International Adventures!

I know I shared my tips on traveling on a budget.  But I have had many people ask about my international trips.  Sooooo.....here you go!  You're welcome! ;)

How am I able to go on all these awesome vacations?  I find ALL the deals, that's how!  Remember when I went to Denmark a couple years ago?  I found tickets out of NYC for $350 round trip.  Then I was able to get tickets to NYC for $59 each way.  I had to fly Iceland Air (which was fine) which meant a long layover in Reykjavik (unfortunately it was twelve hours at NIGHT so we couldn't leave the airport).  But it was such a great price that we didn't mind the layover.  The deal to NYC was one of Southwest's big sales.  Watch for those in the summer and the fall!  After I found the cheap airline tickets, I was able to secure lodging.  I found a great deal at CPH Studio Hotel in Copenhagen.  It was fine for our needs (I traveled with my mom) and it was within walking distance to the train station (which was SUPER easy to use), the beach, the grocery store, and lots of restaurants.  Copenhagen is amazing. I highly recommend going if you can find these types of deals!

The next trip I want to talk about is Prague.  That was a Groupon deal I found through Gate 1.  I was skeptical of using a Groupon for international travel.  But it couldn't have gone better.  It is important to know that Gate 1 keeps their rates low by traveling with someone.  They actually charge more for solo travelers.  I also took this trip with my mom.  We got the Groupons and I was able to call Gate 1 the next day to set everything up (which was totally easy). We paid $699 each for 5 nights.  That includes the airfare from NYC (I always get the best deals from there), the hotel, and daily breakfast. You really can't beat these deals. I signed up for Gate 1 and get flash deals (the sales only last 1-2 days) emailed pretty regularly.  So be sure to check them out.  Gate 1 is amazing and I highly recommend them!

How did I go to Australia?  I subscribe to Scott's Cheap Flights.  They send daily emails on the best flight deals they can find.  When I saw the deal to Australia for $530 out of LA, I couldn't NOT go! I mean, come on!  That's the best deal on the planet!  When I went to Australia four years ago, Qantas had a deal for $999 out of LAX and I thought THAT was amazing.  $530 without any baggage fee is pretty much unheard of.  I went with my friend, Heather and we had the best time.  We found a great deal on an Airbnb in Sydney.  We were also able to take a little side trip to Brisbane (thanks to the cheap flights on Tiger Air).

So my advice is to sign up with Gate 1 travel to get on their email list.  I also suggest that you sign up with Scott's Cheap Flights.  It's free (unless you sign up for the premium membership like I just did).  It's also fun just go do google flight searches pretty regularly.  Play with dates and destinations and see what you can find! There are so many beautiful places in this world.  Sometimes the beauty leaves me speechless.  It's the kind of beauty you have to see to believe.  If you find a wonderful deal and you can make it work, JUMP on it!  I promise you won't regret it!

"Traveling---it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller." --Ibn Battuta

Traveling on a Budget!

Who just drove over 5,000 miles across the United States? It’s me! This girl right here! We went from Kentucky to LA (and back, obvi) and lived to tell the tale! I was so excited to return home with a little extra money (we needed it since we had to buy a car battery the next day). Soooo how did we do it? Let’s discuss!

First of all, I have to say that when we take longer trips, we always look into renting a car. We don’t like to put an excessive amount of miles (like over 5,000) on our own car. We find that going through Costco saves us a lot of money! If you’re a Costco member, DO THIS when renting a car! We used Budget (with our Costco membership) and only spent about $350 for an 11 day full-sized car rental!

My second tip is if you are hotel brand loyal (like I am), save your points and your reward certificate for big trips. I did that and we were able to stay three nights for free! Not only that but I racked up a ton of points from the rest of our trip. We were gone 10 nights and spent 3 with wonderful (and generous) family members, had 3 nights free, and then found the best deals at other Marriotts for the other 4 nights. In total, we spent about $350 on hotels.

Next up? Food!!!! We do not joke around when saving money on food! On travel days, we ate peanut butter sammiches (don’t make fun of how I say that;)! Yes, yes I did pack a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a plastic knife. Why not? I brought TONS of snacks (which did include fresh fruit and some other semi-healthy things. We also made sure to take advantage of the free breakfasts at our hotels along the way. Another tip? Check credit/debit card reward points. We were able to get several gift cards to places like Subway and Taco Bell with those points. So we hit those places up, too! Food budget was very minimal until we hit LA and spent ONE MILLION dollars at In-N-Out and Del Taco. It’s always worth it and I knew it would happen so I planned accordingly!

