From:
The Best Of International Living - My wife Vicki and I are PTs, perpetual
travelers. We wander the world, from Paris to Bangkok, from Las
Vegas to Buenos Aires, enjoying what we find and then moving on. Sometimes
we stay a month or two, sometimes a year or two. I like to think of us
as homeless. Not the destitute homeless, but homeless in that we own no
home, have no home base, and have no place to return to. Home, for us,
is wherever we plug in our little computer. I used to stay in one
place for years at a time, and work for a living. I was a CPA and
eventually became an audit partner of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, the big
accounting firm now known as KPMG Peat Marwick. But in 1984, when I was
35 years old and working out of the Buenos Aires office, I hung up my pencil
and retired.
I
wanted more time to myself, more time with Vicki. We wanted to travel,
see old friends, make new friends, and play. During those early retirement
years, we kept a small apartment in Buenos Aires. We returned every summer
after six to nine months of travel. We kept our stuff there and used the
apartment as our home address. In 1991, however, we decided to get rid
of the apartment.
For one thing, Argentina revalued
the peso. Our apartment expenses quadrupled, and Buenos Aires came to cost
more than San Francisco or Rome. But the main reason we wanted to get rid
of the apartment and become PTs was because we were tired of returning
to the same place every year. When you have a home base, you have to check
in at home now and again. We didn't want to do that. We wanted to be free
to stay or go, anytime, anywhere.
Full-time PTs We became true PTs and hit the road
in early 1992. We immediately fell in love with our new lifestyle, so full
of freedom and adventure. During our travels, through friends and eventually
through our home page, we started meeting other PTs. We now know a good
number of active PTs, ex-PTs, and almost-PTs. We exchange travel and other
tips through E-mail and a private forum on the Internet.
Active
PTs generally begin their E-mail with "We're in Rome (or Glasgow or Buenos
Aires or ...)."
Are you a candidate for becoming
a PT? The PT lifestyle is not for everyone.
To find out if you're a likely candidate, ask yourself three questions.
Have you ever worked for the government? How attached are you to stuff?
Do you use the Internet and E-mail?
Whom do you trust? Have you ever worked for the government?
If you have, the PT life is probably
not for you. You may be an exception, but in my experience those
who work for the government tend to trust the government. They also tend
to trust other institutions, such as insurance companies, Microsoft, the
AMA, and public education. They like security and predictability, and they
associate those things with government.
PTs tend to trust people rather than
institutions. If PTs need a hospital in Thailand, we get our innkeeper's
recommendation rather than call the consulate. We steer clear of lawyers
and courts, and we steer clear of situations that might lead us to need
lawyers and courts. If we need travel and emergency assistance, we seek
help from a fellow traveler rather from American Express. We travel as
tourists, if at all possible, rather than beg bureaucrats for residence
permits.
Don't
get me wrong. PTs like security and predictability, too. It's just that
security to us is a trusted friend, a helping hand, rather than a government
program.
Vicki and I trust people, and we
like people to trust us. For example, when renting an apartment, we make
it a rule to deal only with principals, not agencies, and never to leave
large damage or security deposits. We sit down with the owner, explain
who we are and how we live, and tell him why we want the apartment. The
owner gets to know us and, presumably, to trust us. We'll pay a deposit
of a month's rent or so, if we have to, but that's it. Paris rental agencies
ask for two or three months rent as a deposit or prepayment, and one even
asked us for five months. Forget it. These people don't trust me, and I
don't trust them.
Leave your stuff behind
How attached are you to stuff? A friend with a 96-year-old mother
tells me her mom's afraid to die because of what will happen to her stuff.
She figures her son—my friend—will irreverently get rid of her stuff, which,
of course, he will. Since she can't bear the thought, she's decided not
to die.
PTs live with very, very little stuff.
Vicki and I have three boxes in a friend's garage in Buenos Aires, three
more in Las Vegas, and four more in Los Angeles. That's it. Except for
tax returns and a few other records, we could get rid of even those few
boxes if we had to.
Can one be a PT and still keep a
small apartment or house trailer? We hear that question a lot. My answer
is that living as a PT is an attitude as much as a lifestyle. The point
is not how much stuff you have but to what extent your stuff controls your
life. In general, if you find yourself flying back home to take care of
your stuff, when you'd rather be doing something else, you probably have
a long way to go before becoming a PT.
At home on-line
Do you use the Internet and E-mail? PTs tend to make friends all over
the world. We plan trips around trips other PTs take. The only practical
way to do this is with E-mail. Using E-mail is like having your friends
in your living room whenever you want them. Vicki and I receive about 30
E-mails a day, half from friends and family and half from information services
I've subscribed to. In a very real sense, our home address is our E-mail
address, the best address you can have. If you distrust government
and other institutions, can live without lots of stuff, and like the freedom
of E-mail and the Internet, you may well be a candidate for PT.
From:
The Best Of International Living - My wife Vicki and I are PTs, perpetual
travelers. We wander the world, from Paris to Bangkok, from Las
Vegas to Buenos Aires, enjoying what we find and then moving on. Sometimes
we stay a month or two, sometimes a year or two. I like to think of us
as homeless. Not the destitute homeless, but homeless in that we own no
home, have no home base, and have no place to return to. Home, for us,
is wherever we plug in our little computer. I used to stay in one
place for years at a time, and work for a living. I was a CPA and
eventually became an audit partner of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, the big
accounting firm now known as KPMG Peat Marwick. But in 1984, when I was
35 years old and working out of the Buenos Aires office, I hung up my pencil
and retired.
