Fall is for traveling

It has been awhile since I have written because why would I want to leave Seattle in the summer?? The northwest is gorgeous in the summer...we put up with a lot of rain all year and the reward is the beautiful blue sky, Lake Washington, the Puget Sound, clear views of the mountains, and all of the green trees. As I drove home from work on 99 I watched the ferries on the Sound and even saw someone parasailing. It doesn't get much better than a real summer day in Seattle. I don't have a school schedule to work around so there is no need for me to do my travels in the summer. Road trips are all I need to relax. So far this summers road trips have been Portland and Sunriver. Next up are the cabin in Cle Elum, Chelan, and Vancouver BC for the City Chase!

However, Fall is a different story and I have been busy planning for Fall traveling. My humble start to Fall traveling came with a Travelzoo top 20 e-mail. I forwarded the e-mail on to Cheryl (same friend I went to Iceland with) and asked if she was interested in any. Cheryl replied interested in the Ireland trip. One catch, the trip was for four and neither of our significant others were interested. In comes our mothers, yes, mother daughter trip to Ireland in October. We first were thinking September but waited too long and those days sold out. We also waited too long for the dates in October. This led me to search the web further and low and behold I found Sherman Travel, another website that sends out top deals of the week. They had the same travel deal going except a different resort, this one near Dublin, even better. So a week in Ireland it is with a manual rental car, and yes they drive on the wrong side of the road. This should be another adventure!

My Fall travels don't end with Ireland. The real adventure will be three weeks in Peru in November. I have never taken three weeks off work, hopefully I will forget I even have responsibilities at home for awhile. I have already booked my Inca Trail hike, a 4 day hike to Machu Pichu. I made sure to sign up to have a porter carry 13 lbs of my stuff (sleeping bag and sleeping mat at least) for an extra $40. First I thought no I can carry it myself, and then I came to my senses and thought who am I trying to impress, how about I enjoy the hike as much as I can at 9000 ft, with the altitude and hiking up mountains I'm will be lucky to make it at all! Francis (my hunk) told me I can plan the whole trip myself and he was in as long as I keep it under $2000 per person including airfare. Lucky for me you can get your own room in a hostel for about $10 each per night. We will likely have some long bus rides instead of plane rides between sites to keep it under budget but I am up for the challenge! So far for both plane tickets from Seattle to Lima I'm at $450-thank you Alaska air miles, I knew I was saving you for something!

Iceland

My friend Chery and I spent the first week of May in Iceland. We went on daily adventures and had a great time.

Some amazing things about Iceland:

1. The tap water is delicious, it tastes like nothing.

2. The fish is super fresh, it doesn't taste fishy.

3. Although the language is Icelandic, everyone speaks English.

4. I got to see a volcano eruption

5. There is pretty much no crime and no threat of crime or terrorism. Cheryl and I flew up to Akureyri, a small town in North Iceland for a tour. While waiting for our return flight we tried to use the pay phone to book a tour for the next day. When the pay phone wasn't working we decided to ask the ticketing/check-in desk if there was another phone we could use. We were invited behind the counter where I sat down at a desk and used a headset to book our tour. They didn't check ID going on to the plane, there was no metal detector, and no scanning of bags.

6. Free breakfast buffet at the hotel. We discovered how delicious Icelandic yogurt "skyr" is. It is thick but still very healthy.

7. Complementary hooded "overalls" to use during whale watching.

Some not so amazing things about Iceland:

1. Beer is expensive, over $20 for a pitcher of cheap beer.

2. Taxis are expensive, a 5 min ride costs about $15.

3. It costs a lot to rent a car.

4. Above mentioned volcano led to our 7 hour direct flight turning into two stops and almost 24 hours of travel time.

5. Icelandair has small seats, little leg room, and not so observant flight attendants.

6. Shopping is really expensive, a set of baby pajamas was over $60...sorry no souvenirs for anyone.

How I Afford to Travel

Maybe I’m cheap, maybe I’m frugal, but what I do know is that I am and always have been aware of what things cost. Even as a child when I would go out to eat I would always order less expensive items on the menu, even though my parents were paying. I started babysitting before I was twelve and was working after school and during school breaks since I was 16. I have been responsible for my money for a long time.

