If you spend $20 a DAY on food (which is exorbitant), and you have health insurance (in MA, about $400/mo for a single dude), you will have $13,000 for travel. If you can't afford to go to Killington, it's probably because you should not be renting the entire mountain. Of course, you may have chronic health issues which are expensive. That would make travel difficult in any case.

I sort of find the idea of living off 75k to understand "gritty reality," preposterous and moderately offensive. It's like giving up Dom Perignon for Veuve Clicquot in order to understand poverty.

By travel I meant car payments, car insurance, airfare, etc. not vacation trips.

The $13K that you calculate includes this travel plus everything else. I don't think that I will be taking any trips to Killington when my discretionary income is significantly below $1K/month. And, if I do, it will only be because I've given something else up, like buying books, for an extended period of time.