is the Atlantic Ocean, once you're over that, there are a lot of options for getting around within Europe. It costs you nothing to plug city pairs into Expedia, so do it recklessly!<br />
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Here are some specific tips on working with Expedia and other travel resources.... <br />
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<li><b>On the US side, always start with NYC.</b> Transatlantic fares out of New York are usually far cheaper than from anywhere else on the continent, even if you have to pay for a separate connecting flight to get there. (Always search for the code "NYC", not JFK, so you include flights out of EWR.) After you find a low NYC airfare, you can experiment with other USA cities heading to that same European destination. </li>
<li> CHI, WAS, QLA, QSF, ATL, MCO, MIA, YYZ and BOS are often worth checking too, but most of my transatlantic journeys start in New York. </li>
<li>Fares to <b>Eastern Europe cities</b> are usually lower than "old" European cities like Paris, London, Rome, Amsterdam, even when changing planes in those expensive cities. Try <b>Warsaw, Istanbul, Riga</b>, etc. Getting to <b>Moscow</b> always seems to be cheap (fares around $700 r/t) but the visa process is hell if you plan to leave the airport. (Here are my<a href="http://travel.baddalailama.com/2012/09/moscow.html"> Russians visa tips</a>, even though my effort failed.)</li>
<li>Check Expedia frequently for rogue fares. A "rogue fare" is my term for a low airfare the appears only for a short time in an unexpected place. They could pop up anywhere, and you find out about them only by checking airfares frequently. An exceptional fare would be around $600-700. If you see a great fare, book it immediately. On Expedia, you have 24 hours to ask for a full refund—a feature I use liberally.</li>
<li>In 2014, <b>Copenhagen </b>was a surprising low-fare city. Try it! I flew from JFK to CPH for $748 r/t, and such fares were consistently available in late 2014, even booking at the last minute. Copenhagen itself is horrendously expensive (twice the prices as the USA, with hostels starting at $40), but it is easy to get directly from the airport to Germany by train. For example, you can get off your flight at CPH in the morning, board a train directly from the airport terminal and be in Hamburg or Berlin by the end of the day. In Germany, you'll find prices about the same as the USA. Train tickets can be booked online at Bahn.de. </li>
<li>My experience in Copenhagen suggests you should never discount Scandinavia for low fares. The fact that the cities are expensive doesn't necessarily mean airfares are.</li>
<li>In theory, you could book a trip to a cheap Eastern Europe city, then get off the plane in, say, London. Unfortunately, your luggage has to go all the way to your destination. I also worry that my remaining legs may be cancelled if I fail to get on a connecting flight. (Probably not a real risk, but I can't be positive.) This system works better on the US side, where you can, say, abort your journey in New York when you change planes there. In USA, your luggage is always returned to you at the first city you land in, so you can clear customs, and you have to recheck your luggage for connecting flights. Such is not true when you land in, say, AMS. In Europe, you won't see your luggage until your final destination, so it is best to stick with your booked itinerary. </li>
<li>Use cut-rate carriers to get around within Europe for a song. (See this great <a href="http://wikitravel.org/en/Discount_airlines_in_Europe">overview of European Discount Airlines</a> on Wikitravel. I have have good experiences with <a href="http://www.easyjet.com/en">EasyJet</a>, <a href="http://www.flypgs.com/en/default.aspx">Pegasus</a>, <a href="http://airbaltic.com/">Air Baltic</a>.) Many of these airlines are not listed on Expedia and other travel sites. You have to go directly to their websites. Play with dates and book ahead for the best fares. (Be aware that these airlines hit you with extra charges whenever they can, including checked bags and even checking in at the airport instead of online. Read the fine print.)</li>
<li>Check the <a href="http://www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml">Deutsche Bahn</a> website for train fares within Europe. Train is often a good alternative to flying within Europe. Low fares require only a minimal advance purchase. The Bahn site allowed you to immediately book trains that begin or end in Germany. For other trains, the site is useful mainly for schedules.</li>
<li>Once you find a low cost round-trip transatlantic airfare to a city you are interested in, try experimenting with stopover options in gateway cities like Paris and London. You can often get a 24 hour stopover at little or no additional charge. (If you stay longer, the price will probably go up.)</li>
<li>Once you have identified a low airfare out of NYC, try using multicity options to return to a different USA city. For example roundtrips out of Cleveland may be expensive, but a multicity trip that starts in New York City and ends in Cleveland may not be. (All you have to add is the separate one way leg from Cleveland to NYC. Be sure to allow a lot of time to connect, since the airline won't protect you if the separate first leg is late.)</li>
<li>Also experiment with multicity legs within Europe, and see what you get. Sometimes visiting a Eastern European city with a long "stopover" in London or Paris can be cheaper than a round trip to London or Paris, even if your main destination is London or Paris.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Westway-Hotel-and-Hostel-La-Guardia-New-York/New-York/63438">Westway Hotel</a> is my fallback hostel lodging when connecting in NYC via LGA. Located about a 10-minute bus ride from LGA and under and hour by subway from JFK. Not romantic but always $40 a night. If only JFK is involve, not LGA, then try the <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Q4-Hotel/New-York/58186">Q4 Hotel</a> or the <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/The-New-York-Loft-Hostel/New-York/27128">NY Loft Hostel</a>, which are convenient by subway to the airport.</li>
<li>Note: The cost of getting from the airport to the city can be non-trivial in Western Europe. You need to factor it into your budget. Check the airport's official website for guidance. If train seems to expensive, look into an airport bus.</li>
<li>Be conscious of the frequent flyer miles you are accruing, since they can be huge. One round trip to Europe can sometimes get you half the miles you need for free round-trip within the USA, or get you much closer to elite status. Faced with comparable airfares from different airlines, frequent flyer benefits usually guide my choice. I'm even willing to pay a $100 premium for the right FF miles.</li>
<li>Consider flying <a href="http://www.icelandair.us/">Icelandair</a>. Their fares are competitive with other airlines, but they allow you a free stopover in Iceland. (Icelandair has useless frequent-flier benefits, however. No reciprocal airlines.) See my <a href="http://travel.baddalailama.com/2012/09/notes-on-iceland.html">Iceland Travel Advice</a>.</li>
<li><b>Aeroflot</b> is often the cheapest airline to Eastern Europe. You don't need a visa to connect because you will not be leaving the transit area (like Edward Snowden), but apparently there is a passport check there, which makes me uncomfortable. Before the Ukraine problems in 2014, I was willing to fly Aeroflot, but until Ukraine is settled, I regard it is risky. Not any physical danger, but your flight could be cancelled if tensions escalate.</li>
<li>Fun fact: In the summer, it is about the same price to fly from JFK to India as it is to fly from JFK to London. </li>
<li>If you want to fly between cities within Europe, plug-in a lot of different dates and city pairs Into Expedia. Fares can vary widely from day to day and city to city. On Expedia, I have encountered a lot of low "rogue fares" popping up in unexpected places. Remember that you can use the train to connect from a low-fare city to the one you actually want to go to. Cut-rate carriers often fly out of obscure airports you never heard of.</li>
<li>Eastern Europe and Western Europe are different economies. Eastern Europe prices can be half of those of Western Europe for things like food, lodging and ground transportation. Eastern Europe however is just as safe, modern and easy to get around for an English speaker as Western Europe.</li>
<li>Train travel can be expensive within Western Europe, almost as much is flying, but it is usually cheap in Eastern Europe. Also look into luxury buses between Eastern European cities. In Western Europe, buying your tickets a few days in advance can greatly reduce the cost.</li>
<li>In my younger years, I used a Eurail Pass to loaf around Europe. Now I consider it not a particularly good deal. You can do a lot better with point-to-point fares on a variety of modes (plane, train, bus).</li>
<li>For a visitor from USA, only Russia and Belarus require pre-arranged visas. (And the Russian one is extremely difficult. See my <a href="http://travel.baddalailama.com/2012/09/moscow.html">Russia visa article</a>.) Nonetheless, be sure to look into the <a href="http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis_pa_tw_1168.html">US state department's advice on travel</a> and visas for every country you are visiting.</li>
<li>Learn how to Hostel! It means you can find cheap accommodations wherever you go and at any season. Hosteling also gives you contact with a lot of other travelers for advice on where to go and how to get around. See <a href="http://hostelworld.com/">hostelworld.com</a>. Personally, I would stay in hostels even if I could afford the Hilton.</li>
<li>There is usually no compelling reason to buy an airfare more than a month or two before traveling, except perhaps in the summer. You don't usually get a cheaper fare, but you are restricting your ability to change or to come up with something even better. I usually buy my own airfares about a month in advance and have still gotten some ridiculously cheap ones. Nonetheless, once you know you are travelling, kept checking airfares on your preferred travel sites. If you are traveling in summer and see a fare for under $1000, you might want to grab it.</li>
<li>Travel sites like Expedia give you a 24 hour grace period after you purchase your ticket to obtain a full refund. (You cancel the flight right on the website.) This means when you see a low fare, you can grab it right away. Then you have 24 hours to piece together other elements of your trip and decide whether you really want it.</li>
<li><i>All</i> forms of transportation—ground and air—can bog down in Western Europe in July and August. Advanced planning of intercity legs is important then. The rest of the year you can be much more relaxed and just work things out when you get there. (June is a more relaxed month and a good time to travel. Only the airfare is a barrier.)</li>
<li>Don't over-plan the ground portion of your visit. It's hard to know what you are going to want to do until you get there. Just go with the flow. I don't bother reading travel books or doing much research before I arrive. (I'd rather just go there than waste time <i>reading</i> about going there.) With the Internet at your hostel, you can bring a laptop and work on it all out once you get there.</li>
<li>When should you buy, and when should you wait? That's probably the most difficult issue of all. If you find a low-fare online it is tempting to buy it right away. You lock in the low fare, but you also lock out any better option that you can't yet foresee. Deciding when to buy is more of an art than a science. It rests on your experience with airfares but also in your knowledge of yourself. Many people just can't handle ambiguity in their plans. They are under pressure to buy now, but they may regret it when they see what they've overlooked. Others delay and put off the purchase too long, and then the low airfares are gone. You have to find a balance between the two.</li>
<li>I found some surprisingly low transatlantic fares for selected dates on <a href="http://www.norwegian.com/">Norwegian Airlines</a> (Oslo, etc). They have a fare calculator to show you the dates of the lowest fares. I constructed a hypothetical fare in November 2013 of $400 roundtrip from NYC, including tax. (Luggage, seat selection and meal for $69 more.) Also Fort Lauderdale to Oslo for similar pricing. This airline is not listed on major travel websites (and probably doesn't give useful FF miles).</li>
<li>It's fine to use a website like Expedia to search for airfares, but when it comes to actually buying the airfare you have found, consider using the airline's own website. The reason: If you have to make changes, you can deal directly with the airline. If you book through a "travel agent" (which includes Expedia and other websites) then the airline may require you to do it through them.</li>
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Note: The blacked out city in the image above is Warsaw. (I didn't want to reveal that when I first created this entry.) Yes, that's a round trip transatlantic airfare of $123 (plus taxes and fees), including a 24-hour stopover in London.</div>
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-63288306303580478242013-04-30T08:30:00.003-07:002013-04-30T16:00:53.403-07:00Porterville, California Police Nab Illicit Park Photographer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Porterville, California, April 27, 2013.</b> The photo above that I took in a city park earned me a visit and lengthy interview from the local police department. In the course of the encounter, the officer took a photo of me and even asked me for my shoe size! Here is the full story:<br />
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I was on a week-long "working vacation" in California, doing some sightseeing but also working on a book. I had just visited Sequoia National Forest and I was now in this small Central Valley city just below the mountains. I was sitting in my rental car in a city park (Murry Park) working on my computer when this couple appeared directly in front of me. I couldn't resist the free photo op! I picked up my camera from the car seat beside me and took six frames while still sitting in the drivers seat of the car. (The best photo is above.) I was using a telephoto lens (on my Canon 60D), so the couple was actually quite far away. The "bride" said, "Hey, he's taking pictures!" at which point I stopped shooting, put down the camera, smiled and waved. I didn't want to make them uncomfortable. My whole photo shoot lasted 20 seconds at most. The group got back into the car next to mine. Although my windows were open and they were just a few feet away, they didn't say anything to me.<br />
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(I assumed at the time that it was a wedding couple, but a friend points out that these are probably prom outfits. Not elaborate enough for a wedding, and the "groom" is wearing sneakers.)<br />
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About an hour after they left, an officer of the Porterville Police Department arrived in a cruiser. He said that someone has reported me for taking photos. (It could only have been the prom party, and I assume it was the girl, since she was the only one who seemed to notice me.) The officer was very friendly and agreed that I was doing nothing illegal, but we had a very long interview anyway (with him standing outside my vehicle and me inside with a computer on my lap). I was asked about who I was, where I had been, where I was going. I was happy to answer, because I had nothing to hide. The officer took my licence back to his cruiser where he said he was filling out a written report. Then he came back to the car and asked if he could take my photo (with a small camera he brought from his cruiser). I laughed at that! I said that since I was taking photos of the wedding party without their permission, I couldn't object to him taking a photo of me! He asked me to step out of the car for the photo, which I did. I gave him a big smile as he took a photo of me standing in front of my rental car.<br />
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After that, he asked me more information for his report. He asked for my height, and I pointed out that it was on my driver's licence which he held in his hand. He also asked for my social security number (which was not on my license) and my phone number. He then asked for my shoe size. I drew the line at this. I laughed and told him I was asserting my "Miranda rights" and I refused to give him my shoe size. He guessed that my shoe size was 10, but I refused to confirm or deny this information. The officer completed his report; we chatted a bit, and he left.<br />
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My actual photography of the couple lasted no more than 20 seconds. Six quick photos. The interview with the officer lasted about 20 minutes. The officer never asked to see the photos I had taken, and I did not offer to show them to him. Although the encounter was cordial, the incident struck me as petty and a senseless waste of police resources. Can you imagine the LAPD responding to a complaint like this and spending so much time on it? (I'm sure the first question of LAPD dispatchers would be, "What law has allegedly been violated here?") What was the bigger personal intrusion: my photography or the police interview?<br />
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After the officer left, I decided it was time to depart the park. I moved to the parking lot of the local Walmart, where I knew I wouldn't be hassled, and I continued working on my computer for a few hours. (I was publishing a new ebook, <a href="http://kilroycafe.com/">"Kilroy Cafe"</a>.) After nightfall, I decided to leave Porterville forever.<br />
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But leaving Porterville wasn't so easy. Rather like a Stephen King novel where a character tries to get out of a small rural town but can't. The story continues...<br />
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During this week-long visit to California, I was sleeping in my rental car at night. I usually have no problem with this. The weather was nice, and I usually choose my overnight parking locations well, so people don't notice me. Sometimes I sleep in Walmart parking lots, but it was too warm for that. I needed a remote place to park where I could open the car windows.<br />
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After dark, I headed out of Porterville toward the west, until I thought I was beyond the city limits. I didn't want another encounter with the Porterville police! I found what I thought was an empty desert area near an aquaduct. It was dark, but I saw no habitation around, so I pulled into the desert, well away from the road.<br />
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I went to sleep in the back seat, only be wakened about an hour later by... another police officer! He was in a different uniform and a different style of car, so I assume he was a county officer. He said that a neighbor had reported me. I was surprised, because I looked around me and could see no neighbors, just dark desert. The officer agreed that I wasn't doing anything wrong, but he took my license back to his cruiser.<br />
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When he returned to my car, he commented on my camera on the passenger seat, which suggested to me that he now knew about the earlier photography incident.<br />
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"You weren't out here taking pictures of people were you?" he asked.<br />
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I assured him that I was here only to sleep. (I did not bother to point out to him that, in this location, there was no one to take pictures of!)<br />
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The officer did not tell me that sleeping in a car was illegal, and he did not ask me to move, but I offered to move anyway. He agreed that this was probably a good idea because the current situation we "just a little creepy." He suggested the I go back to town and sleep in the Walmart parking lot.<br />
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At this point, there was NO WAY I was returning to Porterville! I could imagine this thing growing bigger and bigger, with vague suspicions about this outsider continuing to grow until they found something to charge me with.<br />
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After the county officer left, I got back on the road and continued west. Although it was late, I was now determined to get out of this county as quickly as possible! I drove for a hour until I was sure I was beyond Tulare County. I found a safe parking place near the main freeway, and I got at least a few hours sleep without further interruption.<br />
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Nice town, Porterville. I can tell people are concerned about safety. When you urge people, "If you see something, say something," they apparently take it seriously. And without much crime, police apparently have a LOT of time to investigate suspicious activities. Still, for a guy like me, engaged in "unusual" activities or lifestyle, this small town Utopia can get tired really fast.<br />
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I'm still in the desert as I write this (near Palmdale on April 30), but the Big City is looking really attractive right now! There, they have something called "crime", which is good in a way. At least it keeps the police occupied and off the backs of people whose only crime is being "unusual".<br />
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If you happen to know the couple in the photo, perhaps you can forward the photo to them. (Shot April 27, 2013 around 4pm in Murry Park in Porterville, California, and photographed in Murry Park.) Here is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200654775144139&l=6b0516d100">the hi-res photo on Facebook</a>.</div>
Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-83994171787943258432012-12-26T06:39:00.002-08:002012-12-26T06:40:29.354-08:00My USA travel advice - in 4 tweets!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTHAiSWggzzp5jnG90U7VbO6bYsfIaLtWlG6DnMFXSGO1DuM-qcPye2RWgIvRjCHljT4aKTGSuiUez9Gd9hohZtxT57UkWSgiO8esaqc1LgKIRDNLYCUNQUTGutTFaSoCci3-49JEqC8E/s1600/USA+Travel+Advice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTHAiSWggzzp5jnG90U7VbO6bYsfIaLtWlG6DnMFXSGO1DuM-qcPye2RWgIvRjCHljT4aKTGSuiUez9Gd9hohZtxT57UkWSgiO8esaqc1LgKIRDNLYCUNQUTGutTFaSoCci3-49JEqC8E/s640/USA+Travel+Advice.jpg" width="530" /></a></div>
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See <a href="https://twitter.com/BadDalaiLama/status/283867496543580160">original tweet</a> to retweet or share.</div>
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Also see <a href="https://twitter.com/BadDalaiLama/status/283867496543580160">How to Sleep in a Car</a>.</div>
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-8001831192747469372012-09-26T09:34:00.000-07:002014-03-15T08:04:34.572-07:00Tips on Applying for a Russian Tourist Visa (from one who FAILED)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell</a><br />
Mar. 13, 2014<br />
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To visit Russia, almost everyone needs a visa, and getting one is a convoluted process virtually unchanged since the days of the Soviet Union. My own attempt to obtain a tourist visa FAILED because I ran out of time, energy and money. But I did gain some valuable experience, which I want to share with any American who cares to try. The process is not impossible, just convoluted. To give the Russians the benefit of the doubt, let's call it "whimsical".<br />
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In the original blog entry here (Sept. 2012), I had some hypothetical advice on obtaining a Russian tourist visa, based only on what I found on the internet. Now that I have actually gone through the process, I deleted most of the post and replaced it with the things I now know from my own direct experience.<br />
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I was planning a visit to Moscow on a 18-day European trip, but the Russian Consulate called me in for a personal interview in New York only about 3 weeks before I was to leave home. This interrogation—er, interview—was necessary before the visa was granted. Since I was in another part of the USA at the time, it would have been prohibitively expensive to fly to New York for this interview, so I decided to throw in the towel and abort the Russian leg of my vacation. (Technically, I withdrew my visa application. It wasn't rejected.)<br />
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(Being called in for an interview may or may not have had anything to do with the Ukrainian crisis. My airline ticket was bought long before the Russian invasion of Crimea, but my visa didn't reach the consulate until a week after it. There's no way of knowing their reasons for wanting to interview me personally, since I didn't go.)<br />
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Expense aside, at the point where the government of Vladimir Putin calls you in for a personal interview, you have to wonder if the process is worth the vulnerability and loss of privacy. They wanted more documentation: bank statements, proof of income, evidence of real estate holdings and certificate of health insurance. This was in line with what the United States might require for a Russian wanting a visa to the USA—to assure they will go home—but for me it had become too burdensome in time, money and anxiety. Visiting Russia just wasn't important enough to me to jump through all the hoops.<br />
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Although my own effort failed, I picked up a few bits of advice that might be helpful to another American who might want to apply for a tourist visa. The process is not impossible, just a journey in itself. Here is my advice as of March 2014...<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Start the visa application process EARLY, as it could take a long time to work out the defects in your application. And the process is so obtuse and poorly documented that there probably WILL be defects.</li>
<li>USA residents are supposed submit their applications through an intermediate agency, <a href="http://www.ils-usa.com/main.php">Invisa Logisitic Services</a>, not directly to the Russian consulate. These people are taking a cut (and a BIG cut if you want the visa mailed back to you), but the agent I dealt with at ILS was very nice. Although the process is still clunky, ILS is probably going to be a lot more user-friendly than the consulate could ever be.</li>
<li>I strongly urge you to visit an ILS office in person to deliver your visa application, because they can tell you right away whether anything is wrong, and they might be able to correct the problem immediately. Correcting problems by mail can be awkward. Only when everything is perfect will the ILS submit the application to the consulate. (You need an appointment at ILS, but it's free.)</li>
<li>You may be called into the Russian consulate for an interview at a time of their choosing (as I was), so you have to be prepared for it. Only the Russians know who gets called in and why. This is going to be the consulate where you made the application, so if you don't live in one of the major cities where a consulate is located, just getting to the interview could be awkward and expensive (the thing that killed the process for me).</li>
<li>USA residents are supposed to apply for a 3-year multiple entry visa, but the forms seem to be only interested in a single trip. Apparently you are supposed to fill out the forms for your FIRST planned visit, although it doesn't really state this anywhere.</li>
<li>The application requires copies of your plane tickets to and from Russia, so you need to book them in advance (not knowing if you are actually going to get the visa). As a hedge, I think you should book your transatlantic flights to a traditional European city that doesn't require visas (like Warsaw), then book cut-rate local flights from there into Russia. That way if you can't get into Russia, you only lose the cheap flights and can still have a nice European vacation. (<a href="http://www.airbaltic.com/en/index">Air Baltic</a> is a great airline for getting into Russia cheaply.) DO NOT ASSUME ANY LENIENCY FROM THE AIRLINE IF YOU FAIL TO GET A VISA. (In my case, the same change/cancellation fees applied.) Once you have the 3-year visa and have made your first visit, it is safer to fly directly to Russia.</li>
<li>The visa application itself is generated by clunky software on a Russian government website, which produces a PDF that you print out. Be sure to bring your application number and password with you to ILS, because if something is wrong with the application, they can reprint it for you while you wait. (It is awkward to get back into the application after you have printed it the first time, but I finally figured it out. Hint: go back to the topmost level.)</li>
<li>The 3-year visa requires TWO identical visa applications. I never saw that instruction online anywhere. The ILS agent had to tell me. (Each application needs a passport photo attached.)</li>
<li>For the three-year visa, the dates on the application are the date of your first entry into Russia and the same day three years later (or maybe the day before, I'm not sure. I would use the day before.). At least, that's what the ILS agent put on my revised application.</li>
<li>The application requires you to list the cities you expect to visit in Russia. How are you supposed to do this for a 3-year multiple entry visa? I just listed the city I planned to visit on my first trip: Moscow. (Will you get in trouble for visiting other cities you didn't list on your original application? In the Soviet era, you probably would. These days, who knows?)</li>
<li>You need an "invitation" to come to Russia. This is relatively easy to obtain if you plan to stay in a <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/search?search_keywords=Moscow%2C+Russia&country=Russia&city=Moscow">hostel in Moscow</a>, like <a href="http://godzillashostel.com/moscow/">Godzilla's</a>. For $35, they will provide an invitation sent by email. (Although even that process can be clunky. I had to email them a couple of times to get a readable JPG version.)</li>
<li>There can be absolutely no pen marks on the application form apart from your signature and date. No scratches or white-outs. Just another way the bureaucracy tries to trip you up.</li>
<li>The application seems to require health insurance for your stay. I used <a href="https://geobluetravelinsurance.com/">GeoBlue</a> to get insurance for my first visit then printed out the documentation they provided. I think that was sufficient, but since I didn't get the visa, I can't be sure.</li>
<li>Once you have the visa and have taken your first visit to Russia, it "seems" that you can come and go from Russia as you please... but don't take my word for it. The wonderful thing about Russia is YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT THE RULES REALLY MEAN.</li>
<li>Seriously, do you really need to go to Russia? There are so many great places Americans can visit without visas (nearly all of Europe apart from Belarus and Russia). The Russian Government tries so hard to turn away tourists that you really have to be dedicated to make it happen.</li>
<li>Needless to say, if you've got plenty of money, there are bound to be agencies and tour companies willing to relieve you of it to "help" you with the visa process. I can't give you any advice on them. At that point, my budget it burst and I'd rather hang out in "old" Europe for much less.</li>
</ol>
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The tips above only scratch the surface. The visa application process is still totally Cold War, and I didn't have the stamina to pull it off. Maybe you will do better.</div>
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-48775312955628901782012-09-23T07:38:00.001-07:002012-09-23T09:19:09.386-07:00Washington, D.C.—Best Transportation Hub in USA!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sometimes even a homeless travelling dude has to lay back and chill for a while, so where does he do it without a home? It has to be someplace with mild weather where he can get by cheaply. It also has to be someplace well-connected with transportation options, especially if he doesn't know where he is going next. So where is the best place in North America to conduct such a-chill'n?<br />
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Transportation-wise, you might think that someplace in the center of the country would be best, like St. Louis or Kansas City, where you are equidistant from the coasts and where the cost of living is low. Turns out, however, that airfares to and from these places aren't cheap. Due to competitive pressures, it is usually cheaper to fly from, say, New York to L.A. than from St. Louis to L.A. Furthermore, although the cost of living may be low in the Heartland for people who live there, there aren't many options for the traveler, like hostels or cheap intercity buses.<br />
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You might think that New York City would be a good transportation hub, and it is, but transportation is just about all that New York offers. It's a jungle, painful to get in and out of and not the sort of place you can comfortably chill homelessly. Even the New York suburbs are dense and hard to navigate.<br />
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So where is the best hang-out for the homeless traveler? Suburban Washington, D.C.! I'm there right now, typing in the back seat of my cheap rental car in Alexandria, Virginia. Due to the vagaries of my business (gun for hire), I don't know exactly where I will be going next, and given that fact, this is the best place in the world to be.<br />
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I'm not interested in downtown Washington. I've already seen every tourist attraction. The suburbs are the "in" place for me, usually Virginia not far from Dulles or National airport. I rent a big full-size car and <a href="http://travel.baddalailama.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">sleep in it</a>. National airport is often a surprisingly cheap place to rent a car. This one, a spacious Impala, set me back $136/week, which is pretty cheap housing.<br />
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In D.C., I am blessed with the nation's best selection of transportation options. There are three airports: DCA, IAD and BWI, all accessible by public transit. Wherever I need to fly to, chances are one of those airports will offer a low fare.<br />
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D.C. is also a hub for <a href="http://us.megabus.com/">Megabus</a>, the new bus line the offering fares between major cities far less than Greyhound or Amtrak. I can get to New York or Philadelphia for $25 any day, which puts even more airports within my reach (PHL, EWR, JFK, LGA, RIC). Long haul routes are only about $45 to Boston, Toronto, Knoxville, Pittsburgh and Charlotte, and with connecting routes I can get as far as Florida, Minnesota or Texas. (See <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/MegabusNorthAmericaMap.svg">their system map</a>.) Megabus can be cramped if every seat is booked, but one huge advantage is power sockets at every seat (more valuable to me than the wifi). Now, I can compute continuously from the moment I sit down.<br />
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<a href="http://http//Amtrak.com">Amtrak </a>is an option if you can plan ahead, but their last-minute fares are way too high. If I wanted to go to New York today, I'd be paying $153 on Amtrak but still only $25-33 on Megabus. Megabus is really what made D.C. a hub for me. If I were a foreign backpacker touring the U.S., I would fly into whatever Eastern city had the best airfares than using Megabus to tour the East Coast. Cheaper than any sort of bus or rail pass.<br />
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The ambiance is nice in the D.C. suburbs. Here I have access to one of the two health club chains I belong to (<a href="http://www.anytimefitness.com/">Anytime Fitness</a>), so showers and exercise are near at hand. Plenty of food options and other services. I can park almost anywhere to work or sleep; these suburbs are spacious enough that no one cares. I certainly have no concern for my safety in the Virginia suburbs. Demographics protect me from the rif-raff of the inner city.<br />
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Of course, there are plenty of Walmarts in Virginia for all my supply needs (clothing, camping supplies, etc.). These would be hard to come by in the dense suburbs of New York or Boston.<br />
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Only the summer sucks, when the humidity can be oppressive and sleeping in the car is a challenge. Cold is almost never a problem when sleeping in a car: You just close the windows and add more clothing and Walmart sleeping bags. Heat is the problem. To sleep in the car in the summer in Virginia, I would have to open all the windows for ventilation, and that means I have to be in a remote location with few mosquitoes. Good luck finding that! I would probably drive far out of D.C. in that case, perhaps to the shore where I can find some sea breeze.<br />
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D.C. also has hostels if I need them. (See <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/search?search_keywords=Washington+DC%2C+USA&country=USA&city=Washington-DC">the selection on Hostelworld</a>.) If a rental car is prohibitively expensive or I need to catch an early morning bus, I may use a hostel for the night, generally for $25 to $40. Several are within walking distance of Union Station.<br />
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There is sightseeing here if I care to do it. While I have been to all the major D.C. attractions (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1684741750733.2091644.1003315385&l=ec98255624">my photos</a>) there are always more obscure museums to explore. It seems that every organization wants to put some sort of museum or monument in Washington, and it would take years to visit them all.<br />
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Did I mention that it's our nation's capital? I may be jaded from overexposure, but Washington is a city that everyone should visit. Most of the government attractions are free. "Washington" looms so large in the news, that I think every human should have some direct experience with it.<br />
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But best to sleep in a rental car in the suburbs if you want an easy visit.</div>
Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-76040821788206675062012-09-17T02:01:00.002-07:002021-01-19T08:35:07.281-08:00Travel Notes on Iceland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I am just coming to the end of a three-day visit to Iceland. (I am writing from my hostel in Reykjavik.) I feel very comfortable here and hope to come back someday. Here are my notes—things you might not figure out with Google alone. <b>Also see my Facebook photos: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4251659762079.2168833.1003315385&type=3&l=4c5d80c31a">Iceland </a>and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4264961054603.2169175.1003315385&type=1&l=27e4c6669c">Reykjavik</a> and here is a <a href="http://j.mp/NT8Onr">Google Map of my drive</a>. </b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Iceland is very green. (Don't believe the "ice" part. It's Greenland that's the icy one.) It seems about equivalent in terrain and climate to the north of Scotland. Supposedly, winter temperatures are as mild as New York or Toronto, but it's probably much more gray and rainy. Bring an umbrella!</li>
