Not Alone Series: Travel

How do you travel as a single lady?! Any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Do you have anything fun planned for this year?

I LOVE this weeks topic because I LOVE to Travel! I joke that when I get bored I research vacation destinations that I can’t afford to visit….but I really do this.

My parents LOVED to travel and they would always take us places. My mom always laughs at people who say they don’t travel because they have kids because they would take us everywhere as kids. They never stopped living their life because of us…they just worked around it….yeah a lot of our trips weren’t all that glamorous but they were fun and full of laughter and stories we STILL talk about today.

I once sat in this timeshare presentation and the guy on the video said, “When you look around your house or office you have pictures of you on vacation traveling…not pictures of you working!” I always laugh when I think of that quote because it’s SO TRUE! (I’m not promoting timeshares just thought that quote puts travel into perspective)

I’m a big proponent of taking trips within driving distance. As kids we basically drove everywhere on vacation. It’s also a more affordable way to travel.

You can also make fun pit-stops on the way like to the worlds biggest ball of yarn. Totally kidding but did anyone watch that episode of The Middle?

I love to fly but it’s just more affordable to drive and I prefer going somewhere affordable than nowhere. Right now my mom is on this big “I want to take the train somewhere on vacation” kick. But she doesn’t really know where to go and sadly the train is 2x the cost of driving or flying.

Over the past few years I have traveled a lot. We take a lot of weekend trips down to Orlando to visit Disney, Universal and conferences. Most of those trips are with family, mostly my mom and sister.

Last Spring I went to Europe for the first time partly with a study abroad program with school and partly with my mom. It was so cool to see so many of the places I’ve read about and seen in movies in real life. Traveling really makes the history books come alive.

I didn’t write about all of my trip to Europe but I wrote about most of it here and here.

This year I actually have a TON of trips planned. Last year I didn’t do anything for myself retreat or catholic conference wise and that is a priority for me this year. So far I’m going to St. Louis in May for the Stubenville Young Adult Encounter Conference (I actually just booked my airfare today and registered for it a few weeks ago).

In June I am hoping to go to Atlanta for the Eucharistic Congress and the Catholic New Media Conference. In October I’m going to Denver for the #CathSorority online women’s group retreat/meet-up and I’m hoping to get up to either NYC or DC for a Papal mass in September if I can get a ticket. That is a whole lot of catholicness for one year! I say I’m doing a good job at making up for last years lack of retreats/conferences.

Personal travel-wise I went up to NYC a few weekends ago to visit family and in June/July my whole family is going on a cruise and then renting a house for a few days over the 4th of July. I think that is most of what I have going on this year…it looks like it’s going to be a busy year for me! HA! The only other travel I may have is some weekend trips to Orlando to go to Disney, Night of Joy or a conference for work.

In 2016 I’m going to Poland for World Youth Day so I’m thinking that is going to be probably the only travel I do. Which is kind of how last year was. I had the one huge trip and didn’t do much else.

Here are a few Travel Tips:

Even though I normally travel with family I have done my fair share of traveling alone. It’s really not as scary as they make it out to be.

You just need to learn how to be safe, look like you know what you are doing and not PANIC.

My number 1 tip is to make sure you print anything you might need before you leave. Don’t rely on pulling things up on your smart phone because sometimes it just doesn’t work. Service in airports is sometimes AWFUL. It’s just easier to be old-school.

Also if you are flying research the airline to see what the baggage requirements are, what you can and cannot bring, and pay for your luggage before you get to the airport..it’s cheaper 90% of the time!

A great tool I use is tripit.com. You can even link it up with your email address so any type of travel arrangements will automatically get updated into it (or you can also forward emails to it).

It’s a great app/website for managing all the details of your trip. Between flights, rental cars, hotels, and attraction tickets it can get insane.

I’m a planner so I am always researching and planning things to do for places I visit. I’m not one of those crazy people that when I get there I have a detailed itinerary and tell you where to be at 11:02am. Once I’m there I’m pretty good at going with the flow and by then I’ve usually memorized everything I need to know.

My family and my Aunts family take family vacations together every few years and we joke that my cousin and I are the “tour guides” and they never have to worry because we’re always making sure to plan our vacations!

My biggest tip when traveling is to just HAVE FUN! Forget about work, life, drama, and just enjoy yourself explore, get lost and have fun!!

Thanks for Jen and Morgan for hosting!