Every now and then I may have a quiet few weeks from blogging when I don’t even answer any comments. I’m always sorry for that but it’s usually because of a terrible writing blog. I’m always having a lethal case of wanderlust.It’s endless longing to travel that gets even worse when there aren’t any sure travel plans waiting for me.
Wanderlust A strong desire to travel and wander around the world. Longing to see new places and experience new things.
When I was thinking the subject for today’s post one idea stuck out of everything else. How to survive wanderlust and longing to travel if you are in a life situation where you have no way of traveling anywhere. If you have been reading my blog for some time now you may know that even I have had life situations without any means or money to travel
I am sorry to inform you that there is no cure for wanderlust but you can always try to ease the symptoms. These next tips are something I keep doing when a bad case of wanderlust tries to take over my mind. I know there are many people reading my blog who can identify with me. Some of you may be in school or work, maybe you don’t have the money or you just are too shy to even try yet. Whatever the reason is I hope you find help with these tips.
Plan Future Trips
One of the best and easiest ways to help your wanderlust is to plan the trips you are surely going to make when you can travel again. Choose new destinations and add them to your bucket list. I have always believed that imagination is the strongest weapon human can have so why shouldn’t we use it? Daydream. That is my biggest secret of surviving the lethal case of wanderlust.
Hello everyone! Because I suck at things related to cars (and planning) it’s good to have someone else to do it for me. After a long time I have guest post here my blog and Jonathan has written interesting article about road trip hacks and things everyone should remember when going for road trip. Enjoy his article and tell your own tips for road trips in the comments!
Road Trip Hacks
It’s a perfect season for planning a road trip with your friends and family. Being the adult in your family, a road trip allows you to go back to your childhood and refresh some memories spent with your siblings so you want the same for your children to make some beautiful and fun memories that they can relate to when they grow up. A road trip can be one of the most fun experience of your life only if you make it worthwhile.
You can make the road trip more joyous and lovable by being organized, efficient and less stressful if you get the hang of some clever road hacks to be used along with your journey. The road trip hacks can serve as the best tool to help you come out of the minor troubles and worries that you face during your journey and make it a memorable experience. This article will enlist some road trip hacks that will help you to enjoy your dream road trip with your friends and family.
Long road trips can be boring if you do not prepare for them beforehand. The best and easy way to kill the boredom is by watching your favorite movies or seasons on your tablet. Never watch movies, seasons or use your tablet while driving! If you don’t have navigator tablet or smartphone will be good replacement. However instead of holding the tablet in your hands you can hang it on your windscreen for easy viewing.
Investing in a travel size refrigerator will enable you to keep your food and beverages chilled, and you won’t have to waste your money and time into buying them. What else could be better than your favorite home food and chilled drinks that can keep your hunger and cravings for unhealthy food at bay?
Finding cheap and clean restrooms can be a daunting task because most of the public restrooms are in a very pathetic condition. You can find clean restrooms by installing different apps for your phone that would notify you when the next budget friendly clean restroom appears on the map. All thanks to the technology that has made things much easier than they were before.
There are also apps that help you to find the nearest stations offering fuel at a cheaper cost. This could prove to be a great tool when you are planning your trip on a budget.
Don’t forget to bring a multi-port charger as it will keep the batteries of all the travelers charged. Long road trips mean you are going to spend more time with your cell phone or tablet. You may use it for availing google maps service, using the camera to capture memories, listening to your favorite music or watching videos, all of this can drain your battery in the first phase of the journey. So if you are not prepared, you will have to spend rest of the journey without a mobile until you find a restroom/hotel to charge your device.
Bring your own blanket and soft pillow along with you. With so many people you can’t have the freedom to adjust the cooling to your comfort level, so if you feel cold, you can use your own blanket and pillow to rest your head on which would otherwise keep hitting the window and give you a headache.
Equip your car with an emergency tool kit to deal with any car related problem that you may face during a road trip. Also, it is recommended that you equip your car with the best alarm system to protect it from theft when you leave it in the parking lot or on the road side to discover new places.
