Tag Archives: adventure

5 Resources for Travel Budget Planning

Alamo Square San FranciscoI have to admit something to you all. I used to splurge on vacations. I know, I know, I just wrote this post about How to Save on Weekend Getaways. But saving on travel is something fairly new to me. I always had the mindset that “Hey, I’m on vacation, I shouldn’t have to worry about money.” But I also realize that if I want to travel more, I need to make my trips more budget friendly.

Here’s some tools and resources I’ve been using to plan my next trip. Next month, George and I are flying to Portland! It’s been on my travel bucket list FOREVER!

1. Travel Budget Calculator
This handy-dandy calculator includes fields for all kinds of expenses that you might encounter while traveling. It even has a field for cocktails. It’s my kind of calculator!

2. WikiTravel
Have you heard of WikiTravel? It’s Wikipedia for travelers. The destination descriptions are super comprehensive because the site is written by other travelers. What I love about this site it that they’ve included so many details. I now know the down low on public transportation in Portland– something that is going to be super essential to my budget.

3. Adventurous Kate
I love this article from the blog, Adventurous Kate. She describes how she saved $13,000 in just 7 months, so she could travel the world! Kate gives an honest breakdown of her expenses and the hard sacrifices she had to make– all in the name of travel!

4. Pack Like A Pro
Checking a bag can be costly, so I’m reading up on the best way to pack a carry on. I learned so much from this Heathrow Airport video (linked above). And before all my trips, I always refer back to this NY Times article that features a flight attendant packing 10 days in a carry-on. It’s magic.

5. Travel Full-time for less than $14,000 per year
First of all, I have to say how much I love the blog, I will teach you to be rich. And I especially love the above article on traveling the world for less than $14,000 per year. I’m not to the point of full-time world traveling (just yet!) but Nora Dunn of the Professional Hobo doles out some excellent tips on travel on the cheap. Her food tips are super smart.

These are just a tiny taste of the tips out there for traveling on a budget. But I want to know how have you budgeted for trips? Let me know in the comments!

love,
melanie

Ways to Save on a Weekend Getaways!

nags head soundWe all know what a cheapskate I’ve become, but one of the reasons I’ve become so stingy thrifty with my money is I want to travel. I’ve got so many things I want to see and places I want to go, and they all require that cash-money. So when my friend, Gabby asked me if we wanted to go on a weekend trip to our coast, I was hesitant. I love North Carolina’s Outer Banks, but I’ve been there and done that. If you’ve never been there and done that, I’d highly recommend it, the OBX of NC are really unique and beautiful.

Anyways, I hesitated a little bit, but Gabby is a cheapskate too. The woman has furnished her entire house from Craigslist, so I took her word that it would be an inexpensive trip.

Here’s how we saved some big bucks on our weekend getaway:

1. Make a list before packing to ensure you bring even the littlest essentials. I am notorious for leaving things at home on trips. It’s why I have 5 bottles of contact solution. Save yourself the hassle and the trouble by making a packing list and checking it twice.

2. Pack food! This was especially important for a place like the OBX. Groceries in remote locations are always more expensive. In the OBX, groceries are up to 20% more expensive! And by packing your own groceries, you’ll eat out less. Win-win, people, win-win.

3. If you do eat out, do your research first. There is nothing worse than getting to a restaurant, figuring out it is for unknowing, wealthy tourists with no taste buds. Eat where the locals eat and get it cheap! My personal favorite restaurant review service is Yelp. I’ve even got the app on my phone, which makes it super easy.

4. If you have a lot of friends going on the same trip, consider renting a retreat center. Retreat finder has a database of places to rent all over the country (and even in a few other countries too!). We rented a retreat center for $30 a night, per person. That is stupid-cheap for a beach house on Labor Day weekend. Often retreat centers won’t be booked over holiday weekends and your money goes to supporting a good cause. SO MANY WINS!

