Newest Adventure: Home Ownership

Our house, a little neglected when we bought it.

On June 19, 2010, we began our newest adventure. We moved from Rapid City to Elko, Nevada, as Wayne started his job with Barrick Goldstrike, a gold mine as a metallurgist. Elko is a town of 16,000, and the biggest attraction for us to the area is the Ruby Mountain Range 20 miles to the south. We ended up finding a great home about five miles from the mountains, and have magnificent views. We have been enjoying the hiking all summer, and I plan to post about our adventures here in the Ruby Mountains.


Wayne enjoying our new home.

The view of the Ruby Mountains from our home!

Virgin Islands 2010

We just got back from our trip to the Virgin Islands. We had a great time. We enjoyed our day trip to the British Virgin Islands, where we toured the well-known 'Baths' and did some snorkeling. We rented a scooter for a couple days, which was quite fun. The last day and a half we were there it rained constantly, so we were stuck in our cottage. Here are some pics.

Caneel Bay, St. John


Our Cottage

The Baths, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

British Virgin Islands

The scooter

Getting deals/paying for a vacation

The most common questions Wayne and I get about our travels are: 1. "How can you afford to travel so much?" 2. "Aren't you still in school?" 3. "Where do you get such good deals?"

1. "How can you afford to travel so much?" I think a large number of people are under the impression that you have to be financially well-off to travel. I can see where they're coming from. You can easily spend $1000 on a plane ticket, $200 per night in a hotel, $50 per day for food, $100 per day for spending, and $50 per day for taxis and transportation. A two week vacation at this price would be $6600. Double that price for two people. So if it cost 13,000 for Wayne and I to go to Europe for 2 weeks, we could never have afforded to travel. However, an average budget for one of our trips would include: Airfare - 500, Hotels - $100 per night, Food - $20 per day, Spending - $25 per day, $10 per day for transportation. For two people this is $2670. Our trips have ranged in price from $600 to $4000. Yes we have to save, scrounge, and starve, but it was worth it!

2. Yes Wayne is still in school. But traveling while you are in college can have huge advantages. How many jobs give you a month off in December, spring break, and summer vacation? Since we don't have kids and rent an apartment we feel very flexible to travel whenever we want or whenever there's cheap airfare. Also, there are lots of travel discounts for those under 25 in Europe (think hostels).

3. For our next trip we booked tickets to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. We were excited to get the tickets from Denver to St. Thomas for a bargain $261 per person. I heard about this deal through travelzoo.com. Travelzoo e-mails a weekly report of travel deals around the world every Wednesday. Just sign up on their website. So I saw the deal on the weekly email, and went to orbitz.com to book the tickets.
Wayne is the king of researching on the internet. So he also finds good deals for us. Just looking around and reading reviews of other travelers can help you get more bang for you bucks. One of my favorite review sites is Travel Advisor.
Using budget guidebooks can also help you to be well informed and save more. I've used Let's Go and Rick Steves. Rick Steves is the best. He'll not only gives advice on how to save money, but also time, which is valuable, especially during a vacation. We have saved hours of standing in line for tickets by learning how to get tickets in minutes from his books.

4. Final Thoughts - Save, Scrounge, and Starve
We have also made travel possible by saving, scrounging, and starving. We have spent many a night sleeping in a car. We have skipped more than one meal. During our first trip to Europe we eat out three times. We bought fast food, groceries, and simply didn't eat. Wayne lost 15 pounds, I lost 5 pounds during that trip. No joke. We have also taken advantage of airline mileage programs. We enjoy camping, so several of our trips were centered around camping. This has always saved a huge amount. We have camped in the US, Canada, Europe, and the Carribean. We have paid $5 to $30 per night for campsites. That has saved us hundreds of dollars. More than anything, I think the secret to being able to travel is to just get out there and do it. If you dream of going to the Amazon you may never do it. But if you go buy tickets to Brazil, it will be real and you can save and plan and make your dream come true!

So get out there and plan a trip!