About the Author:
Jonathan is an IT expert and a researcher. He is obsessed with cars and all the digital accessories. He regularly posts at www.sakerracing.com
If you are reading my blog, there is high possibility that you want to travel and you would prefer traveling cheap (or maybe you are just member of my family who is reading my blog out of obligation). To the tell the truth I haven’t traveled that much. Of course the last two years I have been traveling more than most people but I still see myself as new member of this traveling and blogging scene.
Even then I have already learned a lot of ways to travel cheaper and had so many online conversations of how to travel cheap that I feel like this post was excepted some time soon. This is one of my favorite subjects to talk about. It mixes up two of my favorite things. Traveling and budgeting. I hope these few basic tips will help you!
Everyone is always complaining because I have about 2 000 unopened emails on my mailbox. How did that happen? Well, for me one of the ways to travel cheap is to find good deals from newsletters I get from different companies. I am subscribed to about twenty different newsletters from booking websites, airlines, cruises and hotel chains. I get a few messages from different companies every day but because the title usually tells if this mail will have something good I don’t even open most of them.
This is good way to travel cheap BUT your email will be big mess and you will have hard time to find anything. What we wouldn’t do to travel cheap? Good thing in this tip is that usually trough subscription emails you will get deals that you wouldn’t usually get and you will know about them before anyone else. Usually when you buy tickets anywhere they give you the option for subscripting for their own travel newsletter. Just click yes and give them your email. That’s what I do. (And maybe consider getting extra email just for easy way to get cheap travel deals.
4. Free Memberships & Collecting Points
If you have ever googled cheap ways to travel, you have probably heard about travel hacking and collecting points to get free flights. Yeah that’s great and I recommend it for everyone but it is also slow. Even if you don’t plan doing travel hacking to travel cheap, being member of airline is good idea. Firstly, you will be part of their email subscription list at the same time and get all the benefits mentioned above. However there is even more benefits being real member.
With the points you have collected you can also purchase cheaper flights, hotel rooms or holiday packages if you are not patient enough to wait until you have enough points for free flights. Best thing is that these memberships are free so you can just join to every possible club you find.
3. Coupons & Promotion Codes
First time I truly used this method was for our family trip to Disneyland and Paris. Using coupons saved us a lot of travel money because there was a four of use. However even for solo travelers this is the way to travel cheap and save up some money. Every cent counts, right? Basically, almost all booking sites, hotels, airlines, etc. use promotion codes, discount codes and coupons. Usually you can take advantage of these sales adding short code when it is asked during your booking/checkout.
These codes are often shared on companies’ social media pages or newsletters but if you are not following all of them there is easier way for you to get the sweet deal. Just google company’s name coupon code and you will find different sites listing all kind of codes for specific sites. Then starts the fishing. Sometimes you have to try ten different codes before you can find the working one. However if you want to travel cheap and save travel money it will be worth it.
As additional tip, you can use this method for everything. For example tours booked trough internet and hop-on-hop-off bus companies usually have discount codes that are easily found by googling and can safe you a great amount of travel money.
2. Pick Out The Cheapest Travel Destination
I am of course all for achieving dreams from your bucket list but if you are broke that is not always possible. I use Skyscanner to this but there is a lot of sites like. Basically you can put to search your departure airport and as destination ‘anywhere’. Then you get list of all the places where you can fly and what are the cheapest options for you. Just decide some of the cheapest destinations (but also think about what you want to see/experience).
In addition if you are not chained to specific days use the option that let’s you see the cheapest travel prices for whole month/year. The just pick out the cheapest day to travel and the cheapest day to return and also the cheapest destination to go. For me this has been the way to travel cheap. For example next Monday I am flying to Bremen (it was the cheapest destination from Finland/40€) and from Bremen to London (it was the cheapest destination to travel from Bremen/15€).
1. Be Creative
Last but also the most important tip I can give for fellow broke travelers is being creative. No, this doesn’t mean making paintings and selling them for your to kind relatives (even if this is a good idea!). Creative way of finding cheap ways to travel means for me looking for options that are outside of the box. Taking plane, booking hotel and just going with it isn’t always the best option. I have talked about this before but I don’t think I can never mention it enough.