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<li>Iceland is basically one giant volcano. 100% of the landscape is volcanic, primarily endless lava fields covered with moss.</li>
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<li>There is hardly a tree anywhere! I found this especially surprising, because even Siberia has trees. Apparently Iceland was once forested but got pillaged of trees by the Vikings. Most of the landscape is mosses, grasses and low shrubs. At least there's nothing to obscure your view!</li>
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<li>I was surprises by the lack of obvious history. There are museums but hardly any old buildings. Almost all the buildings in Iceland look new, as though the island was settled only in the past 50 years. It is hard to find any old buildings apart from a few stone foundations. The only "history" is what you read on information signs. Although the Vikings were here for centuries, they apparently built with wood and sod, which has rotted away. What's left looks like generic modern Scandinavia.</li>
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<li>Iceland is expensive, but once you take care of food and lodging, there's not much opportunity to spend money. This is a good place to use hostels and camp to avoid outrageous lodging charges.</li>
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<li>The only hostels are in Reykjavik. I was very happy with the Kex Hostel. For a short stay or for the first couple of days of a longer one, this is a pretty good base of operations, since the main tourist sites can be done in day trips from there.</li>
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<li>You really need a rental car to do Iceland justice. You can take tours to see the sights, but it is very confining and may not be much cheaper than having your own car and stopping where you wish.</li>
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<li>The one thing I would bring next time is a sleeping bag to allow me to sleep in the car. (Even a throw-away one.) Camping supplies are available here but don't come cheap.</li>
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<li>You have to work hard to meet an actual Icelander, and there's no obvious "culture" on the surface. You come here mainly for the natural scenery not the human environment.</li>
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<li>Assuming you can find one, it seems that nearly every Icelander along the tourist tracks speaks English. You'll have no trouble getting along without knowing a word of Icelandic.</li>
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<li>Icelandic towns are spotless, sanitary and bland. Hardly worth stopping in them.</li>
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<li>There is virtually nothing in Iceland to hurt you. No significant crime and nothing poisonous. (No snakes, lizards or even frogs.) The only danger is your own stupidity walking on rocks or too close to a cliff. Iceland won't protect you from that! Even at their national parks, you can walk right up to the edge of a waterfall if you choose.</li>
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<li>In Iceland, you'll soon suffer from Waterfall Fatigue. There are so many spectacular ones that after a while stopping at every one you pass seems like a burden.</li>
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<li>"Big City" Reykjavik is only a small city in global terms (140k in the city and 200k in the area). Not a lot to see. You can do it all in a day. Add another day if you want to do the museums.</li>
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<li>Two-thirds of Iceland's tiny population is concentrated around Reykjavik. They rest of Iceland is wild and woolly (literally). You'll meet only sheep and other tourists.</li>
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<li>Easiest and cheapest way to visit Iceland is to stopover on an Icelandair flight to Europe. Stopovers of up to 7 days at no additional charge!</li>
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<li>Gas seems to be the same fixed price everywhere in the country. In Sept. 2012, it was ISK 260 per liter. That's US$8.12 per gallon! A major part of your travel budget will be gas. (I drove a small automatic getting 7 km/liter. My total cost was about IKR 21000 (US$175) for 1250 km of driving.)</li>
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<li>Most gas stations are unmanned and automated. YOU MUST HAVE A PIN NUMBER for your credit card in order to use them! (Also, be sure to inform your card issuer of your overseas travel to avoid having your card disabled for unusual charges.)</li>
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<li>My three days in Iceland were quite satisfying. I stayed at the Kex Hostel in Reykjavik all three nights. On the first full day, I visited the most popular tourist sites in the "Golden Circle". On the second full day, I took a long day trip to the big Vatnajokull Glacier and the sights along the way. On the half days on either side, I explored Reykjavik itself. There is a lot of Iceland I haven't yet explored, but I feel I got the gist and that staying longer wouldn't give me much more to remember. If I had 7 days, I would have driven the full Ring Road. (Beyond 7 days, I probably would have gone mad in Iceland!)</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/KEX-Hostel/Reykjavik/48573">Kex Hostel</a>: Close to downtown. Good kitchen facilities with lots of food left behind by past guests (pasta, condiments). Free lower linen. Use your own sleeping bag or rent top linen/duvet for ISK 1000 per stay. Free parking in front of the hostel overnight, but you have to pay between 10:00 and 16:00.</li>
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<li>There are steaming volcanic springs everywhere in Iceland, but I never found any natural hot pools where you can soak. There are, however, lots of commercial and municipal hot pools where you will pay money to swim. (Not my cup o' tea, since I would rather keep moving.)</li>
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<li>The most famous commercial hot spring is the Blue Lagoon, about 10 km off the main road to the airport. To actually use the swimming facilities costs €35, but it costs nothing to visit adjoining pools or look through the glass at the fools willing to shell out the money to swim. It's not really natural, having being created as a side-effect of the nearby geothermal plant, but it's quite interesting and worth the 20km diversion to see.</li>
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<li>There is a nice municipal pool complex in Reykjavik (near the City Hostel). It's only ISK 500 (under $5), but there's nothing natural about it except the water itself. (It's modern swimming complex like you might find in Canadian cities.) It looks like other big towns have similar developed hot pools.</li>
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<li>A full drive of the "Ring Road" around Iceland would take 4 full days (
I estimate, based on my tour of 1/4 of it) stopping at all the roadside sights along the way. I might do this someday. I would be camping or sleeping in the rental car.</li>
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<li>In Reykjavik, there is a tenting campground next to the City Hostel. Outside Reykjavik, it is easy to sleep in a car or find a discreet tenting spot after dark. (You need a tent mainly because of rain.) Many tourists rent small campers, but I don't see the need for them.</li>
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<li>Fast food is limited and expensive. KFC, Taco Bell and Dominoes are in the few big town. McDonalds, Burger King and all the others are nowhere to be seen.</li>
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<li>Grocery shopping is done at chain supermarkets. (You rarely see a "mom and pop" store, even in small towns.) Iceland seems to have been Walmartted by the Bonus grocery store chain, but don't expect low prices. Prices range from 100-300% of U.S. prices. All your basic foodstuffs are available, but not much variety.</li>
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<li>When driving, the usual European rules and signage applies. No left turn on a red light. Iceland stoplights do you the courtesy of showing red and yellow just before the green, but I don't understand why. Expect lots of roundabouts!</li>
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<li>The airport is a good place to change money, both coming and going. There's no commission, and the spread is reasonable. This is especially handy when you have excess cash you need to get rid of at the end of your trip. (You change dollars/euros into Kroners outside security, but you change money in the other direction inside security.)</li>
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<li>There are signs in the airport terminal saying you can't sleep there. The airport is in a lonely location 45km from the city. You'll have to either take a pricey bus or rent a car.</li>
</ol>
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Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-39062281993635424052012-07-08T10:40:00.000-07:002012-07-08T10:40:32.784-07:00Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on the Cheap<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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New information page on cheap travel to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, posted today as a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes/glenn-campbell/puerto-rico-and-the-virgin-islands-you-can-afford-the-caribbean/10151925308830171">Facebook Note</a>.</div>Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-44855370774150673772012-03-27T05:08:00.000-07:002012-07-27T09:14:43.340-07:00Camping near Charleston Amtrak<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="hasCaption">My secret campsite near the Charleston Amtrak station, preparing for the southbound 5:06am Silver Meteor to Florida. I slept in a $19 Walmart sleeping bag on a $5 tarp in the bushes just to the right of the blue dot. I scouted out the location and cached my sleeping bag there while I still had a vehicle during the day. Then I came back by local bus at night to sleep. Woke up at 4:30am and walked across the parking lo<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">t to catch the train.<br /><br />Although the residential neighborhood just to the north of this photo is distinctively low-rent, I felt very safe in this industrial location. The pattern of trash in the woods told me that people rarely came here, even during the day. My location in the bushes was visible during the day but completely invisible at night. The forest debris under my mattress provided all the padding I needed and I slept soundly. Fortunately, there was no rain in the forecast and it was still cool enough at night (60° in March) that there were no mosquitoes. (It would have been much more difficult in the summer.) When I broke camp, I left my sleeping bag and tarp in an obvious place where someone would probably from the low-rent neighborhood would probably see them and take them home.</span></span></div>
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</span></div>Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09632955833407831511noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-34040752359319563162012-01-09T07:14:00.002-08:002021-01-19T08:36:27.808-08:00Car-Camping on the Florida Keys<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell</a> (revised 1/28/14 & 1/7/19 & 1/19/21) </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">UPDATE (Jan. 2021): See my <a href="https://twitter.com/BadDalaiLama/status/1351431297810518016">Car Camping Advice</a> in a Tweet Thread.<br />
<br />
THE FLORIDA KEYS are an easy way to visit the tropics at minimal cost—provided you are comfortable sleeping in a rental car, because lodging is expensive. Flying to MIA or FLL is usually cheap and so are car rentals there. The Keys aren't nearly as exciting as they appear on the map, but they have exactly the same environment as Caribbean islands like Jamaica and Cuba. Below are my notes on car camping on the keys.<br />
<br />
See the Florida Keys soon! Like Venice, they will soon be reclaimed by rising sea levels. It will take only one or two big storms to knock out the Keys forever.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Free RV parking is difficult, but overnight <i>car </i>parking is relatively easy<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—</span>as long as you are not obvious about it.</li><li>"No Overnight Parking" signs are plentiful on the keys, and I try not to park overnight where a sign tells me explicitly not to. (You can often get away with it, but it's bad form.)</li>
<li>Sleeping in a car is an acquired skill. It takes practice to get used to it and understand your body's own needs. Don't expect it to work for you right away. See <a href="http://travel.baddalailama.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">How to Sleep in a Car</a></li>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">You can park anywhere that I car would normally be parked overnight. Avoid places where you car would stick out, like a vacant lot or along the side of a remote road. You don't want the cops to come by and say, "What's that car doing here?"</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">There isn't a lot of difference between summer and winter temperatures on the Keys, but summer could heat things up to the point where sleeping in a car isn't comfortable. </span>Summer night are usually in the 70s, which I find is the limit of the temperature in which you can comfortably sleep in a car. You need to leave the windows open at least part way to let out your own body heat, which may affect the places where you can comfortably park. (If the windows are nearly closed, you can park anywhere a car would normally be parked overnight, but if you have to open the windows, you are more vulnerable and have to choose you location more carefully.)</li>
<li>In the "winter", nights can get chilly—that is, into the 60s, so you need a blanket or sleeping bags. All the supplies you need can be found at Walmart's in Florida City and Homestead.</li>
<li>Rain can be awkward, since is forces you to roll up the windows. Fortunately, I have rarely experienced rain at night on the Keys. </li>
<li>Bugs aren't usually a problem on the Keys. I have never needed mosquito netting on the windows. The only time bugs have been a problem is when I was parked directly beside the ocean (at Higgs Beach in Key West or Geiger Beach on Boca Chica Key). At dusk, the sand flies come out and start biting. I have not had a problem farther inland.</li>
<li>Of the 100+ nights I have slept in a car on the keys, I have been woken by police only once. They asked me to move my car 20 feet so I wasn't on private property (in the vacant lot across from Bud n Mary's); otherwise they let me stay. I would expect less leniency in Key West.</li><li>As of Jan. 2021, my most comfortable overnight sleeping spot on the Keys is about in the middle, in the long rest area across from the Amara Cay Hotel. Lots of space, no one to bother you and restroom facilities in the bushes.</li>
<li><span style="color: red; font-family: arial;"><span face=""helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">THEY PAVED PARADISE, PUT UP A PARKING LOT. - In the many times I have visited Key West in a rental car, I could always count on the Truman Annex for overnight parking. This was essentially a big vacant lot within walking distance of downtown Key West. I last used this facility for my sleeping needs about 3 years ago. Now I've returned to the same location and find it has been PAVED OVER and replaced by expensive paid parking. </span><span class="_5mfr" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px 1px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="_6qdm" color="transparent" face=""helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="background-image: url("https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t67/1.5/16/1f622.png"); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain; display: inline-block; font-size: 16px; height: 16px; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; vertical-align: text-bottom; width: 16px;">😢</span></span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></li>
<li>In Key West, overnight parking is not allowed in most public and private parking lots. If you try to park in a supermarket lot or beach lot, someone will wake you up in the middle of the night to kick you out. The only place left are residential streets. Fortunately, there is plenty of parking there.</li>
<li>Elsewhere on the Overseas Highway, there are usually parking areas for fishermen at the ends of bridges. These are often good places to park overnight. I like the vacant lot across from Bud n' Mary's Marina, in Islamorada, but you have to park on the highway side of the lot.</li>
<li>There is a hostel in Florida City at the entry point to the keys: <a href="http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Everglades-Hostel-and-Tours/Everglades-NP-Florida-City/5184">Everglades International Hostel</a>. There are also two hostels in Key West, including <a href="http://www.keywesthostel.com/hostel_rooms.html">Seashell Motel & Hostel</a>, but they are up to $75/night for a bunk in a shared motel room. (Seems pointless if you can sleep in your car.) Both hostels are listed on <a href="http://hostelworld.com/">HostelWorld</a>.</li>
<li>I don't see crime as an issue in the Keys, because you have to be rich to afford to stay here, but you don't want to make things easy. Don't park with valuables in sight.</li>
<li>Plenty of fast food and groceries in Key West, Marathon, Key Largo and elsewhere. There are several Dollar Tree stores for cheap supplies, including one in Key West. </li>
<li>Walmart is back on the mainland. Stop her for camping supplies and snorkel gear. The closest one is Florida City, but it is a little ratty, and when I was there last they had run out of masks and flippers. I prefer other Walmarts.</li>
<li>Gas is the same price as the mainland from Key Largo to Marathon, but it rises by about 60 cents south of Marathon, including Key West.</li>
<li>There are state campgrounds on the keys, including Bahia Honda, but they appear to be heavily booked well in advance.</li>
<li>The ocean here is perfect for swimming year round. Almost bath water temperature. Buying a mask and snorkel at Walmart (on the mainland) will greatly enhance the experience.</li>
<li>In Key West, Ft. Zachary Tailor is a nice place to hang out during the day. Admission is $4.50+, and you can return as often as you want through the day.</li>
<li>Sunset is the big draw in Key West. Best place to experience it is along the waterfront from Mallory Square to the Truman Annex. Paid parking in this area is expensive. An alternative is to park in a residential area to the south and walk to the waterfront.</li>
<li>Being the tropics, you can expect the sun to rise and set rapidly. There is very little dusk or dawn like you find in the northern climes.</li>
<li>Key West is rich in free-roaming chickens. The roosters start crowing around 4:30am.</li>
</ul>
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</ul>
My photos: <a class="ot-anchor" href="http://glenn-campbell.com/detail/keywest" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #3366cc; cursor: pointer; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Key West</a> and <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/detail/keys">Rest of the Keys</a><br />
<br />
Short link for this post: <a href="http://bit.ly/KeysCarCamping">http://bit.ly/KeysCarCamping</a></div>
Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-19090872578449778922010-09-02T19:40:00.002-07:002021-01-19T08:37:27.001-08:00The Perfect Campsite in Kansas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sept. 2, 2010 — The sun just went down in central Kansas, so it's time to pull off I-70 and find a safe harbor for the night.<br />
<br />
Last night, in Wyoming, I stayed in the lap of luxury: Motel 6, Laramie. It was cold (40s) and very windy (sub-freezing chill factor), so it seemed worth the 40 bucks. In Kansas, though, the weather is a lot more mild, and every night I can spend outdoors is money saved (and more time I can spend in Europe, where hostels about $20/night). The car I am in is packed with luggage, so there is no space to achieve the critical element: bringing my legs to the same level as my head. (I can sleep sitting up, but it isn't comfortable.)<br />
<br />
Tonight, I didn't have to look very far. Kansas has big, spacious rest areas where you can usually get away with camping under cover of night. (Camping on the ground wouldn't work at most rest areas in other states, where space is at a premium.) This rest area near Russell has a vast area of mowed grass behind the restrooms, big as a football field. There are about six 18-wheelers parked at this rest area for the night, but I'm the only car, so I've made myself at home. I have set up camp behind a big bush in the middle of the field, so it's impossible for anyone to detect me. (The car is obvious, but it's normal for it to be parked here.)<br />
<br />
My "camp" consists of a sleeping bag, a camping mattress and a 6x8 tarp for a ground cover. The low temp tonight is expected to be in the 50s. Very little wind and a clear sky full of stars. Since it is only 9pm, I'll easily wake and break camp before down.<br />
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Here's my <a href="http://goo.gl/maps/PWOA">exact location</a> if you care to join me.</div>Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-62951673556356855992010-08-29T17:52:00.002-07:002021-01-19T08:38:04.827-08:00Wal-Mart Motel: $20/night<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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By <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">Glenn Campbell </a><br />
<br />
When you’re driving in the USA and can’t afford local motels, Wal-Mart offers a secret “motel” for $20/night. You just have to know about it.<br />
<br />
In an earlier posting I discussed the <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/supercenter-camping-method.html">Supercenter Camping Method</a>. If you’re driving across America, finding a discreet place to camp is difficult, not because America lacks open spaces but because it is difficult to hide your car. My solution is to hide the car in the open, in a place where cars would normally be parked at night—like the parking lot of a 24-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter! At least in rural areas, open land or woods are common around Supercenters, since these monstrosities are usually located in newly appropriated land on the outskirts of town.<br />
<br />
My preference is to <a href="http://travel.baddalailama.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">sleep in a car</a> when I can, but if the car is full or you really need to stretch out, camping in the overgrown areas near Walmart is an option. <br />
<br />
Last night, I successful practiced The Method yet again, this time in Pennsylvania. I was driving Interstate 80, couldn't find a cheap motel and didn't have any camping equipment with me. What to do? The trouble with Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states is the lack of cheap motels. <a href="http://www.motel6.com/">Motel 6</a> is relatively rare and often high-priced when available, and other chains aren’t cheap. (<a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-hostel.html">Hostels</a>, of course, exist only in a few major cities.) I was prepared to spend $35 for a night’s lodging but not $65, which was the lowest rate I could expect in these parts. The alternative? Check into the nearest Wally World.<br />
<br />
A Supercenter is distinguished from a traditional Wal-Mart in that it has a full-size grocery section and is open 24 hours. Supercenters are located along the interstate highway system throughout America, usually adjacent to an exit, often with some undeveloped land beside it. In America, Wal-Marts are far more frequent than official highway rest areas, and they are a lot easier to find on mapping programs like Google Maps. When I am driving (which I do for a living), I typically check in at Wal-Marts a couple of times a day—to use the reliably clean restrooms, stock up on basic supplies and just soak in the ambiance. Every Wal-Mart is the same, and, yes, it gives me a feeling of home in being there.<br />
<br />
So my challenge is to spend a comfortable, safe night within a short walk of my car while spending as little money as possible. If I was going to spend $35 on a motel, then I can comfortably spend $20 on camping supplies that I may throw away the next day.<br />
<br />
The weather last night was clear with no rain in the forecast. This is the tail end of summer and it gets a little chilly at night—which is good! Coolness is going to suppress my most significant adversary: the mosquito. For one thing, I can hide deep in my sleeping bag and expose less of my skin, but mosquitoes are also less active when it’s cool. They aren’t much of a problem below 65 degrees F and they are no issue at all below 55.<br />
<br />
At dusk, I checked my BlackBerry for the next Wal-Mart along the highway. It was in Clarion, Pennsylvania, and it turned out to be perfect! There was a field of tall grass and brush on one side of the parking lot, so 50 feet from the car I could be completely invisible.<br />
<br />
…Invisible at <span style="font-style: italic;">night</span>, that is! Thanks to the power of darkness, you can camp in some amazingly obvious places. The only catch is that you have to be sure to wake up and break camp before dawn, because the landscape completely changes during the day. It's like the Invisible Man losing his superpowers.<br />
<br />
(For sunrise times, see <a href="http://timeanddate.com/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">TimeAndDate.com</span></a>.)<br />
<br />
Here's my exact camping spot...<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=41.187119,-79.395567&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.472848,57.568359&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=41.186147,-79.396563&spn=0.022608,0.036478&z=14&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=41.187119,-79.395567&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.472848,57.568359&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=41.186147,-79.396563&spn=0.022608,0.036478&z=14" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br />
<br />
After selecting my camping spot in the last light of the day, I made first pass through Wal-Mart, picking up two essential items: A sleeping bag for $10, and a plastic tarp for $5. The sleeping bag is a summer model stocked year-round at all Wal-Marts. It is rated at 40-60 degrees (more realistic for 60 than 40) and currently sells for $9.88 (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31555369&l=94f9475d47&id=1003315385">photo</a>). In winter, I might buy TWO of these bags and stick them one inside the other, but for tonight one would do.<br />
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The tarp (6 x 8 feet) is found in the automotive section for $4.50, and I use it as a ground cloth. It is also big enough that I can fold it around me. In the lush East, the grass under the tarp serves as a mattress, providing (at least to me) enough padding for comfortable sleep. In the barren West, however, I would buy a camping air mattress instead (for about $13) or a swimming pool air mattress (about $6), since the desert ground is too hard to sleep on without it. (You need a pump to blow up the camping mattress: $10-15.)<br />
<br />
In the humid East, you must be wary of rain, but there’s also another form of falling water that happens more often: dew. Dew is condensation that covers everything after dark—like having light rain every night. (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31552183&l=faefc97166&id=1003315385">photo</a>) Dew rarely happen in the desert, but in the East (or near the ocean) where the relative humidity is close to 100%, it can be drenching. (In the winter, it manifests as frost.) When your sleeping bag is wet, it doesn’t keep you as warm, and once dew forms, it won’t evaporate until morning.<br />
<br />
I address this problem by wrapping the tarp around me like a burrito. The tarp has grommet holes along the edges and I fasten these together with plastic cable ties ($1 from the hardware section). This "tortilla" can’t be too tight, however, because your body and breath are also generating moisture of their own, which forms dew on the INSIDE of the tarp. (That’s why sleeping bags have to be made of fabric, not plastic.) The aim of the tarp tortilla is to cut down most of the dew but not all of it. There have to be gaps to let your own moisture out.<br />
<br />
The tarp can also protect you from light rain, but significant rain would preclude this kind of tentless camping, as would high temperatures that bring out the mosquitoes and force me to leave my sleeping bag. Low temperatures, however, are not a problem. In temperatures well below freezing, I can do just fine with two summer bags (one inside the other) wrapped in a tarp burrito--even in snow. (For added warmth, I might sleep in my winter clothes and jacket.)<br />
<br />
Of course, I could also use a tent. I sometimes travel with one, but tents at Wal-Mart are expensive ($45+). (I buy tents on sale at sporting goods mega-stores for about $25.) For one or two nights in good weather, a tent is usually not worth the expense or even the bother to put up. I like the freedom of not having to carry anything with me, and I don't like how a tent cuts me off from my environment. With the burrito method, you check into Wal-Mart with $20 and walk out with everything you need.<br />
<br />
What about a pillow? It’s free! The $10 sleeping bag comes in a zippered fabric pouch. Fill it full of clothing and—viola!—a pillow.<br />
<br />
Safety? Not an issue. There aren’t people wandering around in places like this, on the outskirts of rural towns far from any residences. Your car is safe, because Wal-Mart usually has a night-time security patrol in the parking lot, but they aren’t concerned with the surrounding woods and grass. Their vehicle has a big flashing light on top, so you an easily evade them when coming and going.<br />
<br />
Wild animals and insects? Apart from mosquitoes, there aren’t any to worry about. Civilization has killed off all the lions and tigers and bears. Snakes and rodents regard you as a danger and will give you a wide berth when they can (except maybe to steal you food). I have never had a creepy-crawly climb into my sleeping bag with me, and I wouldn’t regard it as a danger if they did. Your only potential threat is human, and these animals rarely leave their cars except to waddle into the Wal-Mart.<br />
<br />
Weather? It happens, but at least you can look up the forecast and have a good idea of what is possible. Unlike living in a “home” or staying in motels, weather is the camper’s constant companion and you have to listen to it and understand it. If the forecast calls for a low of 40 degrees, experience should tell you what you need. Rain, of course, my require you to use a tent, and heavy rain may make even tenting impossible. You have to seek other accommodations, like a motel or sleeping in the car. (I can sleep sitting up in the driver’s seat. It’s easier than sleeping on a red-eye flight but rarely offers a sound night’s sleep.)<br />
<br />
Is is legal? Of course not! Vacant land around a new Supercenter is probably owned by Wal-Mart itself, since they have a habit of buying up all the land where they know they are going to build one. (Clever, eh? They lease out the land to other stores and take advantage of their own halo effect.) Most rural Wal-Marts allows RVs to camp in their parking lots, but open-air camping is another thing and would probably attract an unsavory crowd if it were explicitly allowed. I camp there, however, under the principle that what Wal-Mart doesn't know won't hurt it. As in most things, discretion is the key. If I arrive after dark and leave before dawn, and no one ever knows I was there, I don't feel that I'm trampling on Wal-Mart's property rights. Besides, I'm a good customer!<br />
<br />
Can’t sleep? Just pop into your neighborhood Wal-Mart for a snack. Remember, though, that your coach turns into a pumpkin in the morning. You must have some kind of alarm clock to wake you up before dawn, because as soon as the sun comes up, your cover may be blown.<br />
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Last night, however, I had no trouble sleeping, and because the location seemed secure, I chose to sleep until after dawn. I got a solid 7 hours of sleep, as good as any motel. There was no opportunity for a shower, but if I felt the need, I could pick that up at <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/10/truck-stop-showers.html">a truck stop</a>. I kept the tarp and sleeping bag, but I could have thrown them away (or left them in the parking lot for other thrifty Wal-Mart patrons to snatch up). Either way, I was a winner, getting a good night's sleep while saving about $50.<br />
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Thanks again , Wal-Mart!</div>
Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-69077971673678473212010-06-04T07:05:00.001-07:002010-06-04T07:12:35.457-07:00On HiatusThis blog is on hiatus for the summer. (I'm taking advantage of my free travel while I have it.)<br /><br />You can still follow me on <a href="http://kilroycafe.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>, <a href="http://facebook.com/kilroycafe">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/kilroycafe">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://youtube.com/kilroycafe">YouTube</a> and <a href="http://glenn-campbell.com/">my Home Page</a>.Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-77301124754945754892010-03-01T19:15:00.000-08:002010-03-02T10:10:24.217-08:00Airport Camping: Ontario, California<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w5FkAJs3uLtl540QaInvNCyMBvHO00H7BpeDiXWh_23-FWVbYfM4dwyoLcIFrZKWUd4QNj5R7gyVp2xTOQiRvIwGacF1l0vTmKIlgoCcuAxoc3mG0J65-cJPF9VSFvQOX4yJdKhhtdY/s1600-h/Image4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 363px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w5FkAJs3uLtl540QaInvNCyMBvHO00H7BpeDiXWh_23-FWVbYfM4dwyoLcIFrZKWUd4QNj5R7gyVp2xTOQiRvIwGacF1l0vTmKIlgoCcuAxoc3mG0J65-cJPF9VSFvQOX4yJdKhhtdY/s400/Image4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443870055492783010" border="0" /></a>I am writing this from a sleeping bag in the middle of a field adjacent to the Ontario International Airport (on the eastern outskirts of the Los Angeles area). The time is 7:18 pm (Feb. 28, 2010). Less than two hours ago, I had no idea I would be sleeping here, but now I’m comfy as can be, planning to get a full night’s sleep in the open air.<br /><br />An hour and a half ago, I was driving a rental car down I-15 from Las Vegas, planning to catch a flight from Ontario to a major airport where I spend the night 2 or 3 times a month. As I came down the Cajon Pass, however, I hit heavy traffic and I realized I wasn’t going to make my flight. It was my own fault; I had all day to make the 3 hour drive, but I dawdled along the way, and cut the travel time too close. Since I fly for free (as a furloughed airline employee) I can afford to be cavalier about missing flights, but this 7pm departure was the last one of the day. Missing it meant I would be trapped in Ontario overnight.<br /><br />By 6pm, I realized there was no chance I would have time to both turn in my rental car and check in for the flight by 6:30 (given the 30-minute check-in cut-off). The car was also due at 6:30, but I knew I had a 29-minute grace period, so I could turn it in as late as 6:59 and still avoid additional charges (but miss my flight). It was beyond my budget to stay at any local hotel or rent another car to sleep in; each of those options would easily set me back $80 or more. I had to come up an alternate lodging plan and implement it quickly, before the rental car was due.<br /><br />I had been to the Ontario airport only once before, when I flew in three days earlier. (I was heading to Vegas but chose Ontario for a cheaper rental car.) Ontario is a small airport where the secure area probably closes at night. If the baggage claim area remained open and I was allowed to stay there, I would be sleeping on relatively hard seats with fixed armrests, giving me no opportunity to lie down. Even if the floor was carpeted (which I can't recall), I knew from experience that it would be too hard to sleep on. I could “survive” in the baggage claim area if I had to, but I wouldn’t get a good night's sleep there.<br /><br />As I drove down the Cajon Pass (from the dry high desert to the lower and more humid coastal desert), I took a mental inventory of the supplies in my possession. I had a single light sleeping bag, my standard $10 model from <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/style-note-evil-mega-mart-is-now-acme.html">Acme</a>™ that I had purchased three days before so I could sleep in the car. My plan was to jettison it with the rental car, but now I could use it to camp with. However, I knew it wouldn't be enough. This 3-pound bag was adequate for the enclosed car (where heat is retained), but it wouldn’t be sufficient to keep me warm outdoors.<br /><br />I checked my blackberry for the weather report. No rain was in the forecast, which was good, but there is usually heavy dew in the L.A. area, equivalent to a little light rain every night. The nighttime low was forecast at 45 degrees F. That’s a little below my own comfort rating for this bag when out in the open, especially given the dew. I felt I would need a second bag both for warmth and for padding underneath me. Experience told me that two sleeping bags laid down on grass or soft dirt, would provide adequate padding.<br /><br />I also checked Google Maps on my Blackberry for <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Ontario+International+Airport,+Ontario,+CA+91761&sll=37.244012,-115.813853&sspn=0.002259,0.004351&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ontario+International+Airport,+Ontario,+San+Bernardino,+California+91761&ll=34.060357,-117.579074&spn=0.004702,0.008701&t=h&z=17">aerial images of the area</a>. I had no real worry that I would find a place to camp. I knew that the airport was in a relatively sterile industrial area, away from any housing and probably without any homeless population. The aerial photos showed lots of open land and landscaping where I could easily hide. I could resolve exactly where after I dropped the car.<br /><br />At the base of Cajon Pass, I stopped briefly at the Acme™ Store on Foothill Blvd. All I needed was another sleeping bag. My usual $10 model was out of stock, so I upgraded to a posh $15 model (4 pounds). This $15 would be my only additional expense for the overnight stay (and my mistake in missing the flight). I would simply discard both sleeping bags in the morning. (This always pains me, but it beats paying $80 for a hotel.)<br /><br />I then raced to the airport, getting there after dark at about 6:45. As soon as I got close to the rental car center, I noticed a big empty field across the street. Voila! That would be my home for the night! I drove into a driveway of a communication shack (shown on the upper left on the image above), and under cover of darkness I offloaded my sleeping bags. Then I turned in the car in the nick of time and walked back to the field.