My perspective on when and where and how to travel has recently been influenced by two influencers. 

Jeremy Maluf and Kevin Droniak are two New York City-based content creators who document their adventures on Instagram.

They argue travel is enhanced by spontaneity, simplicity, serendipity and, above all, frugality.

They differ in the specific idiosyncrasies about how they go about getting from place to place. 

Jeremy is a minimalist who gets by with few possessions. In addition to the trips he takes on planes and trains, he is also a big walker.

In early March, he walked 100,000 steps throughout New York City. It took about 16 hours.

My favorite thing about Jeremy is his preference for packing light even when traveling abroad. He uses a tactic he calls “pockets only.”

He boards a plane with no bag, not even a small backpack. Everything has to fit in his pockets, which limits him to a passport, credit card, iPhone, iPods and charger.

It’s how Tom Cruises’ character Jack Reacher would do it. He says the view on the faces of airport security “never gets old.”

In January, Jeremy spent $297 to fly to Guatemala for the weekend and hike the volcano Acatenango. He also did a weekend trip that covered Paris, Rome and Milan.

He says the lack of stuff is liberating. It means you can literally hit the ground running. In some cases he walks or bikes to the airport to reduce cost.

Kevin Droniak allows himself a small backpack, but usually no hotel.  His signature flex is an exceedingly long day trip on a shoestring budget. 

In March, he flew to Puerto Rico for the day, took a taxi to the beach, and went swimming before heading back to the airport.

He’s flown to Colorado to ski for half a day before returning and recently did day trips to Rome and Egypt, which required taking a red-eye that landed at 5 a.m. That gave him enough time to see the pyramids at Giza and Saqqara before reboarding to head back to New York.

You can make the argument that it’s a waste to spend over $1,192 for a day in Cairo. That you don’t get much out of such a short trip.

But you could also make the opposite case.

Life is short. The world is large. Time is limited. 

It’s obviously easier to do when you are young and unencumbered. 

But kids and career shouldn’t prevent you from flying to Miami in the morning, hitting South Beach, and flying back.

Surely a quick nose poke into the burial chamber of the pharaohs is better than none at all.

And the simplicity and speed and frugality make it more possible.

You could wait and save and take a longer, more organized trip.

But more often than not that time never comes.