5. If you want to participate in “experiences” during your trip like mini golf or parasailing, check out the Groupon or Living Social coupons in the area before you go. Personally, I just like to lounge around, but if your into that kind of thing, coupons can be a great way to save dough.

What are your best tips for saving money on weekend getaways? I’d love to hear them in the comments!

love,
melanie

Post-Vacation Blues

sunset in nags headI have a terrible case of post-vacation blues. I literally shed a couple of tears on the way to work this morning. I was in a weird, weepy mood. I enjoy my job, but I did not want to get back to the overload of emails, the ringing phone and the (sometimes) grumpy patrons.

selfiesWhat’s more fun than fun? Funnest?! Funna-fun-fun-fun! Well, whatever it is, I had more fun than that! We lounged in an 8 person float in the ocean while partaking in adult beverages. I really didn’t need a better time than that, but we also took afternoon naps in hammocks and ate until our tummies hurt. I need a detox.

puppy loveWe also hung out with this crazy dog. She’s is the dog version of Lil Bub. And although she had kibble breath, she made me want a little lap dog so, so much!

But now we’re back to the emailing, the traffic, the giant laundry pile. I need another vacation just to catch up.

How do you recover from the post-vacation blues? Let me know in the comments!

love,
melanie

 

Vacation time! Vacation time!

labor day weather forecastI am super pumped to be taking a mini vacation this weekend with George and some friends. We’re heading out to the beautiful Outer Banks of NC.  I haven’t been on a trip all summer. Actually, I don’t think we’ve even gone anywhere since our honeymoon. Life has been so nuts. We’re not taking the Airstream this time because our friend’s mom rented a house on the OBX. OBX is Outer Banks for the non-North Carolinans. 🙂 Learning something new everyday huh, folks? The weather is supposed to be perfect and I cannot wait to get a little time to relax.

Do you have plans for the labor day weekend?

Here’s hoping to a relaxing and refreshing weekend,
love,
melanie

 

Unconventional Lifestyle Blogs

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

I get periodically obsessed with things. I’ll only want to eat mushrooms for two weeks or I’ll want to obsessively learn about making soap. Anyone else the same way? No? Ok. Just me, eating mushrooms and making soap for two weeks until I’m on the the next fascination.

Anyway, this past week or so, I’ve been doing a lot of personal research into alternative or unconventional ways of living. I hope it’s not just a passing phase because unconventional ways of living are fascinating– especially since I live pretty unconventionally, myself. It’s got me dreaming of becoming a full-time traveler or homesteader or a traveling homesteader. Can you be both?!

Here’s a few of my favorite resources I’ve found so far:

The Art of Nonconformity
On the Art of Nonconformity, Chris writes about about personal development and life planning, with the conviction that you don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to;  entrepreneurship and other kinds of unconventional work, with the belief that the work we do should be both fun and meaningful; and  international travel, travel hacking in general, and his journeys to more than 25 countries every year.

The Modern Nomad
Gustav Andersson worked a 9-5 job for five years and realized that he was slowly stagnating into a comfortable routine — a personal nightmare of his. So he quit his job, sold his flat and walked away from the well-trodden streets of London to begin life as a modern-day nomad.

Nomadic Matt
Matt’s story is similar to most of our stories. We have the 9-5 with the 2 weeks of vacation per year. But a trip to Thailand on his measly 9-5 vacation changed him. He met five backpackers who showed him that he didn’t have to be tied down to a job and that he didn’t need to be rich to travel. After that trip, Matt went home, finished his MBA, quit his job, and set out on an adventure around the world. Matt is one of the foremost experts on travel hacking.

The Prairie Homestead
Jill ‘s journey with homesteading started with a compost pile. She currently lives on  67 acres of Wyoming prairie and blogs about returning to your roots of self-sufficiency and simple living, whether you live on a sprawling ranch or in a high-rise apartment.

Wayward Spark
Camille lives in Oregon with her husband and two little kids in an off-the-grid, tiny cabin. On her blog, she shares her honest experiences of modern day homesteading.

