I feel the need to address this issue, because a lot of people have asked me about it. I don’t think I travel that frequently, but I don’t want to mislead anyone. I am not crazy rich, nor do I have some kind of ooooooh fancy jet-setting job.

First of all, I do not travel for work. I work in book publishing*. If you want a job that requires travel, or gives you enough money to travel, publishing is not it. (I love working in book publishing, but trust me, no one is in publishing for the money.) There might be the occasional conference, but 99% of my travel is leisure travel.

I really like travelling, so it’s mostly propelled by the following:

1) One of my hobbies is finding travel deals. The internet is my friend, and I spend sometimes a ridiculous amount of time on this. Would I have gone to Barcelona earlier this year if I hadn’t found an amazing $250 roundtrip ticket on American Airlines? No, definitely not! I stalk a lot of travel-related sites religiously. To me, it’s worth it. I start to get antsy if I’m not on an airplane at least once a month.

2) A credit card that accumulates frequent flyer miles. The boyfriend and I put practically everything we buy on an Amex that gets us Aeroplan points, which usually equals a couple trips a year on miles.

3) The boyfriend works in the much more lucrative field of web development. If you want a job that affords you fun travel, work in web development. He appreciates the travel deals I find, and I appreciate his contribution to the travel fund. He also goes to work-related conferences and I often tag along, because that means an almost free trip for me.

There are no big secrets; if you want to travel, you can make it happen. Boatloads of money are not required. A good example is Lucky — he travels ALL THE TIME, almost always in first class, and he’s a university student.

I’m actually glad I don’t travel for work — it allows me to keep a romantic perspective on travel. I’ve always loved flying, but I don’t know how much I’d still love it if I had to fly weekly for work. I still enjoy just sitting in the airport, and I love the feeling of WHEE I’M GOING SOMEWHERE! Yes, I get annoyed waiting behind 87 people in the security line with metal in their pockets, but still! I’M GOING SOMEWHERE!

Lastly, since I’ve been asked about this too — I do travel in first class, but not all the time, and almost never paid. The secrets to that are easy: get yourself status on an airline. I collect miles into United’s Mileage Plus program, and the boyfriend into Air Canada’s Aeroplan. We each earn status with our respective airlines and status means free upgrades and lounges. I’ll write more about this someday, but that’s the basic idea.

Hope that clears some things up!

* Do not email me asking about how to publish your book.

Several years ago, I participated in a test at YYZ (Toronto Pearson International Airport) — a trial see how the (then brand new) Terminal 1 would handle transborder traffic. At the time, T1 was only open to domestic flights.  It was really cool for an airport nerd like me — we got to see parts of the terminal that weren’t yet open to the public, and got to pretend to be passengers. (Passengers to nowhere, but passengers! I’ll take even pretending to fly somewhere.) Everyone was given a script with a fake name, fake destination, amount of luggage, etc. You had to go through security and customs just like a real flight.

It’s kind of interesting to look back on this, because I’ve since been through YYZ T1 (especially transborder) a zillion times. I don’t really think about it anymore, but it was so pretty and shiny and new the first time I saw it.

The trial obviously had to test how T1 would function with a maximum amount of passenger traffic. I would not be happy to see this many people at YYZ.

Bags waiting to play the part of our fake luggage.

So shiny!

Luckily, T1 actually rarely looks like this!

I've walked this walk so many times since.

My script for the test. Coach? Checking bags? Booo!

There were a lot of signs that said that this was a trial so that actual passengers didn't get confused.

Waiting for our flights to nowhere. I felt sad that I wasn't actually going anywhere!

It was so beautiful and new.

This still reminds me of Katamari Damacy every time I see it.