Pockets Only Travel

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It’s possible to travel fast and light.

My perspective on when and where and how to travel is being influenced by two influencers. 

Jeremy Maluf and Kevin Droniak are two New York City-based content creators who document their adventures on Instagram.

They argue that travel is enhanced by spontaneity, simplicity, serendipity and, above all, frugality.

They differ in the specific idiosyncrasies about how they get from place to place.

Jeremy is a minimalist who gets by with few possessions. In addition to the trips he takes on planes and trains, he is a big walker.

In early March, he walked 100,000 steps throughout New York City. It took about 16 hours.

My favorite thing about Jeremy is his preference for packing light even when traveling abroad. He uses a tactic he calls “pockets only.”

He boards a plane with no bag, not even a small backpack. Everything has to fit in his pockets, which limits him to a passport, credit card, iPhone, iPods and charger.

He claims it is how Tom Cruises’ character Jack Reacher would do it. He says the view on the faces of airport security who ask him where his bag is “never gets old.”

In January, Jeremy spent $297 to fly to Guatemala for the weekend and hike the volcano Acatenango. He also did a weekend trip that covered Paris, Rome and Milan.

He says the lack of stuff is liberating. It means you can literally hit the ground running. In some cases he walks or bikes to the airport to reduce cost.

Kevin Droniak allows himself a small backpack, but usually doesn’t bother staying in a hotel.  His signature flex is an exceedingly long day trip on a shoestring budget. 

In March, he flew to Puerto Rico for the day, took a taxi to the beach, and went swimming before heading back to the airport.

He’s done same-day trips to Colorado to ski and the Grand Canyon to hike.

Recently, he did day trips to Rome and Egypt, the later required taking a red-eye that landed at 5 a.m. It still gave him enough time to see the pyramids at Giza and Saqqara before heading back to New York.

You can make the argument that it’s a waste to spend $1,000 for a day in Cairo. That you don’t get much out of such a short trip.

But I could easily make the opposite case.

Life is short. The world is large. Time is limited. 

It’s obviously easier to travel pockets only when you are young and unencumbered. 

But kids and career shouldn’t prevent anyone from flying to Miami in the morning, catching some rays on South Beach, and flying back.

Surely a glimpse into the burial chamber of the pharaohs is better than none at all.

Kevin and Jeremy would say that simplicity, speed and frugality make it more possible.

You could wait and save your money to take a longer, more organized trip.

But oftentimes that trip never happens.

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BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

JOURNALING: Pepys is famous for his societal observations. Imagine if he had continued to journal for another three decades. What’s stopping you?

LONLINESS EPIDEMIC: There is evidently a loneliness epidemic. One of the solutions I’ve seen young people adopt is to leverage socia media and just invite people to meet up and do something. It can be remarkably effective.

CONVERSATIONAL ROI: More wit and wisdom from Anu Atluru via her Substack feed. I like the idea of measuring your impact based on the ideas you share and the ripples of conversation they create.

CHATGPT: A nugget from the New York Times suggesting that we are not prepared for the apocalypse of lost jobs that will be caused by AI.

HER: Humans find ways to make money even out of the misery of loneliness. One the one hand this seems sad and terrible. On the other hand, why didn’t I think of it?

Please reach out if you have any thoughts about today’s newsletter. I enjoy hearing from readers. Send me a message if you want to talk or meet up if you are in NYC.

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