What travel tips can I offer? What information do I wish I had before I traveled?

What do I wish I knew before I left on my trip?

1. Work in hostels for a free room as much as possible.

I didn’t realize many people come and work for just a couple of weeks then leave. I would have done this more, and saved more money, but really – I was only going to Medellin and Quito for a week each. Not 6 weeks in Quito, and over 6 months in Medellin. (I did work at a hostel when I returned to Medellin in December, and immediately wished I had done that my whole trip)

2. Research the continent you actually end up going to.

I did 5 1/2 months of research for a trip to SE Asia, then 3 weeks before I left, found $200 tickets to Caracas and threw all my plans out the window. So see, I am great at researching and planning. I am also great at throwing all that research and planning out the window on a whim. (It makes life much more interesting that way).

3. …

Actually, that’s pretty much all I wished I knew ahead of time.

There’s other things I did know, but didn’t follow, like:

• BUYING A ROUND-TRIP TICKET IS USUALLY CHEAPER THAN A ONE WAY

I definitely didn’t abide by this, but at the same time, I had no idea when I was going to do what.  That, and I planned on leaving and not returning until I ran out of money.

• BUSES ARE USUALLY CHEAPER THAN PLANES.

…but after that 50 hour bus ride from hell, I have been pretty much avoiding long-distance buses at all costs.

• BRING JEANS

I don’t care what everyone says about jeans being impractical when traveling. Unless you are specifically back country hiking or jungle trekking, jeans are great. They fit into any culture, they are comfortable, and it will likely be a pain in the ass to find more on the road. Especially if you are like me and HATE SKINNY JEANS!  

And a few things I did remember to do, like:

• BRING SAFETY PINS.

I wrote about this on Traveldudes.org. But safety pins can keep your money safe. they can also fix tears, ripped clothes, keep zippers shut, remove splinters and other weird plant spiky things you got in your leg in Manta, Ecuador. They are just useful.

• BRING A SEWING KIT.

I’m the daughter of a seamstress. I don’t go anywhere without a spool of carpet thread and a hand needle. (I picked brown carpet thread because most of my clothes are dark or brownish, and because carpet thread is heavier and stronger than regular thread). Not only have I used them multiple times to fix my clothes, I have also made friends fixing other people’s clothes. And it saves you money not having to buy new stuff.

• BRING A KNIFE.

I always have knives on me. I always accidentally try to bring them through airport security. Somehow I haven’t gotten arrested yet. But small pocket knives are great. You will end up using them a lot more than you realize. And they can cut that thread.

The last important tip is something you should do when you arrive in a new country on your trip.

If you are from a country, or need medicines that are unlikely to be abroad – by all means, get them before you leave. But…

Many times it is cheaper and easier to get some of the basic medicines abroad.

If you are in a country where you don’t need a prescription for things like antibiotics, low-dose pain killers, etc..BUY IT THERE. Each country is different.

Being from the USA and having no health insurance, I purposely did not stock up on these basics. I waited and bought what I needed in Ecuador and Colombia.

WHY?

Because I constantly am getting bronchitis or hurting myself (I’m not very girly)… and these things were much cheaper than paying to go to a doctor and buying them in the USA. Anything I don’t need, I can bring back to the USA with me, and now have them cheaper than I would pay at home.

So these are some of my tips for people going out to travel. If you have some of your own tips, I’d love to hear them. You can never have enough information.

CHEERS!

This is part of the Boots’n’All 2012 Indie Travel Challenge.   I’m doing this to help make me a more consistent and better writer.  And maybe learn some stuff along the way.

Week 24 of the Indie Travel Challenge is all about traveling to and within the USA.

If you live in the States or have done a budget trip here, what tips would you give a friend wanting to see the US? 

I love traveling across the USA.  I average 36,000 miles a year on my car, and for almost 5 years, never stayed in one USA city for more than a month and a half at a time (I was a freelance roadie.)

I love the USA and for anyone coming here; like oh, DIEGO – who I am trying to get into the USA for a road-trip next summer – I have a whole list of things to do.

1. ROUTE 66

This has to be the most famous and coolest road ever built.  What makes it so incredible, is the amount of random, useless, roadside attractions it has.  