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6O5BW2yY8eNDJf6hrbFsfHXJaNffKhYs_ewAqIucWDaQzalKPgUAizflKbBzMYSLZJMi5veFPs46_u96YLqQ-3DNyUt0R2jf4XcCOxTMEVtpjQwyZO6_ekJPfr2qO12inDlVUFusRPNU/s1600-h/IMG_7272.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 364px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6O5BW2yY8eNDJf6hrbFsfHXJaNffKhYs_ewAqIucWDaQzalKPgUAizflKbBzMYSLZJMi5veFPs46_u96YLqQ-3DNyUt0R2jf4XcCOxTMEVtpjQwyZO6_ekJPfr2qO12inDlVUFusRPNU/s400/IMG_7272.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443875248012954738" border="0" /></a>This field is the sort of place that is totally exposed during the day and yet completely secure at night. You can thank the magic of <span style="font-style: italic;">darkness</span> for that! Unlike other parts of the airport, this field isn't well-lit. I can see adequately now that my eyes have adjusted, but no one in a car can see into the field. Since I’m going to sleep early, I’ll be awake well before dawn and will break camp before anyone knows I am here.<br /><br />To the south of me is a main access road for the airport and to the north are active railroad tracks. I chose the middle of the field to be as far away as possible from both, as well as from any path a pedestrian might take (highly unlikely anyway). I feel completely secure here. It will be a little noisy from the trains, but there is no way anyone is going to detect me or stumble upon me accidentally before morning. There is no trash in the field, so humans rarely come here. The only threat might be gophers, who have riddled the field with holes and who might try to steal my food. I'll engage them in hand-to-hand combat if necessary.<br /><br />I’m comfortable using the better-quality $15 sleeping bag to sleep in and the $10 one as a mattress. No complaints! I expect to sleep as well as in any hotel and certainly better than I did at the <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2010/02/denver-flophouse.html">Denver flophouse</a>. I control my environment and have no humans to contend with. What could be better?<br /><br />MORNING UPDATE: I slept well and woke up at about 3:00 am (8pm-3am = 7 hours). The rail line must be a major one because many trains passed by during the night. Surprisingly, they didn't seem very loud to me; I was vaguely aware of them but they didn't significantly impact my sleep. I awoke to find a layer of water covering everything. If you are camping anywhere apart from an inland desert, dew is something you have to factor in. Fortunately, I anticipated it and sealed up all my bags. My sleeping bag was soaked on the outside, but the moisture didn't penetrate into the interior. No gophers attacked me. In all, a successful sleeping operation.<br /><br />By 5am, I had broken camp. I folded the sleeping bags on the pavement near the communication shack, where some passer-by would surely see them and take them home. I walked to the rental car center, worked on my computer there for a few hours, then took the shuttle bus to the main terminal. As the bus left the rental center, I caught this daytime glimpse of the field I had been sleeping in...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7T6WWkrX091XTryBA16DYRLjngxKJmwsv3-BqxceDAm-ODEsgKwyfnqjfKNrK62qbU91R3oJaJLNWhcc_SdtD19nqs5nyjvg9mSjt51ku7DStrx-t34tQ9BoSP-h3XPz7EsCdRCJnrOQ/s1600-h/IMG_7282.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7T6WWkrX091XTryBA16DYRLjngxKJmwsv3-BqxceDAm-ODEsgKwyfnqjfKNrK62qbU91R3oJaJLNWhcc_SdtD19nqs5nyjvg9mSjt51ku7DStrx-t34tQ9BoSP-h3XPz7EsCdRCJnrOQ/s400/IMG_7282.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443875248697396034" border="0" /></a>You would never guess that someone could camp there and not be seen, but that's what darkness can do. It gives you a safe campsite almost anywhere!<br /><br />(Also see my similar entry: <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/case-study-campsite-selection-in-reno.html">airport camping in Reno</a>.)Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-20611472311791775022010-02-28T13:05:00.001-08:002010-02-28T14:07:20.563-08:00Denver Flophouse<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6L98hLFRhJyM4WKmutSZ_GR-GLqr2l4dI8fHpBWRa3A3DcCpELJgzZdcITWL66hej7zO-Z2sRJDLozeSCdQKuiuXb97S7XBDmw1_FjZMW1OfC-fQtmudQgaYS0m_m_7b6Azd_csQrWJo/s1600-h/IMG_6738.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 289px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6L98hLFRhJyM4WKmutSZ_GR-GLqr2l4dI8fHpBWRa3A3DcCpELJgzZdcITWL66hej7zO-Z2sRJDLozeSCdQKuiuXb97S7XBDmw1_FjZMW1OfC-fQtmudQgaYS0m_m_7b6Azd_csQrWJo/s400/IMG_6738.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443403576641288946" border="0" /></a>Not all hosteling experiences are warm and fuzzy. A few days ago, I stayed at a Denver "hostel" listed on HostelWorld.com that was little more than an urban flophouse.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Here are my annotated photos of the <a href="http://roamingphotos.com/a?flophouse">11th Street Hotel in Denver, Colorado</a>.<br /><br />I didn't go into this blind. The reviews at HostelWorld gave me a good idea what to expect, but I didn't have many options. I was flying into Denver at 9pm and had to be in the suburbs at 7am the next day for a business engagement. All I needed was a place to sleep for about 7 hours. I had previously tried to sleep at the Denver airport, but this was less than optimal, since all seating there has armrests. (I would have to sleep on the carpeted floor, which just too hard for sustained sleep.) There was a legitimate youth hostel in Denver, but the front desk there closed at 10pm, and I preferred not to make special arrangements with them (and pay a fee) for my late arrival. Another option was to take the city bus to a Motel 6, but that would have taken me an hour more each way and eaten into my sleep time. Instead, with a sense of adventure, I tried this place.<br /><br />The hotel itself could pass for a funky hostel in Europe, but instead of lodging with German and Australian tourists, I was staying in a room full of local men who were going nowhere. Since I see myself as the "up and coming" homeless, I'm not thrilled to be associated with the down-and-out homeless, who are the clientele of this place. The men staying here were working and paying rent, but "recently released from prison" could probably describe most of them.<br /><br />I have never spent a night in prison, but sleeping in the windowless 12-bed basement dorm gave me a feeling for it. Men were coming and going all night, and even those who were sleeping were very loud, snoring and talking in their sleep. A man two beds away from me kept shouting out, "I wanna fucking KILL somebody!" Not a pleasant environment in which to sleep, and I didn't. I slept no more than three hours, than got up to work on my computer.<br /><br />I didn't feel afraid for my safety so much as being a fish out of water. This hotel seemed relatively clean and well-run for a transient hotel, but it's not a place that I or any other literate traveler should be hanging out. It wasn't the hotel itself but the clientele who made the difference, and the clientele here was dysfunctional enough to put me on alert. You can't really relax in those circumstances.<br /><br />Whenever you stay in a hostel in the USA, you have to make sure that they have a mechanism in place to keep out the local riffraff who would take advantage of the low rates. For example, some US hostels require you to have both a passport and an out-of-state ID. This keeps out the local druggies who couldn't even conceive of getting a passport.<br /><br />The rent was $16 a night, and for once I got what I paid for! In retrospect, I probably should have stayed at the airport! See the photo album above for my comments and my final HostelWorld review.<br /></div>Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-28643580565514519082010-02-21T16:51:00.001-08:002021-01-19T08:38:32.923-08:00Bargain Food Source: Buffet by the Pound<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPc874uEnW4LB_EzwIN7bLZGAGuoYWpM5XF0i9SwIC2H74fyBQVgIU6Oh6TaqkorlbY4SXApJNGZuQTA0zr5W0zoqaQyzEygqMeAGdxqK1xdm_S0aOEKauuWFFnlYN0K2DNmkA4UCCyXo/s1600-h/IMG00293.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440473118396280930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPc874uEnW4LB_EzwIN7bLZGAGuoYWpM5XF0i9SwIC2H74fyBQVgIU6Oh6TaqkorlbY4SXApJNGZuQTA0zr5W0zoqaQyzEygqMeAGdxqK1xdm_S0aOEKauuWFFnlYN0K2DNmkA4UCCyXo/s400/IMG00293.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 381px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>Earlier, I talked about the <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/02/native-food-sources-buffet.html">buffet</a> as an important food source for the unhomed, especially when you are driving across this great land. When you don't have a kitchen, a buffet gives you a rare opportunity for a balanced meal that you can't get from fast food or even an expensive sit-down restaurant. At a buffet, you can actually eat a lot better than most people with kitchens, because you don't have to prepare what you eat, just select from a wide variety of prepared items what you think makes the best diet. Sure, you can make bad decisions at buffets. From the girth of many of the patrons, I'd say that most people choose poorly, but the options are there for a healthy, nutritious diet if you choose to construct one.<br />
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The best nationwide buffet chain is <a href="http://www.goldencorral.com/">Golden Corral</a>, now found nearly everywhere along the Interstate highway system. Others are <a href="http://www.buffet.com/">HomeTown/Old Country Buffet</a> and <a href="http://www.ryans.com/">Ryans</a> (both owned by the same company). The price is reasonable: usually $8 or less for lunch and $12 or less for dinner (with nearly the same food at each).<br />
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I see only one problem with a buffet: I find it virtually impossible to not gorge myself! I consider myself a buffet professional from my Las Vegas years; I should be able to control my intake, but I still find it difficult. The cheapskate inside me is saying: "The food is all free now, so why not tank up?" It's hard to resist that one extra helping that pushes you into a stupor and eventually into obesity. This temptation is one reason I quit buffets for several years in Vegas. I saw my waistline slowly expanding!<br />
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Not only do find myself eating too much food at buffets, but I am not always eating the right foods, being drawn away by the richer stuff while healthier things like vegetables get neglected. Finally, I usually spend too much time in the buffet, often as much as an hour, when I could be doing other things.<br />
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But I have found a solution! There's a way to reap all the benefits of the buffet without falling prey to its temptations. <b>Buffet by the pound!</b><br />
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For example, at Golden Corral, you can bypass the cashier line and get a take-away tray (as shown above). Load it up judiciously with whatever you think you should eat, then take it to the cashier to be weighed. The price is amazingly low at GC: always less than $5 a pound and often as low as $4.19 a pound....<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWtHHq-cYci2R_F7eorkFXgXzq39IDvN50T9nmCNqnfKpXi8D3qay0df63vYQyB0lvQN0q6OBoLgbSz-WSSWF4w5NWFlyEpi0dQUlnuqz_iRHEqBQoJRB_u_p1xYVR_UM44BV6s1jVXw0/s1600-h/IMG00295.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWtHHq-cYci2R_F7eorkFXgXzq39IDvN50T9nmCNqnfKpXi8D3qay0df63vYQyB0lvQN0q6OBoLgbSz-WSSWF4w5NWFlyEpi0dQUlnuqz_iRHEqBQoJRB_u_p1xYVR_UM44BV6s1jVXw0/s400/IMG00295.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>To put this into perspective: Uncooked meat or fish that you buy at the supermarket easily costs $4 or more per pound. Here you are getting cooked and seasoned meat for only slightly more. (And you have to consider that it takes about 1-1/2 pounds of cooked meat to make 1 pound of cooked, making the deal even better.) You wonder why smart working parents don't stop by Golden Corral every evening. They could stock up on the entree, then cook the vegetable and starch at home.<br />
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What's more important to me, though, is portion control. When I fill up my tray at Golden Corral, I am making a conscious decision ahead of time about what I should be eating, rather than deciding on the fly as I gorge. Since I am paying by the pound, my internal cheapskate assures that won't buy too much, only what I think a proper meal should be. When I'm done, I essentially have a box lunch I can eat anytime. I can stop at the buffet in the morning when I am not hungry (and my choices are more rational) and then eat in the afternoon only when I am truly famished. When I am satiated, I can stop eating without feeling any pressure, knowing that I will still have the food for later. (I don't have refrigeration, but I don't see any storage safety issues in the few hours between purchase and consumption.)<br />
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Now, instead of gorging myself at one $8 buffet in early afternoon, I will go to Golden Corral when it opens around 11 am, fill up two trays with sensible food, pay about $6 for a pound and a half, and that food lasts me for the rest of the day. Pretty smart, actually!<br />
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I can even go into GC just for a snack. If I decide I want a salad, I fill my tray with just that. Since there is no minimum purchase, it ends up costing only about $2.50 for a salad I made myself, vs. twice as much at a fast food restaurant for something a lot more bland and lifeless. I can also visit the buffet on weekends and evenings, when the normal buffet price is over $10 and still pay only $4-5/pound. <br />
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When you think about it, this can be an incredible scam for the consumer. If you cherry-pick only the highest value items, you can come out with a lot more food value than you are paying for. Why spend $8 for two pounds of bacon at the supermarket, when (at the weekend breakfast buffet) you can pay $4.19 for one pound of crisp <i>cooked </i>bacon (equivalent to two pounds raw)? Same applies to a lot of other items: shrimp, nuts, fish, meat. I have even seen pine nuts occasionally at Golden Corral, which often retail for $20/pound.<br />
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It's not my intention to scam the restaurant, though, just get a balanced meal that's more than burritos and burgers. Since I am no cook, any buffet is going to give me far better nutrition than I could ever put together on my own, even if I had a full kitchen at my disposal.<br />
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Hometown/Old Country Buffet and Ryans also have buffet-by-the-pound options (although I haven't used them yet). If you're in a tony neighborhood, <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/">Whole Foods</a> also has an excellent salad/hot food bar, with some more exotic (and putatively healthier) items than your common buffet (<a href="http://www.roamingphotos.com/a?wholefoods">photos</a>). The price, however, is almost double: $7.99/pound. Still, you can do a lot better there, both in value and nutrition, than at any restaurant. You can always use buffet-by-the-pound for high value items while using common supermarkets for heavier low-value items like bread.<br />
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When I tell people about my nomadic lifestyle, they say, "Oh, you poor thing! How do you eat without a kitchen?" My reply is: "Probably a lot better than you!" Furthermore, I don't have to waste time grocery shopping, preparing meals, cleaning up and maintaining all that complex kitchen infrastructure. I simply choose my food and eat it. What could be simpler, cheaper or easier?Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-5086648647410129872010-02-10T05:36:00.000-08:002010-02-10T10:00:00.157-08:00What you don't need for sleep<a href="http://www.paranormalmovie.com/" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436292395857262226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxq26drdaKv2GSgFOoQrcqPDdLwB1MLbrB2-U280nPSp7NXLyQ8eBPstJpHlFSWbzHLW9UTErCzhpA0pre0Ku-ixSXPoKXmK9NR1ILKxFATu0camoEEPryAvx3u57VGrgG1-QJDAD2Wsw/s400/paranormal-activity-whatisupthere.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 256px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" border="0" /></a><br />In <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/03/requirements-of-sleep-overview.html">an earlier entry</a>, I talked about the minimum requirements for sleep. Sleep is one those critical elements of life that we know little about. When you talk about where "home" is, you are really talking about where you are going to sleep tonight. If you can work out where to be safely unconscious for 7 hours, then all the other functions of a home are negotiable.<br /><br />In this entry, I’d like to explore sleep in more detail by discussing the things you may think you need but really don’t. Everyone has their own perceived sleep requirements. They insist, "I can't sleep without X." Turns out, most of those sleep requirements are imaginary, and you'll do fine without them if you only have the courage to try. Over the course of my travels, I’ve slept in many contorted positions and unusual circumstances. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences where I've hardly slept at all, and many surprising ones where I slept soundly in spite of rough-seeming conditions. You don’t need a Martha Stewart-style tuck-in bed with a special mattress in a heated room. However, you do need to both listen to your body and be willing to push it a little.<br /><br />To understand the requirements of sleep let’s talk about the things you <i>don’t</i> need:<br /><br /><b>You Don't Need: A “made” bed.</b> The traditional bed from the Middle Ages – with sheets and blankets tucked in under the mattress – is absolutely the worst for retaining heat! In a made bed, you are trying to heat the entire surface area under the sheets. Since you are essentially a lump under two flat panels, heat is always escaping out the sides. As soon as you turn over, you encounter a new expanse of cold sheets.<br /><br />A sleeping bag retains heat much better! No heat escapes out the sides, and when you turn over, your bedding stays with you. If you buy cheap sleeping bags (like the <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-to-keep-warm.html">$10 one</a> at <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/style-note-evil-mega-mart-is-now-acme.html">Acme™</a>), then you don’t even need to wash them; just throw them away when they get rank. (Not to mention the time saver of never having to make your bed in the morning.)<br /><br /><b>You Don't Need: </b><b>Active heating.</b> At night, your body generates a lot less heat than during the day; consequently, you need more insulation. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you need central heating – or any fuel-burning heat at all! Anything that can be accomplished by outside heat can also be accomplished by just adding more layers of insulation, as close as possible to your skin.<br /><br />Start with wearing all the warm clothes you have, including sweaters and jackets. Then you sleep in a sleeping bag, not in drafty blankets. If you are still cold at night, you can insert the first sleeping bag into a second one, maybe with a third draped on top. Finally, it helps to be sleeping in a small enclosed space, like a car or small tent. The smaller this space is, the better your body heat will keep it warm (so a car or one-man tent work better than a van or cabin tent).<br /><br />In my experience, there is no low temperature that can’t be addressed at night by simply adding more insulation, provided it is dry. You don’t need to use any fuel at all! (I have done zero degrees F but can't speak with authority about temperatures lower than that.)