Katie Hammel is the writer behind The Great Affair, a blog about one young Chicago couple’s choice to live simply in favor of traveling widely.
She and her husband Dan tend to differ on the travel issue of Plan vs. Wander, but they’d still rather travel with each other than anyone else on Earth. At 29, Katie seems to be archiving her own evolution as a traveler and a full-blown adult, while Dan occasionally chimes in to share his own perspective.
What makes Katie’s thirst for travel so unique is…she’s deathly afraid to fly. But together, she and Dan have found an ingenious way to rise above.
You and Dan have already lived in three cities together. How long have you been together?
Dan and I will have been married for two years this June, though we’ve been together for nearly seven years. We met the summer of 2002 during my last summer of college, when I took an internship in the promotions department of a radio station where Dan was working part-time.
We started our relationship in our hometown of Detroit, moved to Seattle, and now live in Chicago. But I’m starting to get itchy feet again…I don’t think I was meant to live in one place forever. We’ve agreed that while we may end up back in Detroit someday, we have a few more moves (hopefully internationally at some point) left in us before we permanently settle.
When and how were you each bitten by the travel bug?
Dan’s family has always traveled, so he grew up hearing stories about overseas exploits. He went to Spain on a high school class trip and took his first solo international trip when he was 22.
For me, travel was a dream that I didn’t think I could achieve. My family took a road trip or went to Disney World every year, but other than that travel wasn’t a big part of our lives. No one in my family and none of my childhood friends have traveled outside of North America. When I met Dan and heard about his trips, I was inspired. He asked me where I’d most like to go and I said Ireland – a few months later he surprised me with a birthday trip to Dublin for four days. From then on, I was hooked.
You’re an avid traveler who’s afraid to fly. How do you deal with this quandary?
I consider it a necessary evil; it’s something I have to deal with in order to travel to all the places I want to go. I know flying is safe, but when I get on the plane, I lose my ability to think rationally. I try to remind myself of all the planes in the sky at that very moment and remember all the things I’ve read about how planes fly and what makes them safe.
My doctor prescribed Xanax for me, and that really helps. It also helps that Dan is incredibly supportive and reassuring and doesn’t lose patience with me when I bury my head in his chest and keep asking, “Are we okay?”
He recently bought me a flying lesson for my birthday in the hope that it would help with my fear. Going up in the tiny four-seater airplane was terrifying, but I did it without being sedated and without completely losing it, so I think there’s hope for me!
You’re candid with your readers about not being particularly wealthy. How do you all manage to travel all over the world several times a year?
We make it a priority. We’re lucky enough to each have good jobs that pay well, but we live far below our means and put as much money as we can towards traveling. We cut out unnecessary expenses – we don’t have cable, we only go out to eat once or twice a month (where we take advantage of Chicago’s BYOB laws), and we rely on public transportation rather than owning cars.
When we travel, we do so on a small budget. I do lots of research before a trip to find inexpensive places to stay that are still unique; we very rarely spend more than $100 a night for a hotel room. We balance sacrifices with splurges to stay within our budget while still enjoying our trip to the fullest.
Do you two have different approaches to travel, or are you generally on the same page as you plan and take a trip?
We’re pretty much on the same page when it comes to what we want to do and how we want to travel. The main focus of travel for both of us is to experience life in a new country as though we lived there. We both enjoy just wandering around, eating good food, sampling local drinks, and seeing a few sights.
But when it comes to how we plan a trip, we differ a bit. I’m a little more organized when it comes to making an itinerary and gathering information like maps and directions. Dan’s much more, “Go with the flow” and, “We’ll figure it out”.
Our first trip together, I’d planned out every hour of each day and printed out a schedule, which, of course, we didn’t follow at all. Now we just have a general idea of what we want to see and do and we plan each day as we go along. Even though I do a lot of research before we go, I kind of let Dan take the lead when we arrive. He’ll always be the one who asks for directions and negotiates taxi rates.
You both admit that you aren’t so crazy about museums, but you’re passionate about wine and beer. What have been some of your favorite places to taste each?
We both loved the beer in Seattle; Dan worked as a brewery manager while we lived there and we learned so much about different varieties and brewing methods. Before that, we drank Bud Light and had no idea what a porter was…now it’s my favorite beer. In Argentina we drank Andes Porter — we can’t wait to go back for that beer!
We also went wine tasting in eastern Washington a lot when we were in Seattle. One of my favorite places is in Yakima, the Rattlesnake Hills Trail. It’s like a very low-key undiscovered version of Napa. The wine was fantastic, the people were so welcoming and down-to-earth — usually it was the winemakers themselves who worked the tasting room — and most of the tastings were free.
I also really loved the Mendoza region of Argentina for that same reason, it just felt so unpretentious and intimate; we felt like we really got an inside look at the wineries. After touring three we felt like we could work the process from start to finish ourselves.
What have been your favorite and least favorite places?
My favorites so far have been Argentina and Iceland. I felt such a strong connection to both as soon as we arrived. They’re both on my list of places I would love to live for a few years.
San Sebastian, Spain and Cinque Terre, Italy are both breathtaking seaside towns with amazing food that we agreed we must return to someday.
Dan liked Venice while I wasn’t such a fan – he liked the chaos and confusion of the twisty streets and back alleys but I hated the crowds (though I’ve agreed to visit again in winter) and felt like everything was overpriced.
We both dislike Las Vegas. It’s just so over the top and excessive and while it can be fun in very small doses and on someone else’s dime (I was sent for work last year), it’s not how we would chose to spend our travel money.
In your travels so far, what have you and Dan learned about each other?
I think traveling together has taught us how to communicate better and how to resolve conflicts more quickly. There’s an immediacy when you’re traveling — you can’t let arguments drag on or ignore each other for days because you’ll miss out on too much.
We’ve gotten into the occasional disagreement while traveling and I think we’re better for it. It’s helped us figure out how to deal with each other when we’re upset and we’ve been able to apply what we’ve learned to our lives at home.
Traveling with Dan has also helped me step outside my comfort zone and try things like eating chicken liver pate in Italy or jumping off a cliff in Jamaica. He always encourages me to take chances when we’re traveling and in our daily lives.
What do you feel is the upside to traveling with your spouse versus a friend, or even alone?
I occasionally travel alone for work and I’ve come to realize, I don’t really like it. I feel like I need to have someone else there to experience things with me or it seems like it could have all been a dream. I like to have that shared memory.
I’ve recently started traveling with friends, and while I really enjoy the chance to spend time with them and experience new things together, I think it’s easier with Dan. There are no issues with budgets, who pays for what, or worrying if one person can afford certain things that the other wants to do. I think it’s easier to be on the same page and as sappy as it sounds, even when we aren’t on the same page, which is rare, it’s still okay because we are together.
We’ve had some mini-disasters on our trips, things like late buses, useless maps and horrible weather, and we always end up finding a way to laugh our way through them. I don’t think that would be possible traveling with anyone but Dan.