So, example? I live in Finland and if you are from here or have ever planned trip to Finland, you know how expensive it can be to fly anywhere. My go to plan? Take cheap cruise to Sweden and fly from there. I have saved a lot of travel money with this. Look for airports that are accessible by bus, ship or train for you. Are the flights from there cheaper? Is the sum of traveling to airport and then to your destination cheaper? Congratulations, you just saved money and found way to travel cheaper.
There is also other ways to be creative. Try bus travel and you may find surprisingly cheap deals anywhere (especially in Europe). Did you know that bus from London to Amsterdam costs only 20€? And from Amsterdam to Lyon 30€? If you are more adventurous try free accommodation like couchsurfing or free traveling by hitchhiking. There is endless amount of possibilities to travel cheap. You just have to find them.
Do you have any tips for cheap travel? Feel free to share them or any comments you have below! With love,
This Wanderlust Wednesday, I wanted to try something new. So here is post I wrote yesterday (totally not during my political economy class…).
Many people are wondering how to book the flight tickets like traveler. In fact some of my most popular posts that get new comments often are about travelling cheap and adventuring like traveler not tourist. Whatever that “like traveler” means here is my 5 levels of booking tickets. This works for me but please don’t take anything seriously and maybe listen someone more experienced than me. I hope you will enjoy!
5. The art of decising your destination
Deciding where you want to go seems like good way of starting trip planning and flight booking. This is a lie! Be adventurous and leave deciding for those who just want safe boring holiday. Throw dart to world map and go where it points. Or look the flight deals and take cheap one. Where ever you there is amazing adventures coming to your way.
There is as many secret tricks as there is people. Some say that best time to book your flight tickets is three months before your trip. Others swear for the only buy your tickets on Tuesday rule. I have never really thought these. Usually I am too late for that three months mark and who has time to wait for Tuesday when wanderlust is taking over your life!
So is there any tricks I have learned? Making my travel route complicated. Did you know that cheapest round trip flight tickets from Finland to France cost 120€ while from Stockholm to France it costs only 35€ (and it takes 30€ from Finland to Stockholm and back). So you see why I love this ‘trick’? Other one I have learned is collecting airline points.
3. Panic, be unproductive and plan like a pro
The most important part of any travel planning is the panicking stage. Walk circles in your home and think all the negative things this trip may cause. Never forget considering airplanes falling or your luggage disappearing. After panicking enough it’s time to stare guide books without doing any real planning. This may take hours, days, weeks or even months. In hopeless cases even years.
After getting over your insecurities it’s time to start the real planning. What time do you want to travel, how to get to airport and from airport to the city?
2. Time to buy the tickets
It’s finally time to buy the tickets! Go on the right web site (I prefer to buy straight from the airline websites.It’s usually cheaper.), select your flights and use your beloved money to buy the tickets. That’s it really. The most important (only important) part of buying your tickets part. Don’t consider or get scared, just buy.
1. Share the good news with world (after panicking some more)
Again time to panic! You have flight tickets so it is real now: you are going to travel somewhere. If you are like me you probably forgot the plan properly ahead part and are now in totally phase of panicking. Don’t worry it will pass quickly.
After panicking it is time to take the next step (also known as the “make all your social media friends jealous”). Yep, it’s time to tell everyone that you are going. I recommend leaving that make everyone jealous part out of this step but I know how it feels to be excited about your new flight tickets. So smile for the camera and put nice photo to Facebook telling everyone the cool destination you will soon head to.
. . .
I hope you liked my not so helpful tips that will probably make your flight tickets booking experience horrible. For me this works but I am that person who has to fail to win.
Do you have any bad flight ticket booking tips? Or maybe good ones that would be helpful for everyone? Like always feel free to comment whatever you have in mind?
