How to squeeze more travel out of your budget

 The Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland, via

Travel doesn't come cheap. But it doesn't have to burn through your bank account, either. One thing that I have become really adamant about is that it is possible to squeeze a little more travel out of your budget if you are willing to be a bit flexible.

I'm leaving for Ireland on Saturday, almost a full week ahead of my friends who will be joining me in renting a castle in County Clare the following week. Knowing that I had the luxury of time on my side (and let's face it, time is often the other huge constraint when it comes to the ability to travel), I decided to look into the possibility of extending my trip on the front end. Flying Aer Lingus, I was able to choose from a matrix of dates and varying prices. I could have left with my friends on Friday the 17th and flown into Shannon, or I could have chosen on Saturday the 11th and flown into Dublin for about $150 less. Guess which one looked more appealing to my opportunistic eye? Granted, it will cost me a little more than that to spend an extra six nights in Ireland, but not too much more if I play my cards right.

As I am staying in hostels, my accommodations will average about $25 per night, allowing me to break even with the money I saved by going early. And some of these are places with real character, like, say a converted old wine cellar in Dublin or a cottage on the Antrim Coast steps away from the Giants Causeway with a full breakfast included. Sure you give up a bit of privacy staying in a hostel (though most hostels do offer private rooms, which are very affordable if you are not traveling alone- an option I have exercised in the past), but when you are traveling alone and looking for a bit of conversation, hostels are a great place to meet fellow travelers and perhaps even chat with friendly owners.

I'm flying out of JFK, which is definitely not close to me by any stretch of the imagination. However, to fly out of Washington (which is not even super convenient) required an indirect flight, less flexible flight options, and was more expensive. I decided to stick with JFK and my Megabus tickets to New York from Baltimore over two months in advance set me back a grand total of $10.50 round trip. Add in LIRR tickets to meet the friend that will drop me at the airport (who I will later meet at the Shannon airport!) and to get back into the city on the way back, and I'm still paying less than $25 to take a much less expensive direct flight from JFK-DUB. Not bad. And not super inconvenient, either.

Throw in a few bus tickets (at around 10 Euro a pop), lunches, dinners, and few attractions (a black taxi tour of Belfast, Bloomsday festivities), and I'm still looking at less than $200 to spend an extra week in the Emerald Isle and further justify my plane fare.

As a single traveler with some extra time on my hands, I have the luxury to choose less expensive options that stretch my wallet and my travel itinerary. This time around it means that I will get to explore a bit of Northern Ireland and experience Bloomsday in Dublin in addition to a week of exploring the West from a castle. Not a bad trade-off for making a few frugal moves, right?

the IMF buys me dinner (and a pint or two) in Northern Ireland

My adventures in the Emerald Isle must be upon me because tonight I dug into the IMF. Now this is my personal international monetary fund, not of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn variety, which lives in an old Harney and Sons tea tin and is home to a variety of currencies, current and retired, left over from trips abroad or received as souvenirs from others, as is the case of the now-extinct Austrian schillings and the Dutch guilder. Hunting for Euros and Pounds, I recovered only half a Euro, but discovered a whopping 12.45 pounds. Not bad for a raid on the IMF tin. Though I will be touching down in Dublin on Sunday morning, I will spend my first few days in Northern Ireland taking in the Antrim coast and the troubled political history (and extensive political murals) of Belfast and perhaps Derry/Londonderry where my 12.45 pounds should fetch a plate of fish and chips and pint. Maybe two if I'm lucky.

Sunday Night Souvenir: earrings from Athens, Greece

Four years ago to the day, I was tucked into bed at the Neos Olympos Hotel (at $19.51 for the night) in Athens, sleeping soundly in a room shared by one of my favorite travel buddies.  The journey was our maiden voyage, and the following morning we would embark on our first "Honeymoon" destination together, catching a noon flight to the idyllic Santorini.

Earlier that day, in addition to taking my companion on a tour of the city in search of a camera battery charger (for I had a project I was supposed to shoot for a photography class and had forgotten to bring the charger for my fairly new DSLR- oh, how this made me miss film and curse my semester-long foray into digital!), I managed to get in a little shopping.  Side note: apologies, J.  Years later, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me find that needle in a haystack.  I'm the worst sometimes!

