What you get for $1800/month in New York City

Posted on 21 February, 2012 by Kate

The classy entrance to the apartment

It’s been decades since I lived in an apartment. Where I come from, apartment living is something you outgrow, like being vegetarian or piercing weird body parts. When you “grow up,” you get to have a mortgage, a lawn to mow, and a furnace to replace.

Not in New York City. Everyone lives in apartments here. If you’re rich, you live in lavish penthouses high above the city, and if you’re poor, you live in the Bronx. But whatever your pedigree, the same streets await you. Everyone, rich or poor, famous or infamous, mingles on the street. (Unless your driver whisks you away to Martha’s Vineyard or…wherever rich people go.)

The sheer density of people is astounding. All those towering buildings are full of people, and they go on for miles. The rents are astounding, too. Back in the day, I think I rented my spacious two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Detroit for, oh, about $300/month. That was when the city was the Murder Capital of the World. As I recall, there were 600 murders one year. So, yes, rents were cheap.

I don’t think you could live on the street in New York for $300. I’m staying at the northern tip of Manhattan which is considered slightly off the beaten track (an oxymoron in New York–tracks to everywhere are beaten) and somewhat less fashionable, ergo, cheaper. (Cheap being relative here.)

The rent is $1800/month, which is more than three times the mortgage on the large Victorian house with three acres that I used to own.

Here’s what $1800/month gets you in New York:

 

beautiful terrazo lobby

cute little elevator

multi-function room--TV, parlor, dining, what-have-you

kitchen--basic, but not bad

white-tiled bathroom, basic

a bright bedroom, nicely sized

a huge bedroom, but dark

So there you have it. Nothing fancy, but very livable. Still, you could buy a whole lotta square footage for that rent in about 95 percent of the rest of the country.

I’ll tell you what I’ve found really charming about living here in the next post.

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Young travelers vs. old–Part 2

Posted on 16 February, 2012 by Kate

 

desert near Slab City

I was parked in the godforsaken desert near Slab City when a motorcycle pulled up next to my trailer. A short, grizzled, bandy-legged man dismounted, hitched up his pants, and strolled over, laying on me his killer pick-up line.

“The last thing I expected to see was a beautiful blonde in the desert. How long ya stayin?”

For the record, the color of my hair at the time was a stylistic accident exacerbated by months in the sun. The last thing I ever expected to be was a blonde in the desert, beauty being purely in the eye of this droopy-drawers beholder.

This anecdote, however, is meant to be the exception that proves the rule. And the rule is that older women are invisible. So far I’ve found that this also applies to older female travelers, bandy-legged motorcycle men notwithstanding.

(Actually, the MOST irresistable pickup line ran along the lines of: “I sleep with anyone–old, young, makes no difference.”)

While young women are harassed and ogled at and followed, older women are invisible. This is a good thing, once you get past the initial bewilderment. After you stop feeling like cellophane, invisibility gives you tremendous freedom.

You don’t have to dress up; you don’t have to wear makeup; but most of all, you don’t feel self-conscious like all the young women with their youthful faces and clickety-clack heels. Like you used to feel. Like, I’m not paying any attention to all you people looking at me. Really. This is just the way I always walk. Besides, can I help being beautiful?

When you are invisible, you can be yourself. You can stop in the middle of the sidewalk with an idiotic smile just to gawk. The tour guide will overlook you because he is flirting with the young girls, so you don’t have to maintain a conversation–you can just pop in when you have a question and wander on your own. You understand; you were there once. 

But invisibility is a superficial difference. A substantial difference between old and young travelers is physical prowess. (See the last post for #1.) And this is not superficial.

When you are young:

  • You can drink until 3am and catch a train at 6. I’ve read your posts about drinking even though you’re on antibiotics and in the blazing African sun. I’ve read your resolutions to party less. I’ve even read Nomadic Matt’s rant on the stupid things travelers do when they’re drunk.

Old travelers don’t do this. We don’t have the desire, the stamina, or the stomach for it. We go to bed early after our first, virginal glass of wine.

  • Speaking of virginal, you are not. You still have those sexual feelers out that tell you when the hottie wants you. You ought to worry about this more now that you are passing through one country after another, but I’m thinking that you don’t.

Old travelers are more concerned with getting to a place intact. It’s been a while since we’ve used the word “hottie.” Or applied it to someone. Besides, flirting is more challenging–maybe impossible–when you’re invisible. This isn’t to say that old people aren’t sexual (I know, Grandma having sex seems gross), just that it’s not such a driving force.

  • You can party until 3am and then hike for 10 miles over a 14,000-foot pass. I know this because my young daughter did it. (Maybe she didn’t do the partying, but she did the 5-day hike to Machu Picchu.) I’m hoping that if I train for about 6 months, I might be able to make the 3-day hike. Maybe on a mule…
  • You think that jumping off things is fun. And spelunking. And mountain climbing. You swim with sharks. You hike in flip-flops and forget your hat.

