My wife, Paula, and I want to do two things this summer: have an adventure and find a new apartment. We love to travel, something to which our work situation is quite amenable. Paula is a freelance editor so as long as she has a computer and at least occasional Internet connection, she can work anywhere. I am a college professor, which means I am essentially unemployed during the summer, though I also do some freelance writing and editing. So from mid-May to mid-August we have no reason to be tied to one place. We could travel the world. Well, within the limits of being able to afford it. We live comfortably but we aren’t rich. Like so many other travelers we want to travel comfortably within sensible limits of expenditures.

One day, Paula, half jokingly, suggested that instead of moving straight from one apartment to the next we just put out stuff in storage and go travel all summer. We laughed but the idea simmered in the background for a few weeks. One day it really struck me just how smart Paula’s idea was. What makes a vacation doubly expensive is that in addition to all of the travel costs you are still paying for your home. The landlord doesn’t give you a discount if you aren’t actually sleeping there that night. Eliminate the apartment rent, then there is that much more money for your trip.

So then I really looked at the money involved. Turns out that between rent and utilities we are paying $54 a day to live where we are. That wasn’t counting food or any other expenses, that was $54 a day just to have a place to stay. Without that apartment expense that meant $54 a day more toward travelling.

Can we actually stay on the road for less than $54 a night? We don’t have to but the thought has become a challenge. I had some experience that suggested we could. Last term, I taught a Monday night class, then a Tuesday morning class. The commute from home to school was an hour each way, in the winter, in Chicago traffic, so I wondered if there was any way to find a hotel room cheap enough to make it worthwhile. I checked out Priceline’s “Name Your Own Price” feature and discovered I could get a room only ten minutes from school for only $20 plus $4 tax. This I did for the remaining two months of the term and it saved me a ton of time, stress, and gas.

Looking back, $24 is a lot cheaper than $54. Even paying $5 a stay for Internet access still means the price is almost half. We’d lose a lot of space but still. So can we always find hotels so cheap? That remains to be seen. After all, I only had tried it in one city. Still, the challenge is there.

We have decided to do it. We have not renewed our lease, disappointing the landlords—they should have offered us a discount—and before the end of May we will have our stuff in storage and will be travelling the country. Let’s see how we do.