<br /><br />The situation is different during the day, when you are moving around and can’t carry all that insulation with you. To type on a keyboard, for example, the ambient temperature has to be warm enough so your fingers will work. (At this moment, I am lying in a car with the heater turned on.) When you are out of your cocoon and need to get things done, you may indeed need an active heat source, but if your body is still bundled up well you probably don’t need as much heat as you think you do. Wearing more clothes is always cheaper than turning up the thermostat.<br /><br />As for having a human sleep partner to warm you up... that heat source is overrated! To begin with, your partner is a localized heat source. He/she does not heat or insulate you on the other side. Furthermore, your sleep position is rarely in sync with theirs. If you insist on sleeping naked with this person, then you’ve lost as significant layer of insulation (warm clothing). It may get complicated emotionally, but strictly in terms of heat retention, it is far more efficient to sleep alone.<br /><br /><b>You Don't Need: </b><b>Special Mattresses.</b> You can’t sleep for long on a hard, flat surface. I’ve tried many times, and it doesn’t work. The problem is that your body is bumpy, not flat, so there will be narrow pinch points where it comes in contact with the hard surface. After a while resting on these pressure points, the blood circulation gets cut off, and it begins to hurt. To sleep well, you need some minimal padding, but you don’t need Memory Foam™, a water bed or a Serta™ Sleep Number™ Bed. You just need enough padding to distribute a point of pressure onto several square inches. Then you will turn over several times throughout the night so that this wider area doesn't become sore.<br /><br />You may protest: “But I have a very delicate back, and I need this special mattress to protect it.” Rubbish! For millennia, humans have been sleeping without special mattresses and have gotten by. You have to ask yourself whether your back problems aren’t <i>caused</i> by your cushy mattress and posh existence (not to mention your rich diet!). Like any body part, your back is going to work best if it is exercised – put through a little stress – and maybe one way to do this is to sleep with minimal padding.<br /><br />In my experience, a half-inch of hard foam is sufficient, but a full inch is better. An air mattress is luxury, indeed! Car seats are fine. Sometimes the grass under the floor of a tent is sufficient. In a pinch, you can use blankets or a sleeping bag as padding underneath you. You can look around you for available materials. After sleeping on cushy Memory Foam for years, it might take a while to get used to anything else, but it is something your body can adapt to, and eventually you’ll be sleeping just as well.<br /><br /><b style="font-weight: bold;">You Don't Need: </b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lots of Space.</span> When <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">sleeping in cars</a>, I have often squeeze myself into some very confined areas. It's like living in a tight space capsule. I have curled up in the fetal position in the back seat of some tiny European cars and still slept well. You don’t need a queen-size bed to toss and turn on. In fact, the smaller space might actually be better. It is certainly better for heat retention, but I also find that I go to sleep faster in a confined space.<br /><br />You do need to be able to lie level, with your head at about the same level as your feet. If any body part is significantly lower than the rest, blood will pool there and it will eventually become uncomfortable. (You can sleep sitting up on occasion, like <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-sleep-in-airplane.html">in airplanes</a>, but it is rarely optimal sleep and it may be damaging to your cardiovascular system over time.)<br /><br />When sleeping on a big flat bed, there is a preferred sleep position your body usually reverts to. Some people usually sleep on their backs, others on their stomachs, etc. If you sleep in a confined space, you may be forced into a different position. This may take a few nights to get used to, but your body will adapt. (I traditionally sleep on my stomach, and I end up that way on a hotel bed, but I can sleep just as well on my side, which is how I usually do it in a car.)<br /><br />One thing you do need is the opportunity to change position during the night. It is normal to “turn over,” or change sleep position, several times throughout the night. This prevents bed sores on the part of your body that is bearing your weight. This is one reason that sleeping in a coffin wouldn’t work: You have to have enough space to turn, or your body will protest and wake you up in the middle of the night.<br /><br />You don’t need an infinite number of sleep positions, however; only two! You need your "primary position", and you need a "relief position" to give the pressure points of your primary position a rest. You sleep in your primary position until it becomes uncomfortable; then you shift to a secondary position. After a few minutes in the new position, the pressure points recover, and you can turn back to your original position. So, when choosing a confined space to sleep in, you don’t just need to be able to fit; you also need to be able to turn to a second position, resting on different parts of your body.<br /><br /><b style="font-weight: bold;">You Don't Need: </b><b>Quiet and Darkness.</b> Your brain needs protection from sensory input to sleep well. It is hard to sleep in a noisy or brightly lit area – or when CNN is blaring at you from a screen overhead. (It is also a significant danger to your hearing to sleep in a noisy place.) There is no reason, however, that you can’t create your own quiet and darkness locally when the environment would give them to you. Quiet is created locally through use of foam earplugs (available in the firearms section of <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/style-note-evil-mega-mart-is-now-acme.html">Acme</a>). These are rolled up and insert all the way inside the ear canal, so they are barely protruding from the ear. This cuts nearly all sounds down to murmur. To create artificial darkness, you can use a $3 sleep mask (from the suitcase/travel department at Acme). If you don’t have one, you can use a wool cap or a shirt pulled down over your eyes.<br /><br />Earplugs are handy accessories even when you’re not trying to sleep. Cuts down the noise of everyday life! For example, if you find yourself in a waiting room with a TV blaring, just insert your earplugs and you’re in heaven again!<br /><br /><b>You Don't Need: A Full Night's Sleep Every Night.</b> College students learn quickly that you can get by without much sleep if you need to. Most people can pull an "all-nighter" and still be reasonably functional in the morning. The one thing you can't do is repeat all nighters several nights in a row. Eventually, the sleep deficit is going to catch up with you.<br /><br />Without sleep, the first thing you lose is your creativity. Sometimes, lack of sleep is intoxicating, but like other forms of intoxication, you can't expect your judgment to be there too. After more than 24 hours without sleep, you start to go seriously insane, with effects resembling schizophrenia. You really don't want to push it.<br /><br />But if life or travel circumstances present you with a sleepless night, you don't need to panic. You'll catch up on it later. You want to avoid bad sleep if you can, but if your night gets washed out, you'll make do. Sometimes just a few catnaps is enough to keep you going. You might not be good for much while awake (no creativity), but you'll survive. Knowing this, can give you some flexibility when planning ahead. "I'll get good sleep on Monday and Wednesday, but Tuesday could be rough."<br /><br />One of the useful functions of sleep is just to help you pass the time in a boring location, when your brain is functioning poorly so you can't get anything done. If you are trapped in a city overnight, and the subway doesn't open until morning, sometimes the best thing to do is give up. Just walk around for six hours and try to make some use of your time. The point is, you can probably catch up on sleep later.<br /><br />In the course of my normal life at present, I pass back and forth across many time zones. Like airline pilots, I have learned to get used to it. As long as I get 7 hours of sleep in each 24 hour period, I'm fine, and whenever I have a chance to catch more sleep, I take advantage of it. Sleep, I find, is something like a bank account: You can make larger withdrawls on occasion, as long as you are prepared to bank more sleep later.<br /><br /><b>You Don't Need: </b><b>Privacy.</b> When looking for a place to sleep, it is reasonable to seek privacy. After all, when you are unconscious you can’t protect yourself from thieves, predators and others who would do you harm. Privacy is the best policy whenever you can get it. For most animals, sleeping and hiding go together.<br /><br />But you can get a good night’s sleep in public places if you need to. Airports are places I often find myself sleeping, and if you can do it inside security, there is very little risk. With earplugs and eye covering, I can often sleep just as soundly at Gate A19 as in any hotel. For a catnap, you can also sleep on beaches and public parks during the day. You can also in airport outside security if necessary. The enormous value of sleep often outweighs the vulnerability of it.<br /><br />To sleep comfortably in a public place, you have to pass some significant emotional hurdles. Sleep is a big, dark question mark to most of us. We don’t have a clue what is going o there, so it’s frightening to do it in public. Are you going to sleepwalk or blurt out something embarrassing in your dreams? Are you going to look stupid while you sleep, so people laugh at you? Closing yourself in a private room avoids any such risk, but unfortunately, this kind of privacy can be expensive, both in money and time.<br /><br />There is no easy solution here. You just have to get to know your sleeping self and be comfortable with it. Once, I set up a video camera to record myself sleeping in a normal bed. I saw that I turned about every twenty minutes and always rotated in the same direction, wrapping myself in my sheets like a mummy. It was very interesting to see myself sleeping, and it contributed to my sleeping self-confidence.<br /><br />As I have become more relaxed with my waking self (no easy feat in itself), I have come to terms with my sleeping self. My dreams as a child were bizarre and terrifying, and I walked and talked in my sleep. Sleep was frightening! In middle age, however, I have no fear. My dreams today are pretty much an extension of my waking state. I dream about the same things I am thinking about during the day, making sleep a fertile extension of my thinking time. I get lots of things done during sleep, and I don’t have any nightmare unless my life really is a nightmare when I’m awake. Thus, sleeping in a public place (as long as it it safe) isn't really a problem for me.<br /><br />Males do have a special problem in that during REM sleep, they—um—“expand”. In other words, sleep is nature’s Viagra, and there is a chance this non-sexual boner may be evident to the general public. (For the record, the same thing happens to females at night, but it’s not visible.) You can address this risk by covering yourself with a light airline-style blanket, which you may need anyway to keep warm<br /><br />I'll always seek our privacy when it is available, but if it isn't I'll make do. The important thing is to adapt to your environment and get some sleep whatever way you can.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And Finally, Some Philosophy....</span><br /><br />When people have difficulty sleeping, it usually has more to do with life circumstances than sleeping circumstances. Obviously, if you are under a lot of stress during the day, your problems are going to join you at night. If you are repressing things during the day—that is, refusing to deal with problems directly—then it is likely they will emerge in your nightmares.<br /><br />It also appears that sleep becomes more irregular as people age. So what's the big deal? You simply sleep when you can and get up and do things when you can't. The only thing that makes irregular sleep a burden is your insistence that it take place during certain hours. Sometimes, the best guarantee of insomnia is the mantra, "I must get some sleep!"<br /><br />And if you need an alarm clock to wake up, you are cheating sleep. Sure, work and travel may demand an alarm occasionally, but if you can manage to sleep without it, according to your body's own rhythms, then you'll have your head screwed on straighter when you rise.<br /><br />When you hit the sack and sleep doesn't come, it is easy to blame your bed. When Garrison Keillor mentions the Sleep Number™ bed, you may be duped into thinking some special product like this will solve your problems. There are no lack of marketers willing to sell you something to improve your sleep. Like any other placebo, these products may work if you think they will, but they don't address the underlying problems. They can't fix your head!<br /><br />Once you get your head around something and decide you can do it, it is amazing how previous barriers get brushed aside. If you are on a mission to climb a mountain, you'll find a place to sleep, and you'll sleep well, because working toward a purpose is more effective than any sleep aid.Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-61040875916827318362010-02-04T16:34:00.000-08:002010-02-04T18:12:50.143-08:00The Psychology of Keeping Warm<a href="http://www.xfellow.com/2009/06/18/winter-swimming/" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434523841100294498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7SgayHDAp3Go0hQicbT-f3kVOtbCOGiMYlsGrW0WZXG2dO_fAzJ7YV-yRMPZBuSBE-iDg_PnsBepM4vS8NbqXRXXeqf09O0XqGje9TIhfIeWRwSlM1j-QkqhTqUpe9RV3TLG2W7_BWys/s400/Ice-Swimming.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" border="0" /></a>In an earlier entry, I talked about <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-to-keep-warm.html">How to Keep Warm</a>. The basic strategy is simple: keep dry and keep adding layers of clothing (or sleeping bags) until you are comfortable. This certainly works, but it doesn't tell the whole story about handling cold. It turns out your state of mind has a lot to do with how cold or warm you feel.<br /><br />As animals go, humans are pretty naked. We have no fur, so we rely mainly on clothing to keep us warm. That doesn't mean our body has no resources, though. Humans have been living in cold regions for millenia, most of that time without central heating and without much more than loose animal skins to throw over themselves. Think of Eskimos living in igloos or American Indians in teepees. Yes, humans had fire, but you can't stoke a fire all night and still sleep, and fire doesn't help you when you're moving about.<br /><br />To have survived, our bodies must have numerous physiological adaptations to the cold, most of which we rarely call upon in the modern world. An obvious one is shivering. If your core body temperature falls below a certain level, the body automatically ramps up metabolic activity. Other adaptations are less obvious. One is the restriction of blood flow to the skin and extremities. Others are various chemical processes to produce and retain heat inside the body.<br /><br />You don't really know what your body can do until you test it. Unfortunately, most of us never really do. When we get a little chilly, we cry, "I'm cold!" and rush back inside.<br /><br />Yet, there are still people who push the limits. Alpinists climb mountains in harsh conditions, sleeping on the ice with only the equipment they can carry with them. In the Himalayas, monks make long winter treks in the same thin robes they wear in summer. And every winter in northern climates damn fools cut holes in the ice and insist on swimming, if only for a few minutes. Far from being pained by the cold, these people seem to revel in it! The cold certainly isn't killing them. On the contrary, it seems to make them healthier!<br /><br />What makes these cold adventurers different than those who fear and hate the cold? It's probably not their bodies. It's more likely a matter of attitude.<br /><br />When you are depressed, for example, you probably won't take the cold very well. You'll huddle under blankets and turn the heat way up. On the other hand, if you are well-motivated and directed toward a mission—like mountain climbers are—you'll brush the cold aside until it becomes a real obstacle.<br /><br />Part of the difference may be physiological. There could be a mysterious mind-over-body thing where your body responds better when your brain thinks it can do something. But the main reason cold-haters are cold and cold-lovers are comfortable is that cold lovers take control of their situation while cold haters just let things happen.<br /><br />When people are depressed, poorly directed or regard themselves as victims, they become very passive. "Woe is me!" they say, instead of taking positive actions to address their problems. It is amazing how many people will complain about the cold rather than doing something simple like <i>putting on a damn sweater!</i><br /><br />Seriously, when someone claims to be cold, look at what they are wearing. In most cases, you'll see that their clothing isn't suited to the weather at hand. And they would rather complain about their discomfort than actually remedy it!<br /><br />If you're cold all the time, try wearing some long thermal underwear. It's not very expensive (at <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/style-note-evil-mega-mart-is-now-acme.html">Acme</a>™), and because it is close to your skin, it works wonders for raising your body temperature. If that doesn't work, try <span style="font-style: italic;">two </span>layers of long underwear. It's not rocket science! Yet, passive, poorly directed people won't take pro-active steps like this until they have already gone through a lot of pain.<br /><br />At the other end of the spectrum are strongly motivated people who take control of whatever problem they face. They realize, "I'm getting cold. What do I need to do to address this problem?" They look around their environment for solutions, and they actually implement them!<br /><br />Passive people tend to fall back on conventional solutions and are reluctant to try anything hidden or unusual (like long underwear). Active people are more creative, independent and opportunistic, taking advantage of whatever tools they find in the environment, even for purposes those tools weren't originally intended for. Passive people often to try to buy their way out of their problems -- say by ordering some sort of expensive mountaineer's jacket from L.L. Bean. Active people tend to solve problems quicker, cheaper and more effectively using the materials at hand. Their ingenuity usually works better than money because they are actually listening to their own senses and figuring out what the real problem is.<br /><br />Another difference between passive and active people concerns tolerance of mild discomfort. When you're depressed or don't respect yourself, every unpleasant sensation is magnified. Even a little chill seems intolerable and triggers panic. Well-directed people will brush the chill aside. They analyze it and say, "It's no big thing; my body can handle it." The important thing to the well-directed people is pursuing the mission at hand; they are not going to let the cold or any other irritating sensation get in the way of it. Only when the irritation becomes an actual obstacle will they stop and address it.