{"id":44901,"date":"2025-10-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=44901"},"modified":"2025-10-02T13:25:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T20:25:37","slug":"third-place-happiness-flight-payment-plans-escaping-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/third-place-happiness-flight-payment-plans-escaping-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Place Happiness\/Flight Payment Plans\/Escaping the US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2><strong>The Happiness of Coming in Third<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This week I\u2019m curating some interesting articles from others. The first is strange and encouraging. It turns out that multiple studies with different methods have found that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yearofmentalhealth.com\/p\/it-could-have-gone-another-way\">Bronze winners in the Olympics are happier than the Silver winners<\/a>. There are probably lessons in here about drive and ambition, but maybe it\u2019s just a good reminder to enjoy the moment when you appear on life\u2019s podium. If you expect everything to go perfectly and to win every time, including on travel days, you\u2019re going to suffer a lot of disappointment. Via Chris Guillebeau at&nbsp;<em>A Year of Mental Health<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Payment Plans for Airline Tickets<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend Kerwin McKenzie wrote an in-depth article for T+L on all the options that are out there for you if you need a plane ticket now but don\u2019t want to&nbsp;<em>pay<\/em>&nbsp;for it now. Usually you\u2019re better off putting the purchase on a credit card that earns you something back, but if that\u2019s not an option, see these ways to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.travelandleisure.com\/travel-tips\/pay-flight-installment-websites\">buy a flight on a payment plan and stretch out the due dates<\/a>. (Many budget airlines around the world offer this directly too in the purchase process.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>The Inherent Conflict of \u201cLive Like a Local\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the best intentions, you will never really see life from a local perspective if you\u2019re on vacation or sticking around for two months as a digital nomad. As this sarcastic&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/andrewsamtoy.substack.com\/p\/ten-ways-to-live-like-a-local-anywhere\">\u201clive like a local\u201d article<\/a>&nbsp;points out, you can only scratch the surface. Most people who live there are working a physical job to pay the bills, dealing with family issues, fighting with the local government, and doing zero sightseeing. Working remotely for a Silicon Valley company at 10X the local salary while in a posh Airbnb rental is just not the same. Found via James Clark at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetravelwire.net\/\">The Travel Wire<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Bolting the USA<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Nomadico partner Mark Frauenfelder, from sister newsletter&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.recomendo.com\/\">Recomendo<\/a><\/em>, interviewed me at&nbsp;<em>Boing Boing<\/em>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2025\/09\/17\/escape-routes-top-options-for-leaving-the-u-s-in-2025.html\">this article on escaping the USA<\/a>. If you\u2019ve got your eyes set on greener pastures, check it out for some ideas and considerations. Remember too that \u201cmoving abroad\u201d doesn\u2019t need to have a one-destination answer. Plenty of working travelers and retirees bop around to different places in the course of a year and having a home base doesn\u2019t have to mean spending 12 months there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/cbjyU?utm_campaign=Nomadico&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=Revue%20newsletter\" target=\"_blank\"><em>A Better Life for Half the Price<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>The World\u2019s Cheapest Destinations<\/em>. See\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/nomadico.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">past editions here,<\/a>\u00a0where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nomadico Issue #173<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2385],"tags":[2386],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44902,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44901\/revisions\/44902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}