Sliding into Home Base, the Traveler’s Way

It’s that time of year again. We’ve been busy traveling, watching the niece and nephews play t-ball, and somehow keeping the acreage afloat. Today, we’re going to take a look at an approach that I don’t think we’ve talked about before. Using a home base – in the traveler’s sense of things, not baseball.

For some of our trips, we move from one place to another with no plans to return to where we started. This can be a good way to see different places, particularly when you’re planning to visit multiple countries. But sometimes it’s better to stay in one place and do side trips, especially if you’re staying in a single country and want to see as much of it as you can.

How we do it in Spain

Let’s use Jason’s time in Madrid, Spain this summer as an example. As we’ve said earlier, most summers Jason works for another university that requires him to live in Madrid for about 6 weeks. Once there, Madrid serves as his home base. During the week, he’s in the classroom and living a regular life in the city (getting groceries, doing laundry, not feeding chickens, etc.). On the weekends, he’s free to do other things that require a little more time, particularly when Tasha flies over to see him. Fortunately, there’s lots to do and see in the city, but there’s also lots to do elsewhere.

While Tasha is visiting, we often use the Madrid apartment as our home base away from home. Meaning, we’ll take weekend or day trips outside of Madrid, but leave the majority of our stuff at the apartment. Rinse (literally do laundry) and repeat the next weekend.

It’s helpful that when we want to get out of Madrid to see another part of Spain, or even another country, there’s plenty of travel options:

• Trains. Spain has a great train network that can get you all over the country in a relatively short amount of time. The other major cities in Spain are all about a 3-hour train ride on the high-speed rail system. Trains are safe, fast, easy, and very cost-effective, even if you buy a first-class seat.
  • One trip we love is a 3-hour jaunt down to Granada on the high-speed train to visit the Alhambra Palace and Generalife gardens. If you haven’t been, it’s a must for a deep dive into the architectural & cultural influences in the history of Spain.
  • Barcelona is also a quick 3-hour train ride. It’s a tourist hotspot with a little bit of protesting over the number of tourists visiting these days, but be a courteous visitor, and you’ll be fine. Don’t miss the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, a view of the city from the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, and maybe even a venture outside of the city to Monistrol de Montserrat – a stunning monastery in the serrated mountains.
  • Also, HUGE love for the northern coast of Spain. A 3-hour train from central Madrid will put you in Oviedo. Outside of the city, you’ll find rolling countryside and stunning cliffs dropping into the Bay of Biscay. We highly recommend Hotel Torre de Villademoros for a quiet stay with amazing food, wine, and hikes through the fields to the cliffs.
  • You can always check the Renfe website (the main national train operator in Spain) for a map of lines and station names in Spain for more ideas.
    

• Rental cars. If we aren’t going far, or if we’ve taken the train somewhere and need to get outside of the city, we’ll usually opt for a rental car for maximum flexibility. This lets us take a train or flight to a different town or city, and then the car gives us the ability to see even smaller areas and not rely on a tour operator. We don’t typically do this for long distances because the train is easier and usually less expensive.
  • Our favorite rental company is Sixt – so friendly and a lot less paperwork than some of the other companies – everything is digital! Look for them at train stations, city centers, and airports. Sometimes they have key pickup desks located in hotels with longer office hours than their store locations – it’s great!
    

• Flights. We usually only take flights if we’re really pressed for time or are going somewhere the train either doesn’t go or takes considerably longer to get to. Fortunately, a few low-cost airlines operate in Europe, which helps keep our costs down. Still, just like in the US, you must show up at the airport early, go through security, wait around, etc. Because of this, and just the chaos that flying has turned into over the last few years, this isn’t our first choice for traveling in-country.
  • This summer, we opted for a weekend trip to Luxembourg and Belgium. We flew round-trip into Luxembourg (an absolutely delightful little airport) on the low-cost carrier Ryanair. Since we only had our backpacks, we didn’t pay any extra fees to check bags (one free hand luggage if it fits under the seat).

Benefits of a Home Base

Using Jason’s apartment as a home base in Madrid gives us tons of flexibility while we’re abroad. This has a few helpful benefits:

• We unpack our stuff once. Usually, when we travel to Europe, it’s with a carry-on suitcase and a backpack. This makes it easy to move around (hello, Europe’s lack of elevators) and shift plans if something unexpected happens, like a canceled flight. Nobody wants the headache of lost luggage. Still, for a shorter weekend trip, that can be a lot to carry around. So, when we do the smaller trips, we usually only pack into a backpack because we can leave everything else at the apartment. This makes travel even easier.

• One of the things we miss the most about being home (other than The Crew, obviously) is being able to do laundry. Over the years, we’ve mastered the art of bathroom sink laundry, but even with good soap and equipment, it’s not quite as good as a washing machine. So, after we get back to Jason’s apartment from a weekend trip, we can do laundry before repacking for the next adventure.
• It’s nice to eat out every now and again, but when you travel and are constantly on the go, you’re always eating out, and that can get old (and expensive!) quickly. Also, if you’re like us, what we eat at restaurants isn’t always the same (or as good for us) as when we eat at home. In the long run, that can make it hard for us to keep up our energy and health while traveling. Fortunately, having an apartment means we have a kitchen, so we can cook during the week.
• We love traveling, but it’s also nice to just be at home for a bit, to help relax and recharge in your own space, not a hotel room (even if it is a nice one). Having Jason’s apartment gives us this breathing room (separate bathrooms & workspace), and it’s a familiar place to come back to, which is nice when you’re away from home for long periods of time.

Other Considerations

Something else to keep in mind is that if you’re planning to visit lots of different places while abroad, you might end up purchasing a multi-city flight itinerary (flying into one city and home from another). Many times, these can be expensive and are frequently more costly than a round-trip flight into a single major city. So, having a home base, especially if it’s in a larger city that’s better connected, can lead to lower flight costs.

Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that if you go through an apartment management company (like Airbnb or VRBO) to get your apartment, if you stay for a longer time, you can sometimes get a better price.

That said, the obvious downside is you’re paying for two places to stay (your apartment and the new hotel) if you go this route and travel on weekends. We’ve found the extra expense is worth it, for all the reasons we mentioned above.

Still, it’s worth mentioning we don’t do this everywhere. If you really want to travel to other countries with no plans to return to your starting point, this might not make sense. However, we’ve found it’s a handy approach when we’re in a large country, want to see a lot, and can find cost-effective ways to see much of the country and/or neighboring countries.

Whatever you do and however you do it, keep adventuring!