By Liza, of LizaTravel.blogspot.com
Fans are always writing to me with the same basic question: “Liza, I’ve always wanted to travel the world, see the sights, and live an adventurous life like you do on your blog, but how do I do it?”
I guess what I’m trying to say with today’s post is that you—yes, you—can live the same lifestyle as me. It doesn’t require that you wait until retirement or abstain from life’s basic necessities in the meanwhile. All you need is a Can-Do Attitude, some strength of character, and approximately $47.5 million in your trust fund.
The #1 concern people email me about is their job. “But Liza, my work won’t let me take that much time off, how did you do it?” Don’t worry! I know that you will not need to quit your job, because I didn’t have to quit mine. In fact, I never had a job in the first place.
“But Liza,” you’re whining now, “I won’t get cell phone service in Greece, how am I supposed to call my billionaire criminal mother to put together a meeting?”
The process for starting your world travels is as simple as saying “Yes” to life. Well, that, and also coming of age to inherit unrestricted control of the money left to you by your father. But there are many paths to this second criterion: your father can be a gold magnate, an oil baron, even the autocrat of a multinational media conglomerate.
When I posted the first snapshots of my two weeks in Barcelona, I got a lot of hate mail; it was full of messages like:
- “You can only afford these trips because your looks get you through every door.”
- “This is an unrealistic depiction of a vacation.”
- “Liza, somebody else is accessing the offshore accounts. Your venture capital profits from the Liberian weapons trade are being siphoned off. RESPOND IMMEDIATELY OR EVERYTHING WILL BE COMPROMISED.”
Things like that, like, all the time.
In truth, Europe can be affordable enough for anybody with what is essentially limitless means to live their dream vacation. Take my cruise down the Amalfi Coast, for example. I heard about this great discount on scuba lessons from a local businessman that I met in a nightclub, or a café, or at an underground bidding war on the fate of a small Latin American economy or something. Anyway, he told me that for just a few Euros I could get the most gorgeous view of some marine fauna not far from Sicily.
So my girlfriend and I—Rachel, I’m sure you guys remember her from the Instagram posts and also from the recent Wall Street Journal editorial accusing her of illicit insider trading on a Silicone Valley IPO—we were just like “Yasssss,” and totally jumped at the opportunity.
One of the hardest things to save money with on a vacation is lodging, and that can be difficult, particularly if you’re not in an area with youth hostels and motels, or a town dominated by the monolithic hotel chain skyscrapers that were erected with your financing. I recommend apps like Airbnb. Rachel and I often found ourselves sleeping comfortably in a stranger’s cozy Tuscan living room, a Croatian beach bungalow, or the castle of one of my Hungarian noble progenitors, who left it to me on condition that I spend one night within its haunted battlements.
Places to sleep can be found in the most unusual of environments, in fact, which is why you need to be open to new and exciting experiences. Not long after we finished our tour of the Parthenon, Rachel matched on Tinder with a handsome young Greek named Ioannes. He and his friend took us on an evening yacht ride through the Aegean, where we fell asleep beneath the stars.
“But Liza,” you’re probably saying, “I have kids and a wife, I can’t meet enigmatic Greek parvenus beneath the cover of moonlight!” It’s okay, I’ve got options for you too!
If we hadn’t met Ioannes, I would have just called my mother to have her arrange dinner with one local dignitary or another, whosever bank account was most compromised by arms deals we had orchestrated.
“But Liza,” you’re whining now, “I won’t get cell phone service in Greece, how am I supposed to call my billionaire criminal mother to put together a meeting?” I would recommend renting an international-capable Blackberry for your vacation. Problem solved!
As with any trip, seeing the major attractions is likely to be another big expense, but it doesn’t have to be! When I was outside Buckingham Palace, posing for pictures with the guards and parlaying the explicit photos I had acquired of Kate Middleton into a free tour, I overheard some Canadian tourists complaining about the £40 per piece it would take them to get into Big Ben.
But why pay to get through the front door, when you can just use your family’s ancient, dark connections to the London Architect’s Guild to acquire blueprints detailing a hidden underground entrance to the site?
I rushed over to give the hapless visitors this savvy tip, and as they stared at me quizzically—presumably searching for the words “thank you”—I went a step further and gave them my original print of the London’s secret underground tunnel network, used by the Illuminati for centuries. I hadn’t found a copy in my hotel lobby, so I assumed they had spent the morning searching for it in frustration on the darknet, just like me.
That’s about all the time I have for this blog post—Rach and I are going to grab some rooftop margaritas in Geneva tonight. It’s actually, like, really personal for me, because the only picture I have of my great grandfather was taken in Geneva, shortly after he had poured millions into lobbying against the Geneva Convention, and not long before he was convicted of Crimes Against Humanity. LOL! Isn’t Ancestry.com hilarious? I’m sure everybody’s got a story like that.
TTYL,
Liza Rothschild Kennedy Habsburg Borgia Rockefeller