Look for free things to do along the way! We stopped and did a lot of things and we didn’t pay for any of them! How did we get into 3 National Parks for free? Welp, we have a fourth grader. They get into National Parks for FREE until August 31. Take advantage of that! Lola saved us A LOT of money at the Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, and the Petrified Forest! Check out the link!

That brings us to gas (no not the gas my kids passed in the car) but fuel for the car! We did download the gas buddy app to find the cheapest gas prices along our route. You can also use grocery store points (like we have at Kroger) at Shell stations. So that helped out a little!

We had a great trip! And it was mostly paid for by Billy’s soccer reffing weekends! So thankful for all of his hard work! We were able to enjoy a wonderful time together as a family. And we didn’t go totally broke....just lost a lot of money on food at In-N-Out and Del Taco (no regrets)! If you have any questions, I would love to answer them! You can email me at yadons@gmail.com. Or if you know me, text me!

Wherever you go, go with all your heart!
-Confucius

Edinburgh for a day! :)

We had one day to spend in the lovely Scottish capital city of Edinburgh! It was so easy to get there from Glasgow! It was a direct trip from Glasgow Queen St Station to Edinburgh Waverly Station. The trip lasted about 45-50 minutes each way. And let me just say that Edinburgh is BEAUTIFUL! There is so much to see and do! Guess what we did? If you guessed Hop on Hop off tour then you are correct! Maybe I should get paid to advertise for them! Ha! But seriously.... The tour was great and we decided to add a tour of Edinburgh Castle, too!

The castle. Oh the castle. It definitely needs its own paragraph. Ok so we wanted to see the Scottish Crown Jewels so we got talked into going to the castle. There were approximately 52 million people also excited about the Crown Jewels, I suppose, because it was straight up CRAZY! We could barely walk an inch an hour!! Ha! It was crowded, guys. So crowded that I probably wouldn’t recommend it. The castle is gorgeous on the outside so you should probably settle for a photo of that! The Crown Jewels were underwhelming in a BIG way but I have no pictures to prove it because photography was not allowed. :( So the moral of the story is that you should save your 17 pounds. You’re welcome.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the city, taking lots of pictures (to follow), and doing some shopping! It was a great way to end our Scottish adventure!

Loch Ness and so much MORE!

No, we didn’t see Nessie :(. But what I did see is probably way cooler than seeing her (maybe). We started our day bright and early on our bus (actually a Mercedes van) but we will call it a bus in this story! Anyhow, after our guide, Alistair, laughed at us for attempting to get on the bus on the wrong side, we were ready to go! Silly Americans!  Because of the roads, if you get car sick (and I do), I would recommend a Dramamine! I took one and while I had a hard time keeping my eyeballs open on the bus toward the end of the trip, I didn’t vomit. So I’m calling it a win!

Our first stop on the trip was Loch Lomond. It was pretty. BUUUUUT, I was attacked (and bitten) by midgies. Don’t know what they are? Follow this link:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_midge
Also, it was pretty overcast while we were there but you will see in the photos that the day improved!

After Loch Lomond, we stopped in Glencoe. Ummmm that was probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen! And to find out Harry Potter (and Skyfall, which I don’t know much about) was filmed here made it even better! But seriously, this place will take your breath just right away! The sky was still a bit overcast but that’s ok. I know my pictures don’t do it justice so if you ever get a chance to go, GO!!!

After Glencoe, we passed through Ft Williams on our way to Ft Augusta to see Loch Ness. The sun was finally out and while it was cold and a bit chilly, it was BEAUTIFUL! The water is so blue! Ft Augusta is a super cute town so we enjoyed our 1.5 hour stay there!

We had a wee bit (a little Scottish talk for ye) of extra time after Ft Augusta, so our guide stopped off for us to see this awesome bridge and small waterfall! It was exquisite! I love little things like that! But it gets even better! We then stopped to get a glimpse of Urquhart Castle, which was beautiful sitting right there on Loch Ness. And if that wasn’t good enough, we stopped to see highland cows! If you know me, you know how much I love animals! So this was THE BEST! I loved them so! And just so you know, the natives call them hairy coos! ;)

We passed through Inverness (super cute town) and then pitstopped at Pitlochry (also a super cute town) before making our way back to Glasgow! We caught a glimpse of Stirling Castle which was amazing! We ended the night at Piper Bar in Glasgow where we ate delicious food (which was macaroni and cheese and fries for this vegetarian!!)!

It was one heck of an amazing day! I think Heather, my dear friend from college who is on this trip with me, would agree!