Currently I am 26 years old and have the money to travel when I want to and the vacation time to do it in. I am a social worker so being smart with my money is the only way I can do this. I drive a lot for my job so I started building my savings account by putting my mileage reimbursement checks into savings. Money was very tight when I first started my job so that was about all I could manage for savings. As I have moved up the pay scale instead of increasing my living costs I have increased my savings (okay, I have probably increased my living costs a little). I get paid twice a month and twice a month I automatically deposit money into my savings account. This started at about $200 twice a month. Now I am up to $375 twice a month. If I notice that I have significantly more money in my checking account than I need to pay my bills that month I will transfer some extra to saving. Sure sometimes I would like to have a new car. But if I did that I would have to dip into savings for the down payment and then have a monthly car payment. Eventually my car will die and I will need a new one, but at this point mine works and saving is my priority.

In addition to working full time I have always seemed to find a way to make extra money. It used to babysitting, dog sitting and housesitting. As I have gotten older I don’t really do any of those things. Currently I have some overtime opportunities at work I am taking advantage of. Although I don’t really like working on my weekend or evenings, the extra money makes buying a plane ticket guilt free. I think it also increases my desire for frequent vacations, because I definitely need some down time! My overtime pay is sporadic and totally depends on if there are emergencies or not. Not being able to count on the income makes it easier not to add it to my monthly budget and just see it a something extra.

An amazing travel store in Seattle

Today I decided to check out Wide World Books & Maps, a travel store on Wallingford and 44th. On my way there heading west on 45th St I saw a man driving what looked like a tank...very interesting.

Surprisingly I was able to park right outside the travel store. I am going to Iceland in three weeks so decided to browse the guide books to see what they had. I went to Barnes & Noble awhile back and there was 1 travel guide on Iceland, literally 1. It was a Frommers guide which has no pictures but lots of info. At this travel store there were multiple copies of at least 5 different travel guides on Iceland, I was in heaven! So of course, I decided I needed another. I picked out a Globetrotters one that came with a huge map and lots of pictures, a perfect balance to the one I already have. I was able to talk to real live person to make sure I got the right outlet adapter. I could go on and on about this store, it had so many guide books, novels, maps, and travel accessories I could have spent all day there!

On my way back home there were two police cars on the side of the road with their lights on. I slowed down to catch a glimpse of the action. There was a man on the ground with 3 officers around him and a woman recording it all on her cell phone. They pulled him up and he tried to give an officer a big kick with his black combat boot. What an adventure my trip to the travel store turned out be!

Finding the Time

In scheduling my vacation to Iceland for the first week of May 2010 I realized I will have been on 6 vacations in the past year: Europe (Germany, Austria, Italy), Hawaii, New York, San Francisco, Rio de Janiero-Brazil, and Iceland. How can I take that much time off work?

I have worked at the same job for nearly 4 years. I get a good amount of vacation time and the time I don’t use carries over to the next year. In addition I can use flex time instead of days off if I have been working a lot of extra hours. My ability to take time off is definitely a perk of the job.

You can still travel without having a ton of vacation time. In fact, I prefer shorter vacations. I found that two weeks in Europe was plenty of time for me. By the end my feet were killing me and I couldn’t appreciate what I was seeing as much as I would if I was full of travel excitement. I went to Hawaii in September 2009 and only took two days off work. Monday was a national holiday and I was gone over the weekend. It was a short vacation but was relaxing and since there wasn’t much I wanted to do in Hawaii was plenty of time. Most of my trips include being away on the weekend to minimize days off work. However, I do like to have a day to rest up before going back to work after international trips.