Flightster

PG

Alan Perlman

Alan Perlman travels the world as an international cost-of-living surveyor. When he's not hunting for the price of female undergarments in places like Syria, Rwanda and Turkmenistan, he's hanging out in Boston, MA, staying active, meeting people and brainstorming business models. You can read more about Alan and his plans to conquer life at his blog, The 9 to 5 Alternative.

The Staycation: A Mental Break, Sans “Breaking the Budget”

Folks, winter is approaching, and we know exactly what that means. It’s vacation time.

With Thanksgiving, the holidays and the New Year all a stone’s throw away, the winter season is a great opportunity to take a vacation, to escape work and the incremental stress of quotidian affairs to someplace calmer, more relaxing and possibly exotic.

For the lucky few, it’s jetting off to an exotic country, a week-long ocean cruise or an amazing attraction like the Grand Canyon. It’s the beach, the mountains, or if you live in a place like California, both.

Continue

Greetings from the World’s Northernmost Capital

Reykjavik Downtown

Hi folks—reporting live from Reykjavik, Iceland, the world’s northernmost capital city. As I learned from watching the movie D2: The Mighty Ducks so many years ago, Iceland is not that icy. Despite the seemingly severe and climatic name, it’s quite green here. Nearby Greenland, though, tends to be pretty icy. Imagine that.

Back in December, I wrote about a possible excursion to Iceland with my brother in March. We had hoped to spend his final college spring break romping around Icelandic volcanoes and waterfalls. While that trip fell through, I serendipitously find myself here a few months later, conducting a cost-of-living study for my company. Sorry, brother. No hard feelings.

Continue

The Walk Across America

These days, Nate Damm takes his life forty to fifty miles at a time.

At Nate’s pace, that’s about three days of walking. Of course, this depends on a number of variables—the weather, Nate’s energy level, how long it takes him to find a suitable place to camp and, most importantly, whether or not he’s being pleasantly distracted with free pizza and beer, pottery shops and the like. Trail magic, folks.

Over the next eight to nine months, Nate is walking across America.

Continue

The Carry-On Only Experiment, A Success

In a few days, I’ll be traveling from a still-wintry-in-April-Boston to a balmy, much more weather-agreeable Asia.

Hong Kong, Okpo, Seoul, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Agana and Tokyo–six cities, five countries, and thirty three days of meeting with real estate and relocation agents, dodging supermarket managers and scribbling down prices. The cost of an oil change, anyone? Women’s panties? Shot of espresso?

Here’s the best part. I won’t be checking any luggage.

Continue

Açaí, the Amazon and Ipanema: Two Weeks in Brazil

My first experience with Brazil was in high school. I represented the country with a couple of friends through a Model UN competition. We wrote a resolution (something about agriculture and land ownership?), didn’t make it too far in the General Assembly process but had loads of fun networking, learning a bit about the country and waving our green, Brazilian flags.

In college, I watched City of God (Cidade de Deus), an adapted Portuguese-language film about one of Rio de Janeiro’s favellas, or slums, from the late 1960s to early 1980s. It’s a fascinating story, certainly one of my favorite foreign films.

Continue

Business Travel 101: The Pros and Cons

Over the last two and a half years, I have spent nearly a year out of the country, traveling for work. This week, I leave Boston and embark on a trip to South America for a cost-of-living study. It will take me to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. I’ll be leaving Boston again sometime in April, hopefully for a five or six week trip to Asia.

Continue

Nostalgic for Dal Bhat (and a free book)

It all started in Nepal.

The travel itch, I mean. The spirited sense of adventure I get from pushing the boundaries of my cultural comfort zone. Exploring a new place, bumbling and curiously naive, armed with a repertoire of clever gesticulations just in case I can’t get my point across. Getting lost. Taking in the ethos of cities and peoples and experiences through their respective nooks and crannies.

Continue

An Introduction to Bereavement Fares

Have you ever had to book a last minute flight to attend a funeral? What was your travel experience like?

I recently learned that a handful of airlines have special bereavement (also called “compassion”) policies for that very situation. While I have yet to go through this kind of a process (knock on wood, folks), I wondered, how does it work? Is it true that you can get a ticket for 50% off? Would I need to supply a copy of the death certificate? Do different airline companies maintain different policies? What’s the deal?

Continue

4 Offbeat Countries I’d Visit Again


As a cost-of-living surveyor, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to some pretty offbeat places over the last couple of years. While my philosophy has always been to seek out the more exotic, offbeat and hard-to-get-to countries, a few of the places I’ve been have pleasantly surprised me.

Here are four countries I would go back to in a heartbeat.

Continue

Here’s Looking at You, Iceland

My brother and I talk on the phone every couple of weeks. I’m up in Boston, he’s down in Florida. We do our best to stay in touch. That’s what good brothers do.

Sometimes we talk about school, about live music and the latest TV pitch from Taco Bell. Recently though, we chatted about travel. The last time we traveled together was in the summer of 2008. We started with a 10-day program in Israel, then flew to Istanbul and rode trains around Eastern Europe for three weeks. We endured Euro-style haircuts (him more than me), lived like Serbian royalty for a weekend and even stopped by Dracula’s castle up in Transylvania. It was one hell of a trip.

Continue