Mainers move around their own state to enjoy the surroundings, festivals, annual events. The Europeans cherish and regularly squeeze in their vacations to travel and explore too.
But Americans chasing the urban dollars to fund the more expensive cost of living. Have been labeled as workaholics and driven by vocation rather than vacations. (Burton Cummins sings “Got no no no (extra) time.”)
Vacations in Maine, anywhere.
Like most things in life, practicing moderation makes sense to avoid tilting the playing field to either extreme. Of all work no play or hey hey.
Just wanting to play, beat on the drum all day. Yeah Mon. Wasting the day away on a tropical island with a blender working over time and searching for the shaker of salt. Admiring a tattoo you now wear but just don’t remember paying for, getting applied.
Waiting until you retire to take those vacation, to explore around Maine or anywhere on the planet is not the best plan.
Having fun along the way is and especially when you have a family, younger kids that need to know there is life beyond their backyard. To know where they settle down is because of comparing home to other places not so close.
But the cost to travel. Maine is a rural, unspoiled, under populated state not flush with disposable cash to climb into silver birds to jet here, there, everywhere on a regular basis.
So swapping the Maine vacation home for another somewhere you have never been.
Or year after year with someone like you that respects their property and you pass in flight or on the open road heading to the others domain.
For a week to see how the rest of the World lives. One home at a time that cost you no money, just your roof and four walls, the floor. In exchange for vacation time at their local address.
How do you know it is a like value exchange of a vacation home you own for one of another?
How do you add credibility to the other end destination being what the supposed owner says it is? What if it does not measure up and they got the better end of the barter exchange?
That would hit a sour note. Kill the travel bug for a spell and make you think twice or more times before stepping out and doing that again.
There are firms to help the swapping vacation property exchange.
And everyone knows someone from school, growing up that moved somewhere out of town, out of state or even the country. Those are the first place to look using alumni websites and avoiding scams on Craig’s List.
We have run into those with a local property listing that someone online lifted the images in the copy and paste and passed themselves off as the owner.
Looking for a quality renter like yourself that should wire them money so they can send you the keys they don’t have.
Because they don’t own but do a pretty do job of acting like the owner thanks to the information provided by the local listing agent or broker.
The exchange of vacation spots so two parties can experience what the other one does year round for just one week away from the local surroundings.
It can make the vacation more fun because other than the cost of the trip to and from, the food or entertainment, lodging is wiped off the take away cost. That shows up on the plastic cards with the magnetic chip or strip. For months afterwards.
So important because if you worry about the cost all the trip, then don’t go. The Europeans scrimp and save and go without during the year living austere to be able to have the means to travel.
It is part of their mental health. It is the carrot of something fun to look forward to and look back on with a smile.
I know a class mate who works on small engines, sport vehicles for recreational use of the Maine trail system. And whenever a customer complains about the high cost of a snow sled drive belt, a new idler or jack shaft bearing or suspension part.
Even thought the machine cost $10,000 to $20,000, he reminds the complainer that maybe you should sell it. Because either you can’t afford maintaining and using it, keeping it licensed. Or the cost outlay more than offsets the enjoyment factor for fear of going broke pulling off the sport.
That’s one more reason too that hiking, biking, kayaking and using simple tents to sleep under the stars, cooking over an open fire makes sense.
Maine is famous for those low or no cost vacation options.
Don’t wait until retirement, the not so golden years when health makes the travel not an option.
Because of green oxygen tanks following you or the confinement of a walker or wheelchair that limits what you see or makes it such a struggle that it is just not worth it. Because you missed the opportunity to tap into your own personal travel channel.
Maine is waiting and don’t believe all the myths about winter being nine or more months long.
Who makes this stuff up, passes around the wrong information on the grapevine has never been to Maine. Like the folks they get purple ears listening too and spreading around their social circles. Wonder if Michigan, Minnesota, New York and other New England states get the same bum wrap. We don’t show up on the circling globe in the Arctic Circle and are a lot lower in the latitude line markings.
Maine, come see for yourself. Consider a vacation where you wrap what you have, leaving a book that shows the new to your area everything about the surroundings that they would want and need to know about on their R and R session.
And they do the same for you at their vacation home put to work to provide them with one in exchange. Staying in an entire home not am expensive, limited one or two motel / hotel room is a no brainer decision where you don’t need to flip a coin, to know which to pick.
I live in Maine full time but like to travel whenever possible.
Four kids strategically located and brothers not local also helps our vacation planning and traveling. To free up resources to allow more than one slam bam thank you but that is all she wrote for this year. Some vacations more expensive and one in a life time than others too.
Introduction to high speed trains for travel was something new. And the sights and scenes gathered up from kids who went to out of state colleges exercised the travel bug.
Home swapping for vacations is not for everyone.
Like most things, it is quality not quantity of the day length of your vacations. And when you live in Maine full time, you don’t have to eat up that back and forth stretch of Interstate 95 reflectorized highway mile markers.
Swapping homes for vacations in Maine. We’ll help match you up from our local pool and yes there is a shameful reason beyond loving where we live and wanting to share it.
When your wanderlust dies down. I just happen to list, market, sell real estate property listings in Maine, vacation second homes and other types in case you decide let’s settle down in Vacationland, the Pine Tree State for good.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730