I’ll share some of my favorite Airstream travel blogs soon. I want to hear about your favorite unconventional lifestyle blogs in the comments!

Obsessively researching until then.
love,
melanie

 

A Very Lucky and Eventful Weekend

treeTo call this weekend eventful is an understatement. I’m finally at my new job! Did I tell you all that? I’ve been there about two weeks and I’ve already experienced two power outages. On Thursday, as I tried to leave work, a policeman urged me head back inside. There were tornado warnings and not long after I (begrudgingly) went back in the library, a huge storm blew through.

After it all blew over, I called George immediately. His first words were “don’t freak out.” My mind immediately went to the airstream. I thought something terrible happened to it. Luckily, so luckily, the two 100 year old oak trees (above) fell into the barn and not our soon-to-be home.

But it was close, so close. I’m not very religious, but I think someone was looking out for us.

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We also moved out this weekend. I’m excited to save money. I’m excited that George will be able to pursue his art full-time. And I’m excited to start the next chapter of our lives.

Was your weekend eventful? Let me know in the comments!

love,
melanie

Airstream: The Before

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For the last few weeks George and I have been trying to agree on a name for our 1978 Airstream Sovereign. Bombshell Betty, The Stream Machine, El Enmascarado de Plata. None of the names have stuck. If anyone has any suggestions for a name for our future home, I’d love to hear it in the comments!

In the meantime, I snapped these “before” pictures. Get Clinton and Stacy in here because it he she is in serious need of a makeover.

 

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before6There she blows! Is that saying appropriate? I don’t know. I’ve lost my mind thinking about how much work we have to put into our new home before it is livable.

Believe it or not, the pictures are more flattering than the actual product. The carpet looks way worse in person and there is a distinct wet dog smell– dampness is a problem common in older airstreams.  She has also been sitting for the last 4 years without much attention, so we’re hoping a little lot of love will help.

When we bought her, we knew she was going to be a huge gamble and a hell of a lot of work. But I don’t know if we actually realized the time it is going to take to fix her up. We’ve got a list a mile long and it keeps growing!

Despite our growing to-do list, and I don’t want to jinx it, but I still feel fairly calm about it all. Talk to me in June when my new job starts and our home isn’t fixed, then we’ll see how I feel!

Any tips or names for our big beauty queen? Leave ’em in the comments!

love,
melanie

Living Small: The Beginning

airstreambefore1Remember how I told ya’ll living small was the answer? Well, when I meant small, I meant 31 feet of small!

This weekend George and I picked up our new-to-us home. We will live in this 1978 Airstream Sovereign for the next year to save money and get out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Is it an extreme scheme? Yes. Do I like to rhyme? Yes.

But seriously, folks, sometimes extreme schemes are necessary to make extreme changes. And you know what? I feel unusually calm about our plan– and I’m never calm about anything. I think this crazy ideas is actually going to work. By cutting out our major expense, rent, we will be able to save the majority of our paychecks. We will also cut out our water bill, (we’ll be using well water) and cut down on the electric bill.

We paid $5,000 for this beauty and we are planning on putting about $1,000 worth of renovations into her. We have already sold a bunch of unnecessary stuff to make up for the initial costs and in the next few weeks, we plan on selling a lot more at flea markets and online.

We will truly be living small and testing our ability to distinguish want from need. And of course, I’ll be posting our progress along the way.

Have you ever schemed up an extreme idea to save money? Did your plan work? I want to hear about it in the comments!

love and airstreams,
melanie

 

 

Be Brave, Live Small

be brave, live small

Terrified, excited, nervous, relieved– these past few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotion. My new job will force us to move and it has forced George and I to have long car-ride and late-night talks about our future.

Through those talks we’ve often discussed that world is not as it once was. I was told, we both were, that when we got out out of college the world would be waiting for us. As college graduates, no matter our major, someone would want us. They would pay us well. We would have healthy 401(k)s and retirement plans and we would soon be ready to buy a house. It’s the dream that our blue-collar parents did not easily achieve.