So did you like this kind of ‘not so official’ travel post? I hope you are all having an amazing day! With love,
“Earning Travel Money: Fiverr” or maybe better said
My First Month In Fiverr To Earn Extra Travel Money: What You Should And Shouldn’t Do…
I have been super busy lately and so had hard times having time to write blog posts. I was trying to come up with easy to write post idea when it was standing right in front of me. Big part of my busy schedule has been earning money in Fiverr. If you don’t know what this site is about you will soon find out!
I think we have talked about this before here in my blog but Fiverr is internet site that lets you work as freelancer for anyone wanting to buy your services. Fiverr takes small part of your earnings for providing you the easy way of finding jobs.
What can you do in Fiverr?
Literally anything. I have been doing translation and blog writing but you should decide the jobs depending what you are good at. Give advises, take photographs or teach languages. I have also seen people sending post cards, cursing people or depending to be someone’s boyfriend online. Any gift you have can make money for you in Fiverr.
If you can’t come up with any gig ideas you should look ‘buyer requests’ board where anyone can search workers for their projects. I have found few interesting projects to take part from here so I can totally recommend using it.
My Tips
So now you have been introduced to the amazing world of Fiverr and I bet you want try it too. I mean who wouldn’t? Specially if you are traveller extra money is always handy. I have learned many thing in this short month so I wanted to share them with you. Enjoy this list of things you should and shouldn’t do in Fiverr:
Don’t expect someone to hire you just because they contacted you. I have been contacted by many people telling me about their super interesting projects. We have been talking for few days and then they stop answering to my messages. Don’t feel offended they have probably found someone more fitting for their project or someone who is cheaper than you. Or they just decided to not hire anyone.
Always answer for everyone. If you don’t answer in your profile “Response Rate” percents are going down. And yes you need to answer even if they say something stupid. And you need to be the one who gets last word in every conversation. For me as quiet Finn this is super hard and sometimes my response bar has been under 50%.
If you start to regret promising to do gig just cancel it. Same goes if you realize you can’t do what you have promised. I had one $60 dollars gig that I realized was too big and hard for me to handle. I told to the orderer that it was too much for me and then cancelled the gig. It is easy!
Count how long it takes to finish your gig and decide the price with that in your mind. How much is your hourly wage? I decided right away when starting Fiverr that mine would be a little under 10$. When you get better you can decide to get more money per hour.
Watch out for cheaters! Some people will try to cheat you and make you work without pay. Be careful and you should be okay
Use the ‘holiday’ mode when you are busy. When you are on holiday mode in Fiverr people can’t order from your gigs. Use this when you are too busy to work in Fiverr.
Be friendly and always do the works as well as you can. Even if it may seem like few euros gig isn’t worth of doing properly you never know what can come out of that small gig. People tend to first buy small gig and if you do well they will order more. So if take every work seriously there is better change of getting bigger and better paying gigs.
My First Month in Fiverr
So now you may be interested how well have I done in my first month. I have to say I was surprised by the amount of gigs I have done! 13 gigs and earned $200 in my first month. It has taken me approximately 20 hours of work and too many cups of tea.
My first gig was translating product descriptions and made me totally anxious. I know I can write well in Finnish and I know I am fluent in reading English however I had never done any translation work. Surprisingly the client liked my translation. I got four stars out of five (because few compound mistakes with the product names) and new order from them.
After that first gig I have only got five stars out of five stars review and positive feed back out of my translations. Apparently I am quite good at it, who would have guessed! So my first month went mostly doing translations and getting better and quicker at it. In the end of September I saw someone searching for Finnish travel blog writer and I got my first article writing job. And apparently I am quite good at that too!
Right now during my second month I have done more article writing, longer translations and archived level two as seller. So I could say I’m totally hooked to Fiverr.
Do you have any experiences from Fiverr? Or other sites like it? I’m always happy to hear your stories and experiences!
So today I had to break off from my Friday posting schedule because we returned from London yesterday. Guess what that means! Next Friday you will get travel diary from my trip to London. If you want to have sneak peek to what I did check out my INSTAGRAM photos.
Endless Path Ventures