
the little car that could
Well, my usual retort to this question is “Oh, you haven’t seen my car, have you?” But in all seriousness, I’m a saver. I’m not nearly as adept at bargaining as the seasoned SendMoneyPlease, who just flew around the world almost entirely on frequent flyer miles. (Yes, it can be done!)
But I love a good deal, and I’ve been saving up for years – notably, by continuing to drive my 1994 Suzuki Swift.
Though I’ve had several threats to have it mysteriously disappear, or not-so-mysteriously be driven off a cliff while I’m away, I consider this the little car that’s taking me around the world. It’s manual transmission (I wouldn’t have it any other way!), has no a/c (It never did. . .and in South, that’s painful!), and has become – let’s call it “increasingly quirky” over the past few years.
It’s got some benefits as well. It still gets 41 miles to the gallon, it’s gotten me everywhere I need to go, and I’ll generously classify it as “theftproof” – meaning it’s been broken into about 5 times but never had anything stolen. For some reason the tape deck just isn’t a hot commodity on the stolen goods scene these days. And, strangely, they haven’t taken the car either.
- state of the art technology
It also has state-of-the-art technology. May I point out, that in most early built-in CD players, there’s no auxilary audio jack. Fortunately, my little tape deck is ipod-ready!


Free breakfast, Lyon, France. Thanks Air France!
It’s never about expensive hotels or amusement parks or fancy dinners out. No business class. No high-priced boutiques.
So awhile back, I decided to give up expectations for trips. Now, I just travel for a cup of coffee. Every trip is another cup of coffee. Coffee in France. Coffee in Hungary. Coffee in Tanzania. (Tea in Japan.) And anything that I encounter beyond this cup of coffee is completey bonus.
- Cafe du Monde, New Orleans!