Actually, just about every road in the USA has random, useless, roadside attractions of awesomeness.  Largest balls of twine (yes, I said balls), meteor craters, gigantic statues of Paul Bunyan, the list is really, really long. 

There is actually a website dedicated to this stuff, that I am using as research into places I want to bring Diego. Its called RoadsideAmerica.com

2. I would also recommend going to New Orleans.

  by  Beadmobile 

  I would love to tell you more; but I myself, have yet to go there.  This is a must on Diego and I’s road trip.  The music, the food, the Cajun culture….  Louisiana and New Orleans are full of mystery, excitement, supernatural and voodoo, unbelievable heritage, and possible death (I want to go see gators).  Not to mention, the fact I can barely understand thick Cajun accents. I can’t wait to see Diego attempt to decipher them.

3. Go to Maine.

Go to the rocky coastline. Go eat some fresh lobster and blueberries.  Maine is beautiful.  Go.

4. And of course – Vegas

…but please..GET OFF THE STRIP while you are there!

There is so much to do in Vegas, and yes, seeing the Strip, is a definite must.  But that is not the only thing to do. We have a ton of art and culture, outdoor activities (rock climbing, bouldering at red Rock), amazing Asian food on Spring Mountain Road, I mean, I’ve already written 3 posts about things to do in Vegas that don’t involve The Strip.  I’m just going to list them below – along with a great site FOR the Strip.  A site which I use myself.   but really, there is so much more than the Strip people. 

This is especially true for all of you who say

“Why would I want to visit Vegas?  I don’t like gambling or crowds”.

Neither do I people.  Neither do I.  But I still love this town because of all the other stuff. And the casinos have some cool stuff inside them too.  Ask the concierge.  That’s what they are there for.  Get away from the tourist and explore.

5. You know what, there is too many things to list here….

I’m just going to throw up some cool websites now that may help you out on your trip. 

Vegas.com

RoadsideAmerica.com

Site listing all USA State Travel and Tourism offices

USA National Park Service

Maine website

The Phoenix (local New England arts, music, and entertainment guide).

Historic Route 66

CHEERS!

This is part of Boots n All 2012 Indie Travel Challenge. I’m doing this in hopes of becoming a more consistent and better travel-blogger.   And hoping to do a 3 month USA road trip with Diego next summer!

Week 23 of the Indie Travel Challenge is all about food and how it has connected you to a destination during your travels.

What is your favorite food and what does it remind you of?   How has food connected you to a destination during your travels?

I am a gigantic food nerd!   If you don’t believe me, go check out the video I made the first night back in the states.  I’m geeking out to American foods I’ve missed while traveling.

My favourite food is a weird one.  I grew up eating lots of vegetarian foods, and although I’m not vegetarian, I absolutely love macaroni and nutritional Yeast.  It’s a wicked comfort food to me that reminds me of my dad, and home with my family, and Maine, and everything.  I eat it when I’m homesick and I suddenly feel better.

But how do foods connect me with travel?  All the time!  The first time you try a food, every subsequent time you eat said food, you are brought back to the first time you tried it.

Arepas and eggs? = Colombia

Donas/Kebabs = Sarajevo

Encebollado = Quito, Ecuador

Icecream  = Croatia (ok, so I downed icecream in South America too, but Croatia is where I learned I CAN eat icecream outside of the USA….so icecream and Croatia will always have this connection for me)

And food makes me think of special events and stuff too.

Pumpkins = before this past Halloween, they made me think of my sister and the time I  accidently dropped a giant pumpkin on her stomach….because the stem snapped…twice…on 2 different pumpkins…5 minutes apart from each other. (Because, of course, after the first giant pumpkin stem snapped and fell on her stomach, we HAD to re-enact the scene for our mom)

Now pumpkins also make me think of Colombia and Diego, because this past Halloween was my very first holiday out of the USA, and for it, I devirginized Diego from the fine art of pumpkin carving.  So now anytime I see a pumpkin I think of my sister and Diego.

Every time I make chocolate chip cookies I think of my mom. Because we made chocolate chip cookies almost everyday when I was little. Why? because after we made the dough, before we cooked them, we had to nap.  At 17 I found a chocolate chip cookie recipe I wrote when I was 5.  In it, the directions were, “Put cookie dough in fridge.  Take a nap.  Put cookie dough on trays.  Cook cookies”

When I asked mom why I wrote “take a nap” her answer was, “I told you you had to take a nap for the cookies to come out right.  It was the only way I could get you to shut up and be quiet for an hour”

To this day, every time I make cookies, I have to sit in front of the stove watching them cook or I fall asleep.  Pavlov’s experiments in action. Thanks mom.