<br /><br />Of course, the same principle applies to managing heat. Some people insist that they can't live without air conditioning as soon as the thermometer drifts a little above room temperature. Turns out, your body has a lot of built-in adaptations to heat as well as the cold (like expanding the sweat glands), but you have to turn these systems on through actual use. Construction workers manage to get things done in all kinds of weather through a combination of pro-active adaptation and just not giving a damn about whatever irritation gets in their way.<br /><br />In a wider sense, this can apply to anything. Passive people see obstacles, while active people find solutions. Often, it's just a matter of getting off your hiney and doing something!<br /><br />You can't make cold or heat go away, and there are limits to what your body can safely tolerate, but no matter what circumstances you are facing, you probably have a lot more negotiating power than you think you do. You just have to get it into your head that the problem is yours, not someone else's, and that you alone are going to solve it!Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-16197043901336518672010-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:002010-01-27T09:47:17.971-08:00Money<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8JTG-AazifZTVx7aHhJphfaslsW65APFqAmaLR0f-ZFJ29zYOkBn716pLF7TIvGgFOJGNprD5FCHeaSLpt15F5Rwa-o9pfMNAX2ltytwfZrJD460YJngr7GBzEZBppX3eeZIar_JXKSs/s1600-h/us-money-photo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8JTG-AazifZTVx7aHhJphfaslsW65APFqAmaLR0f-ZFJ29zYOkBn716pLF7TIvGgFOJGNprD5FCHeaSLpt15F5Rwa-o9pfMNAX2ltytwfZrJD460YJngr7GBzEZBppX3eeZIar_JXKSs/s400/us-money-photo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431450182019436722" border="0" /></a>Okay, maybe it's time we sat down and talked about the birds and the bees. Just because I am suggesting you sleep for free doesn't mean I think you can get by without money. Unfortunately, money is essential in life, and you have to find a way to generate it. Otherwise, your life is going to be difficult and painful no matter how you cut corners.<br /><br />I propose Free Sleeping merely as a tool in your arsenal to help you control your costs, so you can live comfortably and do the things you want to do within the income you have. You still need an income, though.<br /><br />What I mean to say -- and you understand this is as hard for me as it is for you -- the thing is, what I want to say is....<br /><br />You have to get a job!<br /><br />This doesn't roll easily off my tongue: j-j-j-job. Nonetheless, I have to say it or some of you will get the wrong impression, that you can just live off the land, or off the discards from society, without any filthy lucre in your pocket. Sooner or later, you have to make a deal with the devil. You have to provide a service to someone else that they are willing to pay you for.<br /><br />It isn't easy. One of the major challenges in life is finding work that will make you enough money to survive while at the same time allowing you to pursue your own goals and maintain your own morals. If you are willing to sacrifice your principles, there is plenty of work out there. It is just a matter of how low you are willing to sink.<br /><br />For the things you most want to do -- like pursuing some creative art or directly helping people in need -- it unlikely that anyone will pay you for it. That's when you have to be willing to make sacrifices and compromises, and one of them might mean doing without formal lodging.<br /><br />Generally speaking, the higher paying jobs require more commitment. Most "careers" require turning your life over to them. If you are an engineer or computer programmer, for example, you're going to have to devote your brain to other people's projects during most of your working day. If you feel that your brain time is more valuable than that, then you will have to take more of a "caretaking" job, like security guard, factory worker or airline ramp worker, where your body is working for your employer but your mind is still your own. Unfortunately, these jobs tend to pay far less than those that demand your full brain and full commitment.<br /><br />The main idea of Free Sleeping is that it lowers your cost of living and thereby increases your options for finding the kind of work that works for you. It means you don't have to make a huge salary to survive.<br /><br />Likewise, learning to sleep cheaply when traveling means that you'll be able do more of it. Most Americans, for example, never travel overseas, in part because the cost is so daunting. There's airfare, of course but also a hotel bill that often dwarfs it. In Hawaii, the cheapest hotels can set you back $200 a night -- or you can rent a car for $200 a week, sleep in it, and never pay a cent for lodging. In Paris, you can stay at the Sheraton for $200 a night, or you could stay in a youth hostel for a whole week for the same price. The only barrier is you getting your mind around the concept -- of sleeping in a way that may not meet your preconceptions.<br /><br />And ultimately, you still need the $200, which has to come from somewhere.<br /><br />If you are out of work now, I don't have any easy solution for you. I know times are tough, with the US unemployment rate over 10%, and most of the readily available jobs of a few years ago have evaporated. It used to be that every fast food restaurant was hiring; now, you may have to fight for even those jobs.<br /><br />But there are still jobs out there. As I drive across the country (in my own temporary self-made job) I still see Help Wanted signs. They are usually in pockets of relative prosperity that have been little affected by the recession, like Nebraska, but they can be found in hard-hit areas as well. Last week on the Big Island of Hawaii, I saw that a McDonalds was hiring at $9/hour (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30969136&l=5de56a479b&id=1003315385">photo</a>). The only trouble, of course, is that you're not in Hawaii right now, and you probably couldn't afford to live there by any conventional means.<br /><br />The burden for most people who have lost their jobs is not just the lack of opportunities but the huge infrastructure they built around themselves when times were good. Not only are they out of work, but they are trapped in a house that can't be sold with pets and possessions (and I dare say children) that can't be easily gotten rid of. A minimum-wage job may be heaven to someone with few expenses, but it's a humiliation to someone who has been making many times more and has built their life based on that assumption.<br /><br />If there is anything worthwhile I can convey in this blog, it's the importance of keeping your life lean and simple regardless of your income. If your living expenses are only a fraction of your income and you are free to change course with minimal notice, then you are by any practical measure "wealthy", even if you are earning only minimum wage. Many who are making (or once made) $100,000/year are in far worst straits than you are, because their obligations and perceived "needs" crept upward with their income.<br /><br />When you have the money, it's really hard to resist spending it. But spending beyond your basic needs almost always results in new obligations. If you buy a second car or second home, you've also bought a huge maintenance burden you don't really need. If the economic tide turns, all those obligations will come back to bite you. If your income drops from $100,000 down to $50,000, suddenly you could find yourself in dire straits, even if $50,000 once seemed like a lot of money.<br /><br />What I am trying to do in this blog is explore some of the baseline conditions of life: the lowest point a which you can comfortably get by. If the weather is good, you might be able to buy a $10 sleeping bag at Acme™ and sleep just as comfortably in car as in a $100 hotel room.<br /><br />Once, this lifestyle might have embarrassed me, but now I am more embarrassed by the people who are trapped in their huge, self-inflicted infrastructure who insist they can't sleep in a car because it would hurt their back. (Get a clue: Your back hurts because you've been sleeping in that cushy bed all your life!) I see no reason to be embarrassed by freedom.<br /><br />Even at my advanced age, I would work at McDonalds. I'd rather be in the back flipping burgers than up front working the registers, but I could live comfortably on that income. To me, this is a reasonable sacrifice to protect my mind. You couldn't pay me anything to be an air traffic controller or any other job where they expect me to "think" for a living and constantly concentrate on a task that I don't thoroughly believe in.<br /><br />That's how your life gets sucked away.Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-48534106854223644552010-01-26T14:11:00.000-08:002010-01-26T15:02:43.771-08:00Health Club Deal: $300 for 2 Years!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGk3GkN8QDOef1k9TIkVlN4xUrPmoC7yfWiBqjoubxAJsSRqDEpK0sBvRWa3y5s28bhezX5Wv08dfCzzOY6oO_YEWUdNEm1x7ji5IKSTHS-bnTr4cqvIuN-ccf2jzLZWGG5ACJKHVsZFU/s1600-h/IMG00213.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGk3GkN8QDOef1k9TIkVlN4xUrPmoC7yfWiBqjoubxAJsSRqDEpK0sBvRWa3y5s28bhezX5Wv08dfCzzOY6oO_YEWUdNEm1x7ji5IKSTHS-bnTr4cqvIuN-ccf2jzLZWGG5ACJKHVsZFU/s400/IMG00213.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431177870903748834" border="0" /></a>Here's pretty decent deal on a health club membership: $299.99 (aka $300) at <a href="http://www.samsclub.com/">Sam's Club</a> for a 2 -year membership at <a href="http://www.24hourfitness.com/">24-Hour Fitness</a>. That's $12.50/month for unlimited showers and hot tub soaks at the vast majority of 24-Hour Fitness clubs in the USA (excluding only "Super Sport" clubs in certain wealthy neighborhoods). Even if you had to join Sams Club ($35) just to take advantage of this offer, you'd still be getting a fantastic deal.<br /><br />A health club membership like this means you could sleep in rough circumstances (like camping or in your car) and still maintain your personal hygiene. If you <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">slept in a car</a>, stored your clothes in a storage unit and showered at a health club, your real quality of life (and your appearance to others) isn't going to be different than living in a fixed residence. As long as you aren't into entertaining and don't need television, this is a sustainable lifestyle.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.24hourfitness.com/">24-Hour Fitness</a> is a national chain, but it isn't located everywhere. It is strongest on the West Coast, especially Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix. (Here's their <a href="http://www.24hourfitness.com/health_clubs/find_a_club/interactive.html">location map</a>.) This chain is not helpful in the Northeast, although there is one Sport club (covered by the above plan) in the Bronx, New York City. There are even clubs in Hawaii, on both Oahu and Maui. (Rent a car, sleep in it and shower at the club, and you can avoid rip-off hotel bills.) In my favorite camping city, San Diego, there are clubs everywhere, some of them adjacent to the trolley line. Even during the rains last February, when <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/02/diary-february-7-in-lap-of-luxury.html">my tent got swamped</a>, I could still walk to the 24-Hour Fitness and soak in the hot tub.<br /><br />24-Hour Fitness seems to be the best club for this purpose, at least in the Southwest. The "24-hour" feature can be extremely helpful at times. Another chain, <a href="https://www.lafitness.com/">LA Fitness</a>, has a stronger presence in the Northeast (<a href="https://www.lafitness.com/Pages/findclub.aspx">location map</a>), but I'm not familiar with their pricing or policies. <a href="http://www.goldsgym.com/">Golds Gym</a> has more locations than both clubs combined, but each club is individually owned and they may not have a national plan.<br /><br />If you know of any other useful health club deals, let me know.Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-13108365355265028112010-01-13T15:53:00.001-08:002010-01-13T16:03:29.381-08:00On Hiatus<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqP_GiYvewg2F5pRJpnPKZXsIL7db9NfkDAN9JWpVb0QBNrhraEztJXFizHmh-w2rgHhWcDSRafNH5RmD-D7U5SIjUjkdLUdQ2UTLeOb8X82ObcnllTwwgGp0hNpElCx3n4W2cmrdrFvI/s1600-h/marciero.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 270px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqP_GiYvewg2F5pRJpnPKZXsIL7db9NfkDAN9JWpVb0QBNrhraEztJXFizHmh-w2rgHhWcDSRafNH5RmD-D7U5SIjUjkdLUdQ2UTLeOb8X82ObcnllTwwgGp0hNpElCx3n4W2cmrdrFvI/s400/marciero.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426377964466370706" border="0" /></a>New additions to this blog have been temporarily suspended while I focus on my main writing project, a novel.<br /><br />The novel happens to feature a homeless guy. You can read the completed chapters here....<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.kilroycafe.com/novel">Passing Through<br /></a></div><br />I expect to reactivate this blog eventually. When I do, here are some of the topics I hope to cover:<br /><ul><li>The Psychology of Keeping Warm</li><li>Medical Insurance<br /></li></ul>You can still read the past year of existing blog entries below.Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-4624305921640279522009-12-23T07:25:00.000-08:002010-02-04T18:07:08.242-08:00How to Keep Warm<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6nJPrgn1w45C9L0594gLEb_yIBS4Kr7hL1JpmWkx7EnWFMmwg0Ps_Yz_f6OkZblOSoVquIL469oLspYX4pqZ7ovoTEC5fj3C1hivSPXZrECmfTmVtFIWYNggP81l9Ik8hYdeF3ELrGTY/s1600-h/igloo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6nJPrgn1w45C9L0594gLEb_yIBS4Kr7hL1JpmWkx7EnWFMmwg0Ps_Yz_f6OkZblOSoVquIL469oLspYX4pqZ7ovoTEC5fj3C1hivSPXZrECmfTmVtFIWYNggP81l9Ik8hYdeF3ELrGTY/s400/igloo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418455456033432994" border="0" /></a>Learning how to keep warm is an existential problem we all have to face on our own. It takes many years to figure out what works. Being comfortable depends on listening to your own senses and experimenting with the available materials around you. Learning to be warm in a cold environment is at lot like learning to be happy in an inherently hostile world. You have to understand yourself and the forces around you and learn how to manipulate both to your advantage.<br /><br />In the beginning, our parents dressed us, but they could never get it quite right. Much of the time we were either too hot or too cold. They might insist, for example, that we wear warm clothing in circumstances where we were very active and generating a lot of heat on our own. As with other skills of self-maintenance, our parents might head us in the right direction, but they can't know exactly what is right for us because they aren't us! They don't have access to all the data we have. To be truly comfortable, you have to take control of your own fate and politely push away the advice of others.<br /><br />Likewise, marketers think they know what will keep us warm -- expensive jackets, sleeping bags or hokey hand warmers -- but of course they have a profit motive in selling us things we don't need. Keeping warm doesn't necessarily involve a lot of money. It requires wisdom about your own needs, knowledge of your environment and the willingness to plan ahead.<br /><br />Central heating is the lazy man's way to keep warm. If you live in a heated building (i.e. a "home") and you pump enough of active energy into the air, you can lounge around naked regardless of the temperature outside. This, however, is enormously wasteful, both in money and energy. The bigger the space you are living in, the more air and surface area you have to heat, and most of this energy usually comes from the burning of fossil fuels. In the winter in the north, you could end up spending almost as much on heating fuel as you do on rent or mortgage.<br /><br />Humans survived in harsh environments for thousands of years without central heating. How did they do it? They protected themselves with small shelters and wrapped lots of insulation around themselves, close to their body. Even in extreme environments like the arctic, their body heat alone was enough to keep them alive.<br /><br />How does this translate to the modern homeless lifestyle? You may need to find, build or rent a shelter when the climate requires it, but a very small one. The smaller you shelter is, the more easily your own body heat will keep it warm. Then, within the shelter, you wrap yourself in insulation -- warm clothes and sleeping bags instead of fur and leather. You add as many layers as needed until you are toasty. There is no outside temperature you can't comfortably survive by this passive method, with no active heat source apart from your own body.<br /><br />Your needs for warmth are different during the day than they are at night. In the day, you are more physically active, generating more internal heat, and need only about half the insulation you require at night. The real challenge of keeping warm is doing it overnight, when you will be hibernating for seven hours. Everything has to be set up adequately before you begin or you won't get a good night's sleep.<br /><br />Keeping warm during the day is relatively straightforward: You dress in layers. When you are cold, you add more layers (like another sweater), and when you get hot, you remove some of them. Your own senses will tell you when to add or remove; you just have to listen to them. It may take some people years to catch on -- You have to dress warm to stay warm! -- but eventually they do.<br /><br />Keeping warm at night is much more of a challenge because ideally you want to be unconscious the whole time, which means you don't have the opportunity to add or remove layers. You want to have everything in place before you go to sleep, anticipating the conditions you will experience later at night. Since keeping warm while you sleep is a greater challenge than doing it in the daytime, the rest of this article will focus on that.<br /><br />You don't always need a shelter! If the weather is dry and insect-free (like in the desert), you don't need any shelter even down to temperatures as low as freezing. You can just sleep on a mattress out in the open! Significantly below freezing, you might want a tent for added warmth and protection from wind.<br /><br />In the rest of the world, thought, water is your main enemy. If snow or rain fall on your bedding, they could destroy its thermal value. Surrounding yourself in layers of insulation only works if it remains dry. Water is a heat sink! Many a miserable Boy Scout has learned the hard way that a wet sleeping bag is little better than no sleeping bag at all!<br /><br />That's the main purpose of a shelter: to keep you dry! A secondary benefit is cutting the wind, which also sweeps away your heat (although not as much as water does). If you are enclosed in a small shelter like a tent or car, your body heat can start working and warm up the space to something greater than the outside air.<br /><br />An airtight shelter is better than a porous one, which makes a car a superior choice to a tent. (See <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">How to Sleep in a Car</a> and <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-sleep-in-tent.html">How to Sleep in a Tent</a>.) The smaller the car the better, because it means less space to heat. (In a big van, your body heat has very little effect on the ambient air.) You do need fresh air to breath, and you may need to crack a window a bit to get enough of it (with a corresponding loss in heat), but it is remarkable how small the crack can be. (Don't worry, your body will tell you when you need more air. A lack of oxygen isn't the same as carbon monoxide poisoning. You'll be gasping for air long before you are at any risk of death.)<br /><br />BTW: Caves are overrated as shelters. First of all you have to find one at just the place you happen to need it. Secondly, they tend to be very damp and drafty. The most you can expect from a cave is protection from the rain. If you go deep inside a cave, you might find the temperature becoming constant regardless of the weather outside, but what's the point of going to all that trouble when a car or tent can do just as well?