I have been traveling on a budget for years. Not because I am cheap ( well, maybe a little ), but because wasting money on travel basics is just annoying. Here are three things I do every single trip that save me real money without making the experience worse. 1. Book Flights
Everyone tells you to travel during peak season. Book early, go when the weather's perfect, pay triple for the privilege. I stopped doing that years ago and I'm not going back. Off-season travel isn't just cheaper ( though it is, significantly ). It's better.
I've taken the Buquebus ferry from Montevideo to Colonia del Sacramento maybe eight times now. Every single time I tell myself I'll just go for the afternoon and head back. Every single time I end up staying until the last boat. There's something about
I grew up in Italy. Lived there for thirty years. And somehow I never went to Puglia until I had already left. That is the kind of thing that haunts you when you are sitting in Montevideo eating a chivito and pretending it is a panino. Puglia is the heel
I took the Colonia Express ferry from Montevideo to Buenos Aires for the first time two years ago. I had been living in Uruguay for months and kept hearing people talk about "la otra orilla" ( the other shore ) like it was some mystical place. Turns out it kind
I've lived in Italy, the UK, and now Uruguay. Not as a tourist passing through — actually lived there, paid rent, dealt with bureaucracy, learned the rhythm of daily life. Each country taught me something different about what home means, and more importantly, what it doesn't. None
I drive east from Montevideo most long weekends. Route 10, the coast road, whatever you want to call it — it is the best thing about living in Uruguay and I will not hear otherwise. Three hours, a tank of gas, and you are somewhere that looks like the inside of
I used to be that person. The one dragging a 28-inch suitcase through cobblestone streets in Montevideo, cursing every pothole ( which is all of them ). Two weeks later I switched to carry-on only and never went back. Here is the thing nobody tells you about carry-on travel: it is not
I went back to Italy last summer after almost three years away. Not a vacation. Not a family emergency. I just needed to see if the country I grew up in was still the one I remembered, or if I had been romanticizing it from 10,000 kilometers away the
I have driven the entire coast of Uruguay more times than I can count. Montevideo to Punta del Este. Punta to La Paloma. All the way to Chuy. And back. Every single time, something went sideways that could have been avoided. Here are three lessons I learned the hard way