My boyfriend and I are in the US for 90 days as part of the dance we have to do to be in line with visa laws while staying together (I’m American, he’s Swedish).

First it was San Francisco:

And now New York (as seen from the roof of our friend Mark’s place):

In late May we’ll be in Naples, Florida, where Erik will face the daunting task of meeting my family and living through their cross-ex.

Some folks seem to think you have to save up a tidy sum to be able to hop around this much, but believe it or not, this arrangement didn’t at all break the bank.

The first important bit, of course, is to have a job that you can do remotely. Save for the few days we were in the air and adjusting to time zone shifts, we haven’t taken any time off from our full-time jobs (me doing customer support for WordPress.com, and he working on his own indie games). Everywhere we go, our laptops come with us, and we’re glued to them for most of the day. This isn’t a vacation, but rather working with the perk of a new environment.

We booked our flights to all three locations and back as one multi-city ticket a couple months in advance through Obitz, which was actually cheaper than just one roundtrip from Sweden. I highly recommend that method.

For lodging, we booked a studio in San Francisco through Airbnb, and here in New York we’re subletting from a college friend. And, of course, it doesn’t cost a penny to stay in my old room at my Mom’s. Together it averages out to the same amount that we were paying per month for our place in Gothenburg.

Everywhere we’ve stayed has had a nice kitchen, which is important to us since we like to make food together, and it cuts way back on expenses. I also happen to have lived in all of these cities before, so we can have fun for free by just hanging out with friends! Another really nice way to save money.

If you want to keep up with what we’re doing, check out his Tumblr (på svenska) and my Flickr account.

Now that we’re settled in here for a bit, regular posts will be coming back!