I dream of the day that I will be taking a trip around the world and perhaps not coming back to New York or Miami for months, maybe a year. I am not planning to retire but I would like to know what it’s like to be free of the same scenery every day for a very long period of time. The Internet has given me the freedom to be anywhere on Earth as long as it has WiFi.

I can conduct my business with clients, the press, employees, associates, and strategic partners by email, text, Skype, Twitter, and Facebook. No one (young or old) wants to talk on the telephone anymore unless it’s absolutely necessary. They want to avoid long-winded conversations or my silly jokes. All kidding aside, it’s not just me. People in business are just so busy multitasking that they have little time to converse. While some of you may regret the lost art of conversation on the landline, you have to admit that much of it was repetitive or one-sided.

The one thing holding us back, believe it or not, was the mail. One of Eliot’s daily passions is to get the mail. He reminds me so much of my grandparents who would park themselves on folding chairs outside their apartment building in Brooklyn waiting for the mail everyday. The mailman was almost a family member. Eliot waits for client checks, his favorite magazines, book deliveries, bills, online purchases — the list got longer and longer.

We finally put a stop to all the insanity that had us tied down. We transferred all our mail to a nearby UPS store that offers all kinds of services including sending our mail to us anywhere in the world. Many folks we know caught on to this service years ago out of necessity, but even they say the service options keep getting better and better. Many options are totally free.

When I went with Eliot to sign all the papers that would authorize me as a co-owner of our mailbox, I noticed that a lot of the people who were dropping by the UPS store were not homeless bums without a mailbox. Rather they were upscale neighborhood residents living in multi-million dollar townhouses who don’t want the daily intrusion of mailmen, or traveling business people who prefer not to have letters and packages stacked up in their lobbies.

Both UPS and Fedex have some of the same services and exclusive added bonuses. Click on the links below to see the actual differences, but here is a list of major advantages:

1. Email alerts letting you know when there are package and letter deliveries.
2. Mail storage and will call.
3. Mail forwarding both local and out-of-town.
4. Both website and app tracking.
5. Package tracking so you know where your packages are all the time.

All I have to say is, If my grandparents could only see me now!

You can compare the UPS and Fed Ex mailbox options on CNET.