Go on a Near-Home Sabbatical – Experience Santa Fe as a Temporary Local

On the road to my first near-home sabbatical in Santa Fe, New Mexico!

I don’t know about you, but Covid has definitely cramped my travel style. Turning lemons into lemonade, I found a way to reinvent my world-wide Travelista lifestyle by creating weeks-long adventures in the U.S. This is a fantastic way to experience the many different parts of my home country while Covid keeps my travels abroad at bay. And it’s a great approach for retirees, families with kids doing online learning, or even millennials who can work remotely.

My first “sabbatical” was five weeks in Santa Fe, New Mexico during January and February of 2021. I say “sabbatical” in quotes because I’m no longer working a traditional job where I need permission to take a sabbatical every few years. I left my corporate job and consulting to become a writer and explore the world, to live life on my terms. This journey to New Mexico is a sabbatical (without the quotes) from the standpoint that it’s a long-term getaway that renews one’s spirit and expands one’s horizons, as all good sabbaticals should.

This first in a series of blogposts will share the highlights of what I’ve learned about planning and affordably enjoying a trip of more than a month’s duration. Finding the right value equation when traveling is about maximizing the experience while minimizing the budget. This way I can enjoy several month-long trips each year. This blogpost will explain how I go about creating these trips of a lifetime, so you’ll have some practical tips to reapply.

Last November as I was planning this adventure, we were in the midst of Covid-mania with everything everywhere locking down in anticipation of infection rate spikes in early 2021. I decided to plan a drivable road trip where I could lug everything but the kitchen sink in my vehicle.

I figured 7 - 8 hours of driving was reasonable and that’s how I came up with Santa Fe as my first sabbatical destination. I’d always wanted to spend some extended time here and it’s close enough to Phoenix. This turned out to be a good strategy for avoiding airline travel that also saved money not by needing to rent a car in New Mexico.

I overpacked, but that’s another story. Life principle: items deemed necessary expand to fill the space available in the vehicle, closet, garage, or storage unit.

If you’re following my Instagram @travelistaliz, you may recall I recently posted tips about the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. It’s gorgeous and worth visiting from wherever you travel. Check out this blog link for more info – or simply find it on the travelistaliz.com website with my other blogposts.

I mention this here because Petrified Forest is about halfway between Phoenix and Santa Fe, so it makes a great side adventure along the way. And if you’re driving from somewhere other than Phoenix, the Petrified Forest is about four hours from Santa Fe so it’s worth considering for an overnight or weekend adventure as well.

Tip 1: One of the most important things to figure out early on is where to stay for your longterm adventure. Both location and cost are factors to consider.

For me, finding a place that’s walkable to the town center or interesting neighborhood (say a mile or less) is critical. For Santa Fe that meant the Plaza or Canyon Road areas.

I also think it’s important to find a two-bedroom, cottage-style accommodation, even though I’m travelling solo. Extra space is nice if you’re staying for a few weeks and it’s also great to have a room for the stray visitor that might be lured your way.

You might find my “how-tos” on securing an affordable, yet adorable accommodation helpful.

Start by searching your favorite travel sites (VRBO, TripAdvisor, AirBnB) and look for half a dozen places that are near your affordability range and in the neighborhood you’re targeting.

Read the reviews and all the info about the property, including the photos. Many times, you’ll find hidden info about the property such as the owner’s first and last names or the address that will give you clues about how to contact the owner directly. Click on the map, often the exact address will be pinned providing yet another clue.

Here’s the idea. Owners love responsible long-term renters and will often give you a great deal, especially during offseason (or Covid). You can enjoy significant savings by avoiding the booking/service/cleaning fees and sales taxes that are often hardwired into travel site pricing. Further, most states (if not all) do not require sales tax on rentals of more than 30 days which is a huge savings when you find the right work-around.

Google search the owner’s name, address, or property name to figure out how to contact them directly. Often, they have a dedicated property website. It’s a win-win for both to communicate and book through that platform. Always check out the reviews before contacting an owner directly to increase the odds of a great rental experience.

A sometimes-effective alternative is to message the owner on the original travel site with a quick note telling them you’d like to pursue a month long rental and ask if they have another platform on which it might be easier to communicate. The travel site scanning robots block email addresses and phone numbers that are included in messages so you have to communicate creatively to get the conversation started with an owner when using these travel sites.

Half a dozen rental options are necessary because 50% either won’t venture off the travel site or are managed by a rental company that generally won’t give deals beyond what’s published. Direct owner communication is the best option.

Once you have direct contact info, send them a quick note explaining what you’re looking for, the desired timing, and ask what the best price they might offer you is. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness and opportunities for connection that arise.

Now that you know the best way to secure a location, I simply MUST tell you about the place I stayed during my Santa Fe sabbatical, Dunshee's Casita (see photo above). I found it using the process described above.

It’s a cozy two-bedroom place with a wood burning fireplace and an unlimited supply of firewood. It’s in the artsy Canyon Road neighborhood I was looking for.

Susan is a delightful host who lives in the “big house” next door. Take a look at the cozy open concept living room, dining room, and kitchen in the photos below.

Kitchen and Dining Area Dunshee’s Casita

If I could give more than 5 stars for a property and an owner, Susan would earn it 10 times over. Seriously, if you are going to Santa Fe for a long-term or short-term stay, look no further than Dunshee's Casita.

Tip 2: Leverage your host’s local knowledge for everything from great restaurants to local hidden gems locations.