Great Scot!

Sooooooo guess where I am now???? Only in Scotland (well probably not only in Scotland) can you find a man in a kilt playing the bagpipes....in front of a Gap! I’m in Glasgow! We left Newark last night around 5:20 PM. Guess who didn’t sleep a wink on the plane? It’s meeeee! I CANNOT sleep on a plane! And I even medicated myself! Hmmmm. Anyway, the Aer Lingus flight was as smooth as could be until the end when we had to circle Dublin for a long time because of dense fog. Even so, we had a smooth landing. We made it through customs (why are those people always so angry?) quickly and walked suuuuuper fast to make it to our Ryanair flight to Glasgow. It was a quick 40 minute flight but I took advantage of if and got a small amount of sleep! We made it to Glasgow and did the Hop on/Hop off bus. It was a great idea but I was thinking I needed toothpicks to hold me eyeballs open! So because I’m currently suffering from the following: sleep deprivation, dehydration, a sore body, heat stroke (left over from NYC), and just a little bit of sheer crazy, I’m going to add more photos to this post a different day! But here’s my brief summary for you. This Airbnb kicks trash. Glasgow is pretty cool. And I can’t wait for tomorrow! Where will I be? Better come back to find out!

The End of a European Adventure!

“Travelers never did lie, though fools at home condemn them.” —Shakespeare

Our whirlwind adventure was coming to an end. We had to pack as much as we possibly could into our last several days! We spent a little time at Warwick Castle (pictured below). I had way too much fun copying the scenes! We wrapped it up there and headed to our next destination! Being an English major, I had to stop at Stratford-upon-Avon. It was sooooo beautiful. We didn’t have too long to spend there so we just had to see the favorites. We saw Shakespeare’s birthplace, Church of the Holy Trinity, and Anne Hathaway’s cottage. It was a dream come true for me!

We spent the night at our Marriott in Manchester (which was uhhhhhhmazing)! The next morning, we celebrated Billy’s birthday at his favorite place on earth: Old Trafford. It was fun touring Manchester United’s stadium. Billy was over the moon! After spending a small (large) fortune in the gift shop, we traveled just outside of Manchester to a super cute Airbnb!

The next morning, we got up early to begin our travels home! We got to drive all the way through Wales (which was awesome) and then we took th ferry across the choppy Irish Sea (barf). We spent one last day/night in Dublin. We took the Hop on/Hop off bus and were able to see what we wanted (Trinity College, Ha’ Penny Bridge, Temple Bar area, and others).

If you EVER get a chance to go to any of the places we went to while in Europe, I HIGHLY recommend it!!! Travel is always the very best idea!

Jolly Ol' England!

"There's nowhere else like London.  Nothing at all, anywhere."  Vivienne Westwood

At this point in our trip, exhaustion was starting to set in.  We had seen so much; done so much; loved so much that we weren't sure how much we had left in us.  London made it clear that we could still soak it all in and marvel at all of this beauty on the earth.

We arrived to London by Chunnel which was pretty amazing(mentioned in previous post) . The kids slept the whole time.  Billy and I took ridiculous selfies to show how nervous we were when we were under water.  Ha.  After we arrived safely, we rented our car and took off for our hotel in London.

Blake had the opportunity to attend a Chelsea soccer camp.  What's Chelsea, you ask?  Only the top ranked team in the Premier League in England.  Blake and I both love this club and he was pretty excited when we signed him up.  However, the day of the camp was a different story.  Little Blake didn't know a soul at the camp and he did NOT want to do it.  We basically had to force him in.  We weren't allowed to stay and watch but upon returning at the end of the camp, someone  (named Blake) didn't want to leave. He had a WONDERFUL time and he received some pretty high praises from the coaching staff.  It was such a unique experience and I'm so glad Blake got to be a part of it.

Blake was worn out but we drove straight into downtown London, across the magnificent Tower Bridge and walked that city like nobody's business.  Parliament is breathtaking.  I can't even think of any other way to describe it.  It's beautiful, you guys!  Big Ben is awesome.  Westminster Abbey is amazing.  Billy wanted to do the London Eye but we didn't want to spend the money (life regrets...).  We walked by the Globe (Shakespearean) Theater (English major's dream).  We walked across the London Bridge (and sang the song), hung out in Trafalgar Square, and ate delicious food!  It was a fabulous day.  We moved to a different hotel (MARRIOTT) for the next night. You know how I love my Marriotts!

There are several more days in England coming up!  Get ready! :):):)