A new means of travel

Wayne has been training to get his private pilots' liscense. He passed the test a couple weeks ago, so today we flew to Iowa for Thanksgiving at Wayne's parents' house.
I have been converted to being a big fan of small planes and regional flying since riding a few times with Wayne. Our flight was so convenient, fun, and exciting.
Flying privately makes you feel rich and famous. Even though you are actually very poor after paying to fly the plane using $5 per gallon fuel. But that all fades when you arrive at the airport and flash your badge to go through a super secret security gate. (not really super secret, but it sounded good) Drive up the the hanger where the plane is, and Wayne gets the plane ready. I park the car in the hanger (no, I don't have to pay a parking fee!) Then we jump in the plane and taxi out to the runway. Takeoff is pretty fun, but ascending is pretty slow, so you don't get that feeling you get in an airline of raising hundreds of feet in a few seconds. Once we get to the right altitude Wayne turns on the autopilot, and we pretty much relax for 2 and a half hours. It's fun to spot landmarks and laugh at the poor little cars trudging down the interstate. When we get to our destination, we land at another small airport. Wayne's family was waiting, basically parked on the taxi-way. Then we zoomed off to a delicous Thanksgiving meal prepared by my mother-in-law.
Another cool thing about flying is the FBO's. These are nice little lounges for private pilots and passengers. The ones in Rapid City have nice furniture, clean, nice, bathrooms, refreshments, and a bigscreen TV. So like I said, you feel like you've joined the ranks of the rich and famous. Or at least I do.

A Traveler's Job

Since this spring I have been working at a travel store in town. It is lots of fun to be surrounded by maps, guidebooks, and travel accessories. I love being able to grab a guidebook to anywhere and read a little when the store isn't busy.
Another perk is chatting with shoppers about their travels. I love giving my imput on what people should buy for a specific trip or giving advice on places to go that I have been.
I can also get great deals for myself on all things travel related. I've gotten books, supplies, and a suitcase. My next discounted purchase will be an Eno Hammock.

Rome 2009

Rome in May was gorgeous. The weather was wonderful and the grass was so green compared to late July, when I had first traveled to Rome. There were lots of flowers too, especially the bright red poppies that were growing everywhere. I loved how they grew so brightly beside the ancient crumbled ruins from centuries ago.

Joanna and I had a great trip. Besides the beautiful weather and flowers, we enjoyed our time immensely. The pictures in my Photobucket account detail what we did and saw. (Click on link in the next post) We saw everything that we wanted to see and had nice dinners at cozy sidewalk cafes. We did lots of walking, ate gelato, and squeezed in some shopping.

The trip was so much easier and not as stressful than I thought it would be. My two biggest worries (see "Planning a trip to Rome with Joanna" post) ended up not being a big deal. I was dreading the jet lag, but I got enough rest on the overnight plane from Minneapolis to Amsterdam to keep going. In Amsterdam I felt refreshed and had a short amount of time until my next flight. I called Wayne to tell him I landed, and then Joanna called me from a pay phone in Rome. She told me to meet her at platform 23 in the Termini Train Station in Rome. I got really tired on the flight to Rome, and did the embarrassing head drop - falling asleep for a few short seconds until your head falls down and you jerk awake for the next few seconds, repeat... When I got to Rome, the airport and train station at the airport were user friendly and easy to use. When I got to Termini, I easily found Joanna's tired smiling face at the end of Platform 23 at around 5 pm. A few nights I was awake from around 12-2AM, but other than that, I adjusted well to the time. I think that being to Rome before was a huge help in being comfortable and stress free in Rome. I again found the city very relaxed, enjoyable, and friendly.

It was different traveling without Wayne, and I missed him. But it was empowering to travel on my own. I'm already looking forward to my next trip to Europe - hopefully with Wayne!

Rome Pictures

I'm back from my trip to Rome with Joanna. We had a blast. Here are the pictures from the trip - I am using Photobucket to organize my photos. Eventually I'll have pictures from all out trips on the sight.
Enjoy!
PICTURES
More about the trip in the next post.