And as we are learning, it is not a dream we will easily achieve either. The world is not as it once was. An undergraduate education does not equate job safety– nor does a graduate education.  The job prospects in 2008 when I got out of school were abysmal– especially so for an English major and an Art major.

We hid out for a while in underemployment and in our parents’ houses. Then I hid out in graduate school where I was lucky enough to get a couple of assistantships, internships and a few very small scholarships. After a very long job search, George got an elementary school teaching position. We were thankful. And we were happy.

But our happiness was short-lived. We were again fearful when I graduated from my graduate program in 2011. The constant thought of how difficult my job search was in 2008 loomed in the background. I worried daily and we lived off canned soup and saltines. (Ultimately, our diet combined with the stress of looming unemployment made me very sick, but that is a story for another time.)

I applied to over 100 jobs and out of those 100 applications, I got one interview for a job at a small, rural community college. One job interview. But by some miracle, I got it. Again, I was thankful and relieved, but the job was in a rural area, hours away from any of our family and friends.

We were sad to leave the place that we had made our home for the past two years. We lived in a tiny, old apartment– only 400 square feet, but the rent was affordable, the area was walkable, and it was clean.

Moving to a rural area was hard for me. I still  struggle to find fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store and it is a 30 minute drive to the nearest Wal-Mart. Our rental choices in the area were slim and out of the two apartments available, we chose the more expensive choice because it was safe and didn’t have mold. Throughout it all, we made the best choices out of limited options.

During the time we’ve lived here, we’ve had some of the best and hardest times of our lives. Most importantly, we got married! But throughout the entire planning process, we struggled with the finances of a wedding. Ultimately, we made it out unscathed by being incredibly realistic with ourselves and I am so proud that we made that choice. But we ended up depleting our meager savings in the process.

We are also incredibly grateful to have very little debt. George and I worked throughout the time we were in school. (At one point, I had 3 jobs; it was kind of insane.) We got some scholarship help and our very middle class families helped us too. We know that we are incredibly lucky. And we know that we are better off than the majority of graduates.

Despite all of our luck and hard work, we still can’t get ahead. We still live paycheck to paycheck. If our rent and other bills stay the same, we won’t be able to buy a house in the foreseeable future.  George will never be able to pursue his art full-time. We won’t be able to afford a vacation or adopt a dog. We won’t get out of the cycle.

But we think we may have found a way to get ahead. To lead the life we want to lead, debt-free. And the answer is to live small.

For the next year, George and I will live smaller than we’ve ever lived before. Our budget will be smaller and our house will be much smaller (more details on this later!). But our bravery, our bravery will be big.

Have you ever had to take drastic measures to get out of the debt or break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle? I genuinely want to start an honest conversation about this in the comments.

living small but loving large,
melanie

New Orleans Honeymoon

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One of my favorite parts of the graveyards in New Orleans were the painted tombs. Colorful in life, colorful in death, right?!nola60001 nola60002 nola70001 nola80002Standing beside Voodoo Priestess, Marie Laveau‘s (disputed) tomb.

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nola30001For our honeymoon, George and I decided to forgo the traditional, all-inclusive beach trip for a darker, and dare I say, more exciting vacation to New Orleans.  And we didn’t regret a minute of it. The food was amazing, the history was rich and the beer was flowing!

As you can tell from the pictures, we visited several graveyards and we brought along cheapo, disposable cameras. I kind of love the way the pictures turned out. They are a little creepy, over-saturated, and look much older than digital photos. We also forgot to charge the digital camera– happy mistake! I brought the disposable cameras on our ghost tour too, but none of the pictures turned out. I think a ghost ruined the rest of our film!

If you are thinking about doing something a little off the beaten path for your honeymoon, I would highly recommend it. Get out there and see something new!

Did you go anywhere “different” for your honeymoon? Are you planning to go somewhere “different?” Let me know in the comments.

love,
melanie