As my mother would say, I am an earrings slut.  I guess there are worse things to be called a slut over?  No earring slut shaming here, please.

Lapis lazuli is one of my favorite stones, and though I don't have the gorgeous baby blues that my mom and sisters possess, I still wear it with some frequency.  I loved these lapis lazuli and sterling silver earrings the moment I saw them.  Is this what the locals wear?  Probably not, but for me the geometric pattern and color scheme is very evocative of Greece, and these earrings bring back fond memories.

world travel: for more than just spoiled rich kids

Sarah Palin is going to go find herself in India.  Let's all breathe a sigh of relief that this fine diplomat is one of the few Americans with a passport (one-quarter to maybe one-third of us have one, and of those that do, most have not traveled outside of N. America/the Caribbean).  Today, I was reminded of that painful Katie Couric interview that took place September 9, 2008, in which Palin was asked to espouse her foreign policy views. 

She opens the interview by saying:

"I'm not one of those who maybe come from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduated college and their parents get them a passport and a backpack and say, 'Go off and travel the world.' Noooo. I worked all my life. In fact, I  usually had two jobs all my life, until I had kids. ... I was not part of, I guess, that culture."

Now, I realize that not every American can afford to travel.  There is an alarming number of Americans living in poverty, and even those comfortably "middle class" struggle to pay mortgages, car payments, and college tuition.  But let's back up here and look at the college graduate population she is talking about here.

To insinuate that only spoiled rich kids are world travelers is ludicrous to me.  Most of the world traveling that I have done has been solo.  Occasionally with a friend.  On those occasions, my parents were never the ones fronting the bill.  Since renewing my passport in 2007 (which had only previously been used on one occasion in the Caribbean),  I have traveled on almost every opportunity that I have made for myself.  Much of the money earned at the job I held down in college and acquired through Christmases and birthdays went toward budget travel.  When I graduated from college, I got a job in a foreign country that paid my travel and living expenses and earned me a good enough salary to travel to nearby countries during my few vacation periods.  While working abroad, I was frugal enough to amass enough savings (and frequent flier miles!) to see a little bit more of the world before returning home.  Does that make me horribly elitist?

Now, I will say that I am fortunate enough not to be repaying college loans, thanks in large part to my parents and the amazing benefits at their jobs that paid for a significant portion of my education.  Post-graduation world travel, however, is not just limited to those folks not bearing the financial burden of their four-year education.  There are a number of global opportunities for college graduates that offer loan deferments while paying travel expenses and living stipends- how about Peace Corps and Fulbright for starters?  Sure, these sorts of programs require some effort, a certain degree of passion and intelligence, and the foresight to apply nearly a year in advance, but having known both Peace Corps members and Fulbright award recipients, I'd say they also offer the clichéd "opportunity of a lifetime"- especially for a recent college grad who has never left the country.  Or how about a route I'm certainly familiar with: teaching ESL in a foreign country.  A very large percentage of the teachers I met in Korea were there to save money, often to help pay back student loans or to save up for grad school and other worthy endeavors.  In a country like Korea, the name on your diploma might have an impact on the particular school or student body you work with, but as long as you are a native English speaker and have a diploma from a four-year university, you are good as gold.

So, yes Miss Palin, I did go off and travel the world after college.  And, heck, I even worked, too!  You can have both, but it really depends on how willing you are to put yourself out there and create opportunities.  Dare I say it, but maybe if more Americans were willing to get out of their comfort zones and see beyond their cushy lives in Wasila, AK, our country just might have fewer residential bigots and enemies abroad.

Part of my goal here is to showcase opportunities for affordable travel.  This does not have to mean uprooting yourself for months or years at a time, like I have done, and certainly does not mean you will still end up selling your eggs on craigslist to pay for said "budget" world travel.  Part of my goal is just to keep writing, keep busy, maybe make somebody (or just myself) laugh with the type of ridiculous true life stories that involve reptiles and ER visits (<--what?).  Part reflection on past travel (awkward stories that would only happen to me included), part space for future explorations, part musings on whatever I damn well please, this is litterulae mundano.