01

Budgets

How to create a budget is all based on your comfort zone. Understand the type of traveler you are prior to even thinking of your anticipated budgets. If you are the type to enjoy certain comforts, whether it’s food or lodging, you need to account for it. Some countries are significantly less expensive than others, however, if you use that to your advantage to live beyond your means, you may not be saving any money.

02

Research

Prior to arrival in a City or Country, you need to research 3 primary items, where you want to stay, how you are going to get there and do you need a visa? Understand that time is your biggest ally when it comes to saving money. You can afford to get a little lost or miss a bus when you have time. Book some important experiences you had come across or been recommended, but make sure you leave time to get lost or to change plans. Certain countries have restrictions based on nationality so it is important to understand than prior to booking any travel.

03

First Impression

See if the city your visiting has a free walking tour. These are great ways to get a lay of the land and see important sights without much research. In our experience, it was always led by a local. The direct communication and information you will hear from the locals will mitigate risk of you doing something disrespectful or inappropriate. It will also help with navigating different areas. It may help you reevaluate how or what you want to experience. If that is not your cup of tea, there are always paid tours! We have gone this route as well and usually have a local guiding us!

04

Recover

Sometimes you need to take a vacation from a vacation. As you continue to travel to new places, you have a drive to see everything you can and keep moving 100 mph. It takes it’s toll on the body and you need to recover. It’s hard to rationalize taking a break and relaxing at times because where you are and what there is left to experience. But you just have to remember that you need to stop and take it all in some days.

Google Maps
There are 2 significant advantages in using Google Maps. You are able to download offline maps, which is extremely important if you are completely dependent on WiFi.

We bookmark everything in it’s own list, organized either by city or country. Then we would make sure that we shared it with one another so either of us could add to the list!

We would save restaurants, hotels, historical sights, museums and parks; basically any place we would be interested in seeing. This also helped us recall different spots we randomly came across as well as get to know the lay of the city better. If we forgot a place, we would go check the “timeline” option in our maps menu. It made it easier to recall anything we didn’t write down!

Google Drive / Google Photos
Google Drive was an awesome resource for our trip. We created a calendar spreadsheet in Google’s excel version where we would not all our important travel information. It helped us stay organized tremendously and allowed planning to be easier and more efficient when figuring out logistics. All of this information we made shareable with family and friends we were planning on seeing.

We have always been avid users of Google Photos but it became a crucial app for us to use. We organized all our photos by country and shared it with one another to make sure we had all the photos in one place. Not to mention sharing with our eager family and friends! Google Photos has so many helpful features that we took advantage of. Last but not least It is a cloud based program so we felt at ease knowing everything was backed up.