Caroline Lupini

It’s interesting for me to compare my current costs to what they used to be when I lived in one place and just took the occasional trip, and it’s honestly pretty amazing to me that a lot of my costs really aren’t that different. I used to spend $1,000 per month on my apartment in Ann Arbor, so the fact that I’m able to spend about half of that while traveling is pretty amazing to me. I actually think this is a pretty low activity expense for the year because I felt like I did a great number of activities last year! Any water, juices, and other drinks I bought over the course of the year are also included in this category, but I don’t really drink a lot of those things

2018 was my first complete calendar year as a full-time freelancer, and, as expected, it has been my most productive one. My carbon footprint skyrocketed, unfortunately, but at the same time the planes would’ve flown regardless of my taking up one of the seats. I went to the Caribbean, to South America (for the first time), to Asia (twice), to Europe (twice) and to Australia (also for the first time). As it was a year of repeats, I hope to visit more new countries in 2019.

My longest flight was in Emirates First Class from Los Angeles to Dubai with four of my friends – definitely not a bad way to spend 15 hours and 24 minutes in the air – while my shortest flight of the year was solo from Barcelona, Spain to Mahon, Menorca (also Spain) to meet my mom for our annual mom trip! This year I flew in first class four times, business class eight times, and still a whopping 45 flights were in economy. That made it a double sweet trip because I not only got to visit a new country and meet a ton of awesome people, but it also meant that I was finished with my MBA – a degree that was nearly four years in the making. We spent about three weeks there, and then traveled to Uluru, Cairns – where we did a week-long scuba trip, and then Melbourne for a couple of days before flying home for the holidays!

Arabian Moors, black monks, witches, Neanderthal artists, fairy tale castles and monasteries amongst the clouds, Spain is a place that blurs the lines between dreams and reality. Specifically, Abu Jaffar Al-Muqtadir, who during the 11th century had this elaborate piece of architecture built in the Islamic style with arabesques, horseshoe arches and geometric and vegetal shapes carved in alabaster. Zugarramurdi now has a witches museum dedicated to the memory of those that were persecuted, and a short walk away lies the witches cave which was carved out by the Orabidea River which, the locals call Hell’s Stream. The Neanderthals who lived 40,800 years ago left their hand prints as proof of their existence in this world, just as living beings have done since time immemorial.