Confession: I am an almost budget traveler. What does that mean exactly? It means that yes, I want to save money when I travel. I love finding cheap flight deals. I’ll stay in a hostel and eat their free breakfast. I’ve been on my fair share of free walking tours. But it also means I’ll splurge on a hotel every now and then. I won’t pass up a good meal or a once in a lifetime experience. I don’t track my expenses day-to-day on the road and I don’t worry about affording dinner. I’m an almost budget traveler. If I had… Read More
International Travel
Big News: Europe in the Fall!
“When one door closes, another opens.” This has been so true for me particularly this past week. And that new door opening? It’s opening up in Europe in the fall! I could not be more excited about this. When 2018 started, we were looking at our big trip to Ireland in April. That was pretty much all we had in the books. I think we actually ended up booking Phoenix, Arizona at the very end of 2017 and we had plans to spend Christmas 2018 in Toronto. But our big travel plan was Ireland for 10 days in April. But… Read More
How to Spend 24 Hours in Belfast
As part of our Ireland trip, we spent a couple of nights in Belfast. The main reason we headed up to Northern Ireland was to tour the Giants Causeway and other sites up that way. But we also got to spend 24 hours in Belfast city, which was really awesome. Despite not being a huge draw for us heading up that way, our day in Belfast was actually one of the highlights. If you’ve got 24 hours in Belfast, Northern Ireland, here’s your perfect itinerary! PS: Heading to Dublin for a day? Don’t miss my itinerary for Dublin too! Morning… Read More
My Dream Travel Bucket List
To be clear, everywhere is my dream travel bucket list. The entire world would make my list because there are very few places I wouldn’t want to go (and those few are just due to safety concerns). But the following places are at the top of my travel bucket list. These are the places I have never been to and if I had the time and the money, I’d be booking a flight to these places first. I’ve listed these places by continent, with no definite ranking because it’s just too hard to choose. And because I’m really terrible at… Read More
How to Spend 24 Hours in Dublin
Colin and I recently got back from our whirlwind 10 day trip through Ireland. While I usually advocate for traveling slow, we decided to speed things up this time and visit four cities on our Ireland sampler trip. Our first stop and our last stop was Dublin. We didn’t get a lot of time there, but we did cram a ton in. Here’s how to spend 24 hours in Dublin, Ireland. To be honest, Dublin wasn’t my favourite city. I didn’t think it was going to be. Most people say that Dublin is just another big city and is best… Read More
How to Plan a Round The World Trip for Less Than $1500
A trip around the world. Sounds like the ultimate bucket list item, doesn’t it? For a long time, I thought the idea of doing a Round The World (or RTW) trip was terrible. Even if I could get that many days free to make it around the world, it seemed so expensive. But what if I could do a round the world trip for less than $1500? Colour me intrigued! What is a RTW trip? A round the world or RTW trip is literally a trip that goes around the world. It doesn’t mean you see every country or every… Read More
7 Tips for Your First Trip to Ireland
Colin and I just got back from our first trip to Ireland. We did a 10 day quick loop around the Emerald Isle visiting Dublin, Belfast, Galway and Cork following this itinerary more or less. We had an amazing time and would definitely go back (in better weather). If you’re heading out on your first trip to Ireland, here’s what you need to know. Tip 1: Dress for the weather It’s going to be cold. Apparently it warms up slightly in July and August, but the rest of the year is just plain cold. We went to Ireland in April… Read More
5 Cities I Can’t Wait to Visit Again
So far, I’ve lived, traveled, visited, volunteered or studied in 33 countries around the world and even more cities. I’ve had amazing experiences in every place that I’ve been. But there are some that I just can’t wait to visit again! These are the places that put a smile on my face when I think about them. They’re places where I have made some amazing memories. They’re places that I haven’t been to in a while and where I may have left something undiscovered. Usually, when I’m looking for flight deals or planning future trips, I’m primarily looking to go… Read More
Our 10 Day Ireland Itinerary
In just a few days, Colin and I are off to Ireland. We’ve been looking forward to this trip ever since we booked it way back in August 2017. We’ve only got 10 days, so we’ve really crammed a lot into our Ireland itinerary. Here’s what’s on the schedule: In my ideal world, we’d be heading off to the Emerald Isle with a month long Ireland itinerary. I’d love to rent a car and drive around the whole island. Of course, we’d see the highlights. But we’d also get to explore some off the beaten path areas. I love the… Read More
All The Places I’ll Never See
“I’ll do that next time!” “Missed it!” “Can’t wait to do that when I’m back!” These are common phrases amongst travellers. I’ve said a lot of them myself. It’s what we say when we leave a place and realize there was so much more to see. Sometimes we know it going in. We know we’re only going to be in a place for a short amount of time. We realize the number of impressive sights and experiences are much greater than the number of hours we’ll have in that location. And so we resign ourselves to just hitting the top… Read More
