Well, we’ve done it. We’re on the road. No more lease. Everything we own fits in a Prius. This first week, we stopped through Fort Wayne, IN to see family and drop some stuff off before we moved on to Chicago, IL cuz Eva’s never been there.
We’ve done some things really well, like finding free things to do, largely on Atlas Obscura. We stopped at the Temple of Tolerance in Wapokeneta, Ohio, Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, IL, the Money Museum at the Chicago Federal Reserve, the Navy Pier and the Bean in Chicago. We stayed a couple days with family. We’ve been eating out of a mini-fridge and avoiding expensive restaurants. I feel like we manufactured some value in our AirBnB by hosting my brother and his wife over the weekend (shout out to their WhenCanIQuitMyJob podcast).
We’ve also done some things poorly. Our public transportation budget has been thrashed by using Uber in Chicago. I’m thinking we need to be more thoughtful about lodging closer to public transportation. I’ve also got to be more considerate of our entertainment budget. When you live somewhere, you learn those great places you can cheaply hang out and have a drink or see a live show.
Overall though, it’s been great fun. In Chicago, we’ve got a great little, quirky place in the basement of an apartment building. All my gear worked to allow me to work remotely. We’ve gotten used to the tings, pangs and hissing of pipes as well as creaks, cracks and knocks coming from every corner of the apartment. We found out the first night how to go to a different entrance around the corner and reset the breaker when we tripped it running the space heaters. The Logan’s Square neighborhood has been quite charming. We found a great little blues bar around the corner called Rosa’s where we spent time leading up to a concert chatting with a German architect about travel & his favorite places he’s visited.
We keep repeating, this is a lifestyle not a vacation, but it sure feels like a vacation. We’ll see how we did when we reconcile our budget. So, I apologize for talking about us this entire article, but this was our experience the first week of Location Independence. We love it! Eva’s off taking amazing photographs and I’m very grateful to be loving where we are and am eagerly anticipating our next move.
Tips:
- Rome2Rio.com is a GREAT tool for comparing the relative costs of getting from one location to another and giving routes, no matter the distance. But don’t forget to factor in parking if you drive your car. A $30 round trip Uber/Lyft is better than a $45 parking garage in my opinion.
- Especially if you won’t have a car, be thoughtful about how close your rental property is to public transportation.
- Use AtlasObscura.com to find some of the coolest oddities and spectacles wherever you visit. Many are free. There’s also meetup.com and couchsurfing.com to find like-minded folks.
- There aren’t the big grocery stores in Chicago like there are outside of Chicago. There’s a bunch of quirky markets and limited selection. We thought Amazon Go was kinda cool… download the app, grab your selections and leave with no check-out.