And we're off . . .

    My daughter Lucy and I have embarked on a grand adventure of sorts. I managed to score us a couple of $600 round-trip tickets to Europe.

    Our tickets are from Boston to Lisbon. So to use them we had to get there, which in the end meant driving to Atlanta so that I could use a companion ticket so that Lucy could fly for free. After factoring in the cost of three weeks of parking I’ve realized this was a terrible mistake; I could have booked a flight out of Memphis months ago, but I kept waiting for the fares to drop. They never did.

    In the end, after tallying all costs we still will have managed to get from Oxford to Europe and back again for less than $1,000 each; flying out of Memphis would have cost almost double.

    Last year we spent four days on rented bicycles. This year we plan to spend almost a dozen. I’m fat and short of breath, but we plan to stay on flat ground.

    My hope is that we will convert my blog into a travelogue for the next three weeks, as we recount our adventure. Where we’ve managed to save money, I’ll share it. Where I’ve managed to blow money needlessly, I will try to admit it.