Old travelers use walking sticks. We watch where we put our feet. We wear sensible shoes and carry extra water and rain gear—just in case. We also take our vitamins.

I wish I could sprint up a mountain pass and leap tall buildings at a single bound. I wish my shoulder didn’t ache and my knees didn’t creak. But I no longer take any body part for granted. They work. That’s all I can ask of them.

And, really, I’m just incredibly happy to have this time while everything still works to hike up mountains. Slowly. With my walking stick and sensible shoes.

hike from the river bottom-Zion National Park

 

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Young travelers vs. old–Part 1

Posted on 10 February, 2012 by Kate

 

TOWANDA!

I vividly recall a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes in which the (older) Kathy Bates character waits patiently in her big Lincoln to pull into a parking space in a crowded mall. At the critical moment a VW bug zips in around her, and two lithe beauties emerge.

With a flip of golden tresses, they dismiss their rudeness—and her– “because we’re young and better looking.”

Normally longsuffering and mature, the Bates character snaps. She flattens the zippy yellow bug to a pancake with a few swipes of her behemoth.

“I’m older and have better insurance,” she says.

This is NOT meant to paint an adversarial relationship between the generations. Most young people are utterly delightful. They give me their seats on the subway. They hold doors for me. They’re fresh and fun, quick, smart, and polite.

But it does capture some crucial differences between young travelers and older ones.

In the almost two years that I’ve been on the road, I’ve lurked around on travel blogs and websites, and I’ve shared campgrounds and trailer parks with travelers young and old.

The differences, as I see it, fall into three categories: financial security, physical ability, and “other.”

First, a definition. By “older,” I mean above 50. By “younger,” I mean less than 40. Now I know you young folks get all verklempt and whine about being over the hill when you hit 30. But you are being silly. You have a full decade of youth left ahead of you. I just said so.

And I also realize that this definition gives middle age short shrift—one decade. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see many “middle-aged” folks on the road full-time, anyway. Even Rolf Potts (Are you 40 yet, Rolf?) moved into some kind of home base a few years ago. Even Pico Iyer seems more silent.

Do you hit some kind of existential wall at 40? Do you suddenly wake up and think, Egad, what am I doing with my life? Or: Is this all there is? Have you seen it all? Emptied the bucket? Has traveling lost its allure? Do you become jaded? Enlighten me. What makes people stop traveling in their 40s?

Which brings me to us elders. Lots of older people travel. We go on cruises and tours. We drive motorhomes that are sometimes the size of small buildings and that connect to gas pumps with fire hoses. That is one kind of travel.

But when it comes to hard-core, full-time travel on the cheap, the ranks of elders thin. Something about fear and loss of motivation and a desire for comfort? So far, I’ve only found two? maybe three? full-time older travelers on the blogosphere. (You know who you are, but in case you don’t, Barbara Weibel is a heroic and hard-working traveler at Hole in the Donut, and the Hulls are equally mobile and ubiqitous at My Itchy Travel Feet. Who am I missing?)

So back to the categories: First, money.

It takes money to travel. Not a lot, as many of you travelers point out. But when you travel, however frugally, you are spending money and you aren’t making it. Many bloggers are trying to be digital nomads, which means they are starting a small business without the home base. Starting a small business requires a lot of dedication and a fair amount of risk.

I’ve found that “digital” and “nomad” are somewhat mutually exclusive because finding a dependable Internet connection on the road is completely unpredictable. You can be connected or you can be nomadic, but it’s an exhausting juggling act to do both.

Even the older nomads (like me) who need to travel frugally and maybe even score a few bucks on the road, are starting from a different gate. We’ve had a career, whatever it was. Our prime earning years are past. We don’t have time to reinvent ourselves from scratch.

Plus, to be honest, we may not have the fire-in-the-belly we once had. When I decided many years ago to be a freelance writer, it was as though the finger of God pointed the way. I heard the angel choirs. I had found my purpose in life. (Besides being a mom. You know that, right, kids?). Success (while I secretly yearned for it) didn’t matter. I was content to wash the feet of those seated at the literary table.

So I typed (yes, with a typewriter) carbon copies in triplicate. I never turned down work or balked at inhuman deadlines. I bribed my kids with chocolate chips to keep them quiet during interviews. I could paper a room with rejection slips. But by God, I became a freelance writer. What price glory? I never asked. What glory, for that matter?

I have neither the desire nor the emotional energy to do anything like that again. You can have it all, young people.

So, we older travelers probably start with greater financial security. Even those of us who washed literary feet for a living have had more time to save. Plus, we are closer to collecting on retirement plans and Social Security.

I see younger nomads working hard to puzzle out this part—how to stay on the road indefinitely and pay for it. Teaching English. Couchsurfing. Volunteering. Housesitting. Living cheap. Digital nomading. This approach may cover the day-to-day travel, but building for the future is harder. That’s an entirely different conundrum.

Is that why the 40-year-olds stop traveling? Have they scented mortality and decided to secure their future while they still can?

Next…Part 2: the other stuff.

 

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