So yes, food and travel have a huge connection.  Ask anyone about food they had while traveling, and they get this nostalgic look in their eyes, and you can see them being brought back to their travels and all the emotions, smells, sights, and sounds that surrounded the time when they had said food.

And now I’m hungry.  And I want arepas, eggs, and chocolate chip cookies.

Thanks BootsnAll. 

Thanks.

CHEERS!

This is part of the Boots’n’All 2012 Indie Travel Challenge.   I’m doing this to help make me a more consistent and better writer.  And now it is also making me hungry.

What are your travel dreaming tools of choice are…. Tell us about your favorite travel inspiration tools, both places where you find inspiration to travel and places where you can store those travel dreams for when you’re actually planning a trip, and whether those tools have changed the way you travel.

Honestly, I don’t really use travel tools. 

I ‘d love to say that I pull that, that, and that article, take notes while watching Bourdain, and create hi-def graphs and spreadsheets…but I don’t.  I have a life.  I just have images in my head that I want to visit. Its photographs that make me want to visit somewhere; and when I see a photo of somewhere I want to go, I usually just try to remember about it until I have the chance to visit there.

When I’m getting ready to go travel, I read a crazy amount about the area, looking for cool things I want to do.  And looking up festivals and rock shows.  Then I usually end up throwing all my plans out the window to go to another city, country, continent..

If I actually make it to where I planned to go, most of my ‘plans’ will get tossed aside  – instead to follow the local’s recommendation or invitations to things.  Or go to a rock concert.

Because as you all know,

I love me some metal and rock music.

I think its good to know some about a place, but I think its even better to just go with the flow and see what happens.   That is also probably why I don’t super plan stuff too. 

Hell…my last trip, I did 5 1/2 months of research on SE Asia and Indonesia to buy a one way ticket to South America 3 weeks before I left.  I’m great at planning.  I’m also great at ignoring those plans for potential awesomeness!’

CHEERS!

This is part of the Boots’n’All 2012 Indie Travel Challenge.   I’m doing this to help make me a more consistent and better writer.

Yea, so how’s this consistency thing working out these last couple weeks.  Sorry. It will get better as I get settled back into Vegas.

If you haven’t been to New Zealand (or you haven’t already written about it for the Indie Travel Challenge):

Imagine you’ve just been handed a round-trip ticket to Auckland. You’ve got a grand total of three months to spend there. You can travel as much as you like within the country, hopping between islands whenever you like, but you can’t leave New Zealand. Tell us what you’d do with three months in New Zealand – whether you’d base yourself in one place or travel constantly, what activities you’d make sure to do, and what you’d skip.

If I was going to New Zealand, the first thing I’d do is go on every stupid, possibility of death ride thing I could find!  New Zealand and Australia have the reputation as being a bunch of adrenaline-psychos with an exorbitant amount of crazy, possibly deadly contraptions that usually involve some kind of rigging and a lack of fear of death.

I want to find these, and go on them.

I am also a giant nerd and would want to do the Lord of the Rings tour and see all the places the lord of the Rings was filmed.  Why?

1. make my similarly nerdy friends jealous

2. take beautiful photos

3. see if I’m actually short enough to fit into the hobbit homes without having to duck

I really have not much idea of what I would want to do in New Zealand.  That’s part of the fun of it.  I want to see the beautiful scenery, do some crazy things,

(I WANT TO ZORB!)

stay with some Maori and see the indigenous culture, eat a ton of foods I’ve never had, and go get my geek on with a Lord of The Rings tour. 

But exactly with who, or where?

If I’m going to New Zealand for 3 months, I want to meet some people from there and do whatever they say I do.  I love winging-it when I travel sometimes; and I just feel like NZ would be a great place to just show up and go with the flow!

I am also so open for suggestions and offers! (hint, hint, hint)

Cheers!

This is part of Boots n All 2012 Indie Travel Challenge. I’m doing this in hopes of becoming a more consistent and better travel-blogger.  And going to get my geek on in New Zealand!