New Mexico was tightly locked down in January 2021 with no indoor dining, most museums and indoor buildings closed, and mandatory masks required even when walking or exercising outdoors. In this kind of environment, having a great host is a double bonus.

Susan recommended the best carryout options, and I was always blown away by the food I ordered.

I love supporting local, non-chain restaurants wherever I go. The first night (and several additional nights during my stay) I ordered carryout from Jambo Cafe, an African/Caribbean fusion restaurant with many flavorful and unique menu options.

I loved this place for its flavors, but also because it took me to faraway lands that I’m not able to visit at the moment. For Food Network followers, this restaurant was featured in 2013 on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and it’s received the award for Best International Cuisine in Santa Fe for over 10 years. It’s a great place!

Top recommendations from what I sampled: fried cornmeal plantain crab cakes, curry-encrusted pistachio goat cheese salad, a combination plate with chicken curry, goat stew and chickpea berbere stew, Moroccan-spiced marinated chicken kebobs and a Lamu coconut (spicy) Pili-Pili shrimp over rice. I would devour every one of these dishes again.

I’d love to show you photos of the food, but I don’t want to give Chef Ahmed a heart attack with my D- grade plating and presentation skills. It just never looks as beautiful when you scoop it out of Styrofoam containers onto your plate at home – but it was super delicious!

Tip 3: Seek out destinations where you’ll get a different seasonal experience from that of your typical daily life.

For me, with a choice like Santa Fe, that’s a cold, snowy winter experience!

I loved waking up the first week to a blanket of pristine snow outside my front door. It took me back to my childhood in the Midwest where snow is the norm in winter. And not just an inch or two, but snow three feet deep or more.

One of the best parts about a sabbatical in a city that’s not your own when it’s cold, snowy, and during the Covid-era is snuggling up to a cozy fire with a glass of wine, a good book, and staying in your fuzzy jammies all day long.

Creating space in your life for new and different experiences, especially those with the opportunity to slow down your schedule, is amazingly restorative.

Tip 4: Get to know the neighborhood.

Many times, when we swoop into a place for a weekend, there’s only time to visit the top few places. When you stay for more than a month, there’s plenty of time to find all of the neighborhood’s interesting sites and stories. Plus, it makes you feel like a “temporary local” (a term I was knighted with by the General Manager of a local restaurant.)

In my Canyon Road neighborhood, I was mesmerized by the artistic and rustic doors I found on every corner. I’m holding myself back only showing one photo here – there are more on my @travelistaliz Instagram profile. So colorful and unique, these doors made my morning jog through the neighborhood feel so much more home-y.

One of the beautiful doors in the Canyon Road area

Tip 5: Look all around for unique sites and stories that you might normally miss.

There were more than intriguing doors to be found in my Santa Fe neighborhood. First of all, the road where my casita lived is called “Acequia Madre” which is Spanish for “Mother Ditch”.

Even though I speak a bit of Spanish, I had to look this one up. It turns out this whole area was once farmland and the main irrigation ditch for watering the fields is called an “acequia madre”.

Check out the photo to the left for some of the historic mechanical elements of the ditch’s design. This explains why the streets here wind aimlessly about and are not anything close to that of a younger city with its typical grid matrix designed for easy navigation.

There’s also a local church in the neighborhood called Cristo Rey (Christ the King) which I didn’t get the chance to visit indoors as it was closed due to Covid. On the outside, along the stone wall surrounding the church, I discovered that someone created daily stone art messages that were both simple and beautiful.

One of the benefits of a long term stay at a location is creating the space to notice and engage with what you might not otherwise take the time to do.

Tip 6: With a two-bedroom 1000 square foot cottage, there’s enough space for weekend visitors but not enough space for them to stay five weeks.

While I was there, my older sons and his fiancé (who both work remotely) were able to visit for a long weekend. Another time, a couple of good friends flew in for a few days. I even managed to convince three of my tennis buddies to fly in for a girls’ weekend. It was fun to share snowy cold Santa Fe with my warm weather friends and these visits ensured I never felt isolated.

Let your sabbatical be a time to get back to life’s simple pleasures; enjoying just being together, lighting a fire, playing card games, or cooking up new recipes. Here’s a photo with the kids and our low-carb almond crust pizza creations.

Tip 7: Get outside at different times of the day and night.

Often, we are so busy with our daily routine we can forget there’s a stunning display of stars overhead or a full moon that’s glowing so brightly in the sky right outside our front door.

If you’ve seen the Plaza in the daytime, go at night. If you’ve seen the rugged New Mexico landscapes in bright, sunny, blue-sky conditions, check it out when storm clouds are rolling in.

This is the time to slow down and discover the unexpected joys and simple pleasures that “sharpen your saw” and rejuvenate your spirit.

Summary: I hope this blogpost inspires you to think outside the box about some additional types of travel or ways of living. I’ll share more blogposts in the coming weeks about fun daylong strolls exploring the city of Santa Fe as well as road trips to stunning locations about an hour’s drive outside of Santa Fe. Even if you’re not able to sabbatical here for a month, some of these short itineraries are sure to spark the wanderlust in you to go explore more of this magical state of New Mexico.

Check out @travelistaliz on Instagram for more photos and New Mexico stories, visits to other corners of the Southwestern U.S., and even glimpses into other countries of the world I’ve found my way to explore. If you have any questions about this itinerary, reach out in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer.