Constance McDonald is a writer, and frequent traveller who has written for Ensemble about the reliable consistency of libraries and McDonalds, no matter where you are in the world, and visiting Leonard Cohen’s house in Hydra. She shares her niche tips that may help you travel on a dime.
As the land of the overcast cloud dips its toe into autumn (I, too, am uncomfortable that Seasons Aren't Proper Nouns) I am elsewhere, sweating, with natural deodorant that does not work. I am well on the way to entering my next back-to-back summer. Is this an insufferable statement? Absolutely. Am I muted by many on Instagram? Surely. Could you use the following information to live cheaply while swimming in cerulean blue waters daily for a month? For free? Maybe.
1. How To Live On An Island (Population: 700) For Free For Two Weeks
Find an island you want to visit, trawl through Google (filetype:pdf) until you find a document of the ‘minutes’ for their monthly island meeting. On the last page find all the names of the people who attended the meeting (60 people) and their emails. Email every person asking if they will host you. One will reply.
2. How To Get A Cash Job
Go to the same café every day. You will be offered an English teaching job for two hours once a week at a language centre five minutes walk from where you are staying. The same woman will pay you to ghostwrite a paper for an international tourism conference.
3. How To Have Lobster On A Wednesday
Meet the Deputy Prime Minister’s son for weekly English conversation classes. You pick the restaurants.
4. How To Get A Vampire Facial For $70
Attend a free AI (Artificial Intelligence) Bootcamp. What does that mean? You will be happy to know that they had no business in calling it ‘bootcamp’ and no squats were suffered through. Instead, you learnt how to use and utilise Midjourney. Nothing was said about the ethics of this. Sit beside a woman who has just had a medical facial (blood is extracted, spun around, and the platelets are injected back into your face). She gives you the clinic’s name. It would cost $700 on Ponsonby Road.
5. How To Get A Free Cashmere Cardigan
Blow the cobwebs off your Facebook profile. No other website allows you access to a catch-all of what is going on. Swallow your pride and join Facebook groups: ‘Artists of Lisbon’, ‘Photographers in Cyprus’ – find a clothing swap advertised there. Walk to a church with the dress you are bored of wearing. Examine the racks of others’ clothes they are bored of. Leave with a cashmere cardigan.
A Few Hills I Will Die On
1. Limit the amount of flights you take. Once I am on the continent of Europe I almost exclusively take ferries, buses, and trains. I know what you’re thinking, but but but! you can get cheap and quick flights! Yes, and. No, but.
2. Consider the time and monetary cost of getting from a central city location to the airport (the surcharges are always revolting…), and from the airport to your new location. Yes, it is a one hour flight, but add the time it takes to get to the airport, check in, go through security, pick up your bag (and do that all over again on the other side). Trains, buses, and ferries however… my darlings, my angels, my friends. You arrive (at most!) one hour before departure; and the station, depot, and terminal are centrally located. Beautiful. I have even re-branded ferries as cruises in my head! The power of perspective and delusion.
3. A pain au chocolat from a supermarket is a perfect breakfast; and a cheese and onion pastry from a bakery is the best mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Don’t you dare sit your ass down at a restaurant with a cover charge.
4. My friends cut my hair exactly right.
5. I would rather have convenience store beers in the park than entertain a weak Happy Hour. If the ‘Happy’ Hour is 10% off, I am not encouraging bad behaviour. Two Bloody Marys for the price of one, thank you. Do not use Happy Hour’s name in vain.
6. Find a market with piles of clothing and shoes for $2 a piece. Spend an hour looking through it. Buy the green Hunter gumboots you have been eyeing up since you saw the 1981 photos of freshly engaged Lady Di wearing them.
7. Save Nespresso stores on your Google Maps. They will make you a coffee for free. Nothing is better than 100% off. My favourite café! This works worldwide. Try it next time you are at Westfield Newmarket.
8. Message life modelling classes and ask if they need you. Strip off, collect your cash, and take photos of the watercolour and oil pastel renderings of your body. If you see an artwork you really love, tell the artist that it is your favourite, and they will probably give it to you. Get paid, AND leave with a bespoke souvenir.
9. Everybody has a masterclass in them, and everybody can be helpful. If you want to stay in a convent for a month in Italy for free, what can you help with while you are there? I am nosey, so, under the watchful eye of Mother Mary, I decluttered and organised rooms in the one-thousand-year-old building. Be creative with what you can offer before they can utter the idea of you doing yard work. Shudder.
Everywhere you go, there you are. Savour the smell of your oily rag. Be a friend to all, and maybe you will even be invited back.