<br /><br />If you can train your body to sleep scrunched up in the back seat of a car, you are in a very good position, heat-wise. The seat itself provides insulation on two sides. Add two or three sleeping bags, and you are ready for any weather, even temperatures far below freezing. (Prepare to scrape ice off the <i>inside</i> of the windshield when you wake up.)<br /><br />Your first defense against nighttime cold is warm clothing. There is no reason you can't sleep in the same clothes you wear during the day, including whatever jackets and sweaters you have. Don't forget a hat! A major portion of your heat loss is through your head. A knit cap is best, one that you can pull down over your face and that will stay on all night. (I get them at the dollar store.)<br /><br />Don't overlook the value of long thermal underwear for both daytime and nighttime use. Maybe even two layers of it. Nothing beats this kind of tight insulation close to your skin. (Even when I lived in a "home" in Boston, I wore two layers of thermal underwear all winter and was always toasty.)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJlCVJkThf9KCwgCiiRUFAuBO7t1Sip-iGcGO410uOdVtm5JNeZD-UEiDCvNYbjxKhkhBAe000I09Bfoh4cJtrtwcIkQnT5RifZyHR-ZTFGuM9YJUW1uymWZrPeDCvGMXFtmwS-6GkJfQ/s1600-h/IMG00196.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJlCVJkThf9KCwgCiiRUFAuBO7t1Sip-iGcGO410uOdVtm5JNeZD-UEiDCvNYbjxKhkhBAe000I09Bfoh4cJtrtwcIkQnT5RifZyHR-ZTFGuM9YJUW1uymWZrPeDCvGMXFtmwS-6GkJfQ/s400/IMG00196.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418455447772831330" border="0" /></a>Then you need a sleeping bag, which works much better than blankets. Probably the worst situation for keeping warm is the traditional, medieval-inspired, Martha Stewart-approved tucked-in bed (with sheets, blankets, bedspread, etc.). Under the covers, you have a relatively huge, ever-shifting space to heat! Your body heat is leaking out everywhere, and whenever you turn over, you come in contact with a new area of cold sheets. You don't have these problems with a zipped-up sleeping bag, which surrounds you on all sides and holds your heat in.<br /><br />(Note: Even if you live in a "home", a cheap sleeping bag works much better than traditional bedding on a standard bed. If you use one, then you can probably turn down your thermostat at night and save money. Imagine: No bed to make in the morning, and when the sleeping bag gets rancid, just throw it away and buy another. All you need is a bottom sheet over the mattress.... But this whole idea is offensive to the Martha Stewart homemaking ideal, and I apologize for even mentioning it.)<br /><br />Cheap sleeping bags work just as well as expensive ones, although you may have to use more of them. I am a fan of the 3-pound sleeping bag at <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/style-note-evil-mega-mart-is-now-acme.html">Acme</a>, currently selling for $9.88. On cold nights, I buy two of them, using them one inside the other. At this price, you can afford to throw them away when you change location or they start to stink.<br /><br />Helpful tip: Use a safety pin to hold the zipper of the sleeping bag in place it doesn't unzip on you over the course of the night.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zePaV9ylXxOsvdTOLCzHnfZUjAzbCmJUlYqInFEGAtN1nhNYrV7lD4dx7V5rzUyFSyPxeE02b3QrFg2FQY7g0901H5K-uaO-CruuqERXqKWXxMZlFERPaMn-uZoxUorZy5rPO4LTRxk/s1600-h/IMG00201.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zePaV9ylXxOsvdTOLCzHnfZUjAzbCmJUlYqInFEGAtN1nhNYrV7lD4dx7V5rzUyFSyPxeE02b3QrFg2FQY7g0901H5K-uaO-CruuqERXqKWXxMZlFERPaMn-uZoxUorZy5rPO4LTRxk/s400/IMG00201.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418455441226276594" border="0" /></a>Some expensive sleeping bags have only two advantages that cheap ones: First, that can be lighter and more compact for the same insulation value. This is a a factor if you have to carry your sleeping bag on your back. Second, they are tapered at the foot of the bag rather than square. Tapered "mummy" bags give you only a small space for your feet to heat, while a cheaper bag with a square bottom has a big cavernous space down there that may lead to cold feet in the middle of the night. If you happen to have a mummy bag, you should use it as your inner sleeping bag with perhaps a cheap one outside that.<br /><br />The temperature ratings of sleeping bags (e.g. "20°F") are a fantasy of the manufacturer and are pretty much meaningless. You'll have to experiment with a sleeping bag yourself, in your own unique sheltering circumstances, before you know what it can do. In my experience, in temperatures below freezing you are usually going to need two sleeping bags, one inside the other. In temps below 0°F, I might even want a third sleeping bag to throw over me.<br /><br />With some planning, passive heating alone can get you through almost any weather scenario. I would resort to active heat sources only in special situations. For example, if I arrived in a new city without any bedding and no easy way to get it, I might rent a car, run the heater all night and sleep in the back. It works, often at a fraction of cost of a hotel! (Carbon monoxide isn't an issue, since the heater is forcing air into the car from the front.) In the past, I have used a propane-powered catalytic heater when sleeping in a van, but I don't recommend it, due to both cost and safety issues. Best just to add more bedding.<br /><br />If I am working on my computer in a car (like I am now, in frigid South Dakota), I might turn on the car occasionally and run the heater. The main reason for this is that my fingers are exposed as I use the keyboard. (I can't very well type with gloves on!) A little bit of active heat once an hour is just what I need to keep going.<br /><br />So in summary, you keep warm by sheltering yourself from falling water then surrounding yourself by as many layers of tight insulation as you need. Anyone can do it! However, there is another factor to consider: the psychological one. Have you noticed how some people are hyper-sensitive to the cold no matter how warmly they are dressed? It turns out ones <i>attitude</i> has a lot to do with keeping warm. I will discuss this at length in a <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2010/02/psychology-of-keeping-warm.html">separate entry</a>.<br /><br />Oh, and there's one other method for keeping warm as the seasons change: Go someplace warm! It sounds self-evident, but one of the perks of the homeless lifestyle is to be able to go where life is most comfortable for you. You can survive in the frigid north if you need to, but its costly and painful no matter how you slice it. Take a tip from the birds if you can and fly south with the sun!Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6944549659371369109.post-90255346041541775462009-11-22T01:49:00.001-08:002009-11-22T20:09:21.957-08:00How to Sleep in a Tent<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygFYYsWbOxU_ZJeBOODdqPzK7FU2iUSVGfxs9qET5NiKbFMVX5Lozk98xKYYkAyvNoyh8pMA_9HRgqtswzVi9GNMBcUaespnrVD5QLS_E9XFtNd8Yj1DIHfWgL1mn351FQwz00NL7oMY/s1600/campside.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 326px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygFYYsWbOxU_ZJeBOODdqPzK7FU2iUSVGfxs9qET5NiKbFMVX5Lozk98xKYYkAyvNoyh8pMA_9HRgqtswzVi9GNMBcUaespnrVD5QLS_E9XFtNd8Yj1DIHfWgL1mn351FQwz00NL7oMY/s400/campside.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406862934633095394" border="0" /></a>If you need to spend the night in an uncomfortable outdoor environment, a tent can often provide just enough shelter to get the job done. Tents protect you from insects and light rain and can help you conserve heat. They won't get you through the harshest weather, but they can help you deal with the moderate trials of Mother Nature.<br /><br />I prefer <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>to use a tent if I can get away with it. In the <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/10/road-camping-in-arizona-and-texas.html">desert</a>, you don't need one unless it is especially cold. There are no mosquitoes in the desert and little chance of rain, so just an air mattress and sleeping bag will usually suffice. You also don't need a tent if you have the back seat of a <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-sleep-in-car.html">car </a>to sleep in. It takes some training to sleep in a space that is shorter than you are, but it's still usually easier than setting up a tent. A car is essentially a hard-shell tent that will protect you in even the most extreme conditions.<br /><br />Most people think they need a tent for privacy--to be able to change clothes, etc.--but this isn't a big issue for me, since I rarely use campgrounds, and I will always camp in hidden locations that aren't visible anyway. The cost of privacy (everywhere in life) is less awareness of your environment. I prefer to sleep without a tent when possible because then I can keep track of what's going on around me. If a twig snaps, I can look up and see what it is. A tent only gives you the illusion of security. Real security lies in knowledge of your surroundings.<br /><br />To me, the purpose of a tent is strictly to protect me from the physical elements during the 7 hours a night when I am unconscious. It is mainly bugs and the threat of rain that will drive me to use one. I will put the tent up when I want to sleep and take it down as soon as I wake up. Typically, I do both under cover of darkness. Under ideal circumstances, no one should ever have a clue I was there -- apart from some matted grass in the morning.<br /><br />On rare occasions, I may use an actual authorized campground. These are usually located in state parks. (Also National Parks, of course, but those campgrounds tend to fill up fast.) In the US, the commercial "campgrounds" you see in tourist areas are mainly for RVs. They may allow tenting, but you'll feel strange doing it, surrounded by those massive land yachts . Since even a state campground will set you back $10-20/night, it usually seems easier to camp commando-style in any piece of vacant land that seems appropriate.<br /><br />See <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/supercenter-camping-method.html">The Supercenter Camping Method</a> for one way to find a campsite when driving cross-country (park your car at a 24-hour <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/11/style-note-evil-mega-mart-is-now-acme.html">Acme™</a> Supercenter and discreetly set up your tent on the adjoining land). If you are on foot or using public transportation, you can study the aerial photography in <a href="http://earth.google.com">Google Earth</a>/<a href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a> for potential camping spots on the outskirts of a city's public transportation system. Without a car, your range is limited, but you also don't have to worry about a car giving you away, so you may have more siting options. Keep in mind that fences and no trespassing signs don't show up in aerial photos, so you'll need some active field study before you know for sure that a site is suitable. (I will avoid No Trespassing/No Camping signs if I can, but I will sometimes ignore them if there are no alternatives and the chance of detection is negligible.) It is preferable to be able to survey your campsite before the sun goes down, then come back after dark to set up your tent.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://big5sportinggoods.shoplocal.com/big5/Default.aspx?action=entry&storeid=2503823"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: right; cursor: pointer; width: 152px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF7GwQ5H6GuS3csGLjuv3GQo1Gmrvciv6vc-adWknWfVQ9Gtidky71ZOw8JTLzsK-ZsgiknI553hH3QVTgejK85p0UKHLiCJHE8ydgbAz3x6wEGQf6WgvOnnwtrV5nSZM9GhqHgeiging/s400/tent-ad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407141814240532338" align="right" border="0" hspace="5" /></a>I choose a tent based mainly on price, carry weight and ease of set-up. If you stop at any of the big sporting goods chains, like <a href="http://www.sportsauthority.com/corp/index.jsp?page=storeLocator">Sports Authority</a> and <a href="http://big5sportinggoods.shoplocal.com/big5/default.aspx?action=storelocationzipentry&storeid=2503823&redirect=%2fbig5%2fdefault.aspx%3faction%3dbrowsestorelocation%26storeid%3d2503823">Big Five</a>, you can usually find a 1- or 2-man tent on sale for $25-35. (Also check the Sunday newspaper circulars.) In a pinch, Acme™ also has tents, but they tend to be a little pricey--more like $35-45. The one-man tent at the top of this entry was bought for $25 on sale at Sports Authority. It is suitable for most situations, and at that price it is semi-disposable (i.e. I can abandon it if it isn't convenient to take it with me). The most important feature of this tent, however, is that it is very light to carry and fits in my carry-on airline baggage.<br /><br />I have little use for big cabin tents that sleep four or more people and that usually cost $100+. They are awkward to haul around and difficult to set up, and they are certainly not discreet. You also lose the heat advantage of a smaller tent. In a small space, your own body heat can warm the tent by perhaps 10 degrees F while it has little effect in a large tent. If I were traveling in a large family unit (which I did in an earlier life), I would use several small tents rather than one big one. This has the added advantage of allowing some members of the party to sleep even while others insist on being active.<br /><br />The ideal camping spot is a field of thick grass. The grass may provide enough padding that you don't need a mattress. Of course, if do you have a mattress you'll want to use it. Air mattresses are the best, but you'll also need a pump of some kind because lungs alone may not be enough. Over time, the body can get used to a variety of sleeping surfaces, but hard ground under your tent probably won't do for most of us. You'll need some kind of padding under you.<br /><br />In the Northeastern USA, you need to be aware of the risk of Lyme disease, which is caused by deer ticks that may hang out in the same grassy areas you might want to camp in. (I became conscious of this risk while <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-own-private-island-free-sleeping-in.html">camping on an island in Maine</a>.) Here is a <a href="http://www.aldf.com/usmap.shtml">Lyme disease risk map</a>. If I were camping in a Lyme disease area, I might avoid grass in favor of hard ground and a mattress. If I had to walk through grass or underbrush, I would wear long pants and carefully check my clothing for ticks before I got into my tent. (The ticks are large enough to be visible and are blocked by the tent's screening.)<br /><br />To keep warm while sleeping in a tent, you just keep adding clothing and bedding. As long as you are dry, there is no low temperature that can't be addressed by adding multiple layers of passive insulation. Your first defense is your clothing: As the temperature gets colder, you can put on whatever clothing you have and as many layers of it as possible. Don't forget a hat, since your head can lose a lot of heat at night. (If you don't have a hat, use a T-shirt turned upside down, with your head through the neck opening.) Start with one sleeping bag for moderate temperatures, then add more sleeping bags as the temperature gets colder. I have camped in temperatures at low as 0 degrees F using passive insulation alone, and mountaineers obviously endure even lower temperatures on places like Everest. They have expensive lightweight sleeping bags, but apart from the difficulty of transport, many layers of clothing and several $9 Acme sleeping bags should do just as well.<br /><br />All bets are off, however, once your bedding starts getting wet. No matter how many layers you have, it's not going to keep you warm. You can be camping in temperatures well below freezing with a layer of snow on your tent and still be comfortable, but if you are wet, then you could be miserable even with temps in the 70s. That's when the water protection of your tent becomes critical.<br /><br />In occasional light rain, or a mere risk of rain, almost any tent will do. Tenting becomes a science only when the precipitation gets heavy. That's when you have to understand how tents work if you hope to sleep.<br /><br />The walls of a tent are made of porous fabric, not plastic. A tent protects you from rain only because the water flows down the outside of the fabric to the ground before it has a chance to seep inside. Water is inherently "sticky", and it will follow the path of least resistance to get to the ground. If the fabric is always sloping downward, that the water will follow the slope and has no motivation to come inside your tent. If any of the fabric dips, however, then water will pool on the surface and drip inside.<br /><br />For example, look at the tent shown at the top of this entry. At the low end of the tent (left side), there is a dip in the fabric just before the small pole. This where water is likely to collect and drip inside.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9MndTU9erKPguSz39rQJZaRscHyi_U8FOMlQqXAcOE1tme1yFY_d_FXS1R1PTp50RN_t4QVKA_IWtLlhLeACXlNvD4i15SlXrPQ4na2mcI2Tz-NSKv0yH0wtQLets1YhwP09QGrG2mnE/s1600/dome.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 326px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9MndTU9erKPguSz39rQJZaRscHyi_U8FOMlQqXAcOE1tme1yFY_d_FXS1R1PTp50RN_t4QVKA_IWtLlhLeACXlNvD4i15SlXrPQ4na2mcI2Tz-NSKv0yH0wtQLets1YhwP09QGrG2mnE/s400/dome.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406957784650709410" border="0" /></a>Dome tents, like the one above, have the advantage of eliminating most of the major dip points in the fabric. This tent is probably going be less vulnerable to the rain than the one at the top of the entry. However, it's still not perfect. This dome tent isn't set up on level ground, which generates pooling places along the seams at the bottom. Wherever a seam turns upward, water is going to pool in the crack and seep into the tent. The floor of most tents is non-porous plastic, so once water leaks in, it forms lakes on the floor and will never leave on its own.<br /><br />It is possible that a better-designed tent instead of the rock-bottom cheapest will do better for you in the rain. It depends on the tent, and you can't be sure until you actually use it. You can also benefit from careful siting of your tent on flat, well drained ground. However, it's a sad fact that no tent is going to protect you for long in torrential or perpetual rain (like I <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/02/diary-february-7-in-lap-of-luxury.html">experienced in San Diego</a>). In times like that, you may have no choice but to move inside--to a motel, rental car or nice cave if you can find one.<br /><br />In dreary places like England or New England, with soggy weather day after day, the wet is going to accumulate in your tent and bedding and never leave. At some point, you'll need an opportunity to dry out. That doesn't mean you can't camp in these soggy places, but you need a backup plan for when the sog gets to be too much.<br /><br />Likewise, in tropical paradises like Hawaii or the Caribbean, the tourist brochures don't tell you about the Biblical rains or the fact that the windward side of an island gets rain almost every single day. The attraction of paradise may be diminished if you are wet all the time.<br /><br />As usual, you should <a href="http://freesleeping.blogspot.com/2009/07/scourge-of-humidity.html">move to the dry</a> whenever you have the option. If you can't do that, then you have to study how water works and develop as many backup plans as you can. Tenting may be a painless lodging option 80% of the time. It's the other 20% that you have to prepare for.Glenn Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11289793330141562661noreply@blogger.com4