A lot of people have been asking me how I've been saving up for travel or how can I afford to go all these places. Well, traveling is my priority. It is something I am passionate about and something I sincerely enjoy doing. This makes it easy to save up for trips and making those executive decisions every once in a while. And lets be real, my grandmother yells at me all the time to stop and save my money lol. But when she does, I think to myself, I'm not wasting my money traveling. I'm enjoying my life and putting excitement and adventure into it. I don't just want to work, pay bills and never spend my money because I need to save it. Is that all life is? Working, Paying bills and dying? Not for me. What am I saving for??? In my mind, traveling!! Lol. Don't worry, I do have a savings for other things in life that come up. But I do have a travel fund. I have always had this idea about money, it comes and goes. Things will come up and life will happen where you'll have a lot saved and then the next thing you know, half of its gone. So why not travel? Why not spend my money on experiences rather than things? Do I own a house? No, but I have lived in Europe for 2 months. Do I have a huge retirement fund or a huge 401K? No, but I have gotten lost in cities I don't know and had the time of my life exploring and finding out where togo. I've had some of the best memories of my life traveling. To me, that's worth everything. My point is, be smart and save for later in life but also, don't be afraid to live your life now! You never know whats going to happen so enjoy your life for as long as you are on this earth. So, saving for traveling and finding the best deals to travel. LETS GET REAL. To save money for traveling, you need to make it a priority just like you would anything else. If you want a new car, you start saving money for that right? Traveling is like buying experiences and memories instead of things. I love thinking it that way. Buy experiences. Not things! Okay, maybe some souvenirs and food too. If you really want to travel more and are having a problem saving, try making a separate account specifically for your travel funds. Or even a fun travel jar!! Either one will motivate you to keep adding and only taking money out for traveling. Promise yourself to add to the jar each paycheck, kinda like you would for your retirement fund. Regardless of how much it is, add something. I used a huge pretzel jug and decorated it when I was saving up for Germany in college! And it worked!! I almost had an extra $1,000 to spend for my trip! After you make it a point to save, then comes the fun part. PLANNING!! One of the first things I always look at is the best time to go certain places. I look at weather, crowds and what do I actually want to do in those places? I mean, I'm not going to Norway in June expecting to see the northern lights. Then I look at my calendar. When can I go? How long can I stay? Once I have figured out some dates, I start searching. My favorite places to look for flights are Sky Scanner, Cheap-O-Air and Next Vacay! Sky Scanner and Cheap-O-Air search every airline to find the cheapest flights for your destination. The downside is their links sometimes aren't accurate. Prices tend to be higher once you click on the link. Another downer is if you're not paying attention, a flight might be the cheapest but you'll have 3-4 flights just to get to your destination. If you're cool with that...by all means save a few bucks. Next Vacay actually pretty much tells me where to go. Its a 1 time membership fee and they send you deals they find for flights!! I get emails all the time about random places during random times to fly the cheapest. I found flights to Denver for only $400 round trip! In the winter!!! Double bonus. After searching for flights, I look into accommodation. Booking.com, Kayak.com, hometogo.com, and AirBnb.com are all my top places to search. Depending on the type of trip will determine whether we get a hotel or Air BnB. I never try to go over $120 per night for a hotel, no matter WHERE we are. I get some places are more expensive because they are in desirable locations but I see a hotel room as my place to change, shower and sleep. I won't be spending much time in the room because I'll be out exploring!! I love finding deals on 4-5 star hotels for cheaper and with these websites, they will get you the right price you're looking for. After booking flights and rooms, its then time to figure out how to get around. To be honest, public transportation is always the easiest and usually the cheapest. The best form of transportation though...your own two feet. Thats right, walking!! I also believe that walking and finding your way around a city lets you take in the most of it. Getting lost and finding a cute little shop or running into a pop-up market is worth the little extra time it will take to get places. Now when you're traveling to a different city or country..yes take transportation but be sure to explore your options. Buses. trains, subways, there is always a cheap route to go! Don't be afraid to jump out of your comfort zone, you'll be surprised with how many different things you actually like if you try! So, I digress. This is how I save and afford traveling. Take that trip you've always wanted to go on. If you keep waiting, you'll never go. Save for the flight to Italy at Christmas or Greece in the summer. Priorities friends. Thats how you make it work.
0 Comments
I really hope that everyone has a bucket list of some sort. It doesn't have to be travel destinations like mine is or these crazy adventures like swimming with sharks or skydiving off of buildings. It can simply be to take a day trip to somewhere you've never been, trying every flavor of ice cream at your favorite ice cream shop, reading a certain number of books or even a certain kind! Whatever it is, make a list. Then after you make it, figure out how you're going to cross things off!! Its so easy to make a list and say "I'll get started next month" or "I can't afford anything right now, maybe next year". And next year becomes 2 years. 2 years becomes 5 and soon enough, your bucket list is forgotten. I knew that I would get caught up in life and forget about all of the things I wanted to experience. Riding in a hot air balloon. Going to Oktoberfest. Surfing in California. So this is what I promised myself. I promised myself that I would travel to at least 1 new place on my list EVERY year. Majority of my Bucket List is countries to visit but, like I said before, I have other things. I figured new places would be a good place to start. If I could cross off some new places, I can look into the other things I want to do too! Ever since I spent a summer in Berlin, Germany, I loved the experience of traveling somewhere new and the feelings that it gave me. It also made me appreciate home. But I knew that I would need to plan. I started by looking at my school year. When are my vacations? When do I have a 3 day weekend to squeeze a trip in? Where can I afford to go over summer vacation? After all of these questions were answered I made lists. Lists for each vacation, summer vacation and holiday that I could go to that time of year. And honestly if you know where to look, you can find some AMAZING deals. I've been using Next Vacay. This is an amazing couple who figured out how to get the best flight prices for anywhere around the world and I'll be honest. they really do find the best prices. Rome for Christmas for $383 round trip? Umm, buon Natale!! They send you a time frame and deals from airports near you! A $25 lifetime membership fee for years of savings? Thanks Next Vacay, you da bomb. For 2018 I will be crossing a few places off my list. Bermuda and the Bahamas! Right now for 2019...Ireland, Scotland and England! But a bonus for 2019, a group of my friends and I are planning our first backpacking trip to Arizona. Check Arizona off my list and backpacking. BOOM. The best is traveling with friends or your best friend. Thank God Francis likes the outdoors and traveling! Make that promise to yourself and never ever break a promise to yourself. Pinky promise. In the end its your mind, body and soul that will benefit and you won't have to look back at opportunities missed. Plan that trip. Buy the skydiving Groupon. Dye your hair that crazy color and love every second of it! ***I was not paid for this review, this is completely my own opinion*** So I just recently made an executive decision on my way to a weekend trip to Acadia National Park in Maine to buy a GoPro. I have been debating on buying an actual camera or a GoPro for a while now and I still hadn't made a choice to spend the money on either camera. I wanted something that would take better pictures than my iPhone 8 Plus (even though that takes gorgeous pictures as well). I finally decided on the GoPro because I could also take that into the water to get underwater pictures, pictures in the pool, paddle boarding, canoeing, etc. I researched and researched to figure out what GoPro to get, pros and cons of each model and accessories to buy. I ended up purchasing the GoPro Hero 5 Black and I am so happy with my choice. No its not the brand new one, but it is pretty darn close to the GoPro Hero 6. The only difference between the 2 was the 6 has 4K video for an hour and it has advanced settings for video. Now, I was purchasing this for pictures more than videos so that didn't really impress me to spend the extra 100$. I bought the GoPro at the L.L. Bean Outlet in Trenton, ME for 225$ and the 25% off was what made me immediately buy the camera. You can find the GoPro Hero 5 Black on Amazon.com for about 250$!! What it includes: The Hero 5 camera is waterproof (huge for me), has a touch screen and voice activation. This camera also takes some pretty amazing pictures. It has 4K video for 30 minutes and 12 mp pictures. Make sure you buy an SD card, they are not included with the GoPro. After figuring out that the GoPro didn't come with an SD card, we purchased a 32GB SD card from Walgreens. (it was on sale!). The GoPro Hero 5 also includes housing, a charging cord, 2 sticky mounts and instructions. After playing around with the GoPro a little bit, we were ready to take some photos. The Hero 5 is super easy to use. It has a tutorial to show you where certain things are but for the basics, touch the camera icon in the corner to change the mode and press the red button on the top to record or take a picture. Super easy. Another thing to make sure you do is download the GoPro App. This allows you to connect your GoPro, download pictures directly to your phone, and even take pictures or videos! I personally loved this because we could place our GoPro somewhere and then make sure were in the shot, getting the right angle of the shot and even take some candid pictures. Accessories to buy: I have also done an extreme amount of research on the best products to buy for the GoPro that don't break the bank or are worth spending the $$. I've looked on amazon, eBay, GoPro.com for prices and they all seem to be about the same price. I've also looked into other travel bloggers and their recommendations for GoPro Accessories. One of my favorite travel bloggers, Alyssa Ramos of mylifeisatravelmovie.com, posted some of her favorite accessories. Now if you have ever seen this girls instagram and all of the gorgeous pictures she takes, you will take her advice on photography products and accessories. In addition to my accessories, I ended up buying a Vera Bradley Large Cosmetic Case to store it all in. Yes there is the GoPro Casey but, this does the same job and is cute! The products I decided to buy from my research are listed below: **not all shown in picture Overall, I absolutely recommend buying a GoPro for all of your travels. Even if its just a piece of mind for your phone or your other expensive camera. I cannot wait to take this thing on more adventures and see what amazing photos I can take. Happy traveling!!! ***Note I was not paid to write this review, I paid in full for my GoPro and this is my honest opinion and review of the product. Below are some pictures with 4 different settings in camera mode on the GoPro. I am SOOO excited summer has finally arrived and it will be officially summer when I say goodbye to my tiny humans in a few weeks. With that being said, bring on the pool days, the darty's and the cookouts. Now, I'm not sitting here telling you eat before you go, don't eat anything greasy, skip desert etc. These are just a few tips that I try to stick by when I go to a cookout.
I hope these tips help when you're at your next BBQ!! Remember balance is key! So, I decided to write this post after venturing out to the grocery store a few days ago. I realized how hard it is sometimes to stick to your list or even remember your list! We’re all guilty of buying food that we don’t actually need that’s not in the least bit healthy for us. Below I’ve listed some tips to help keep you to your list and to healthier choices. With that…I’m not going to tell you that you should only buy organic or non-GMO labeled food and to spend $100’s more grocery shopping. These are tips for you to stick to your ‘meal plan’ and your lists of hopefully healthy meals throughout the week.
If you’re looking for healthy snacks, breakfasts, lunches or dinners, check out some of my past posts, the recipes page or our Instagram page for some suggestions!! |
Katie | Phys. Ed.Teacher | The only B.S. I need in life is Breakfast and Squats" ConnectArchives
July 2018
|