I truly believe in this phrase: "Eat well and travel often." Sometimes it is great to forget about your phone and all of your bills and just get away for some R & R. How do you plan your trips?
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| Image via Pinterest via http://notesondesign.tumblr.com |
I haven't actually been on a trip since 2007. I always intend to make something happen, but man, life can be expensive, right? Moving back in with my parents, yes at the age of 28 (my older brother and his wife think I am crazy), has given me a little bit of flexibility moneywise and I think I am finally going to be able to make a trip happen in 2013.
In the past I have traveled with friends, I've traveled with my younger brother with a tour group, and I have traveled by myself. Geez, it sounds like I have traveled a lot, but I really haven't. Each way to travel works and has it's pros and it's cons. Honestly, I prefer traveling with a friend/family member and a tour group. Let me tell you why:
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| A different tour group at Abu Simbel, Egypt via http://www.thegobus.com/Egypt-Tours/Pyramids-and-Beaches |
My brother and I went on a 14-day tour of Egypt with about 8 other people. It was a trip of a lifetime honestly. Not only are you and your friend/family member having a fabulous vacation, you are automatically with a group of like-minded people of similar ages (from all over the world) and it is just a blast. In addition, all you have to do is get up and walk out the front door of your hotel in the morning and everything is taken care of. You have a tour guide that tells you all of the information you need/want to know about each site you visit (who wants to research everything so you know what the heck you are looking at?) and the guide can also fill you in on the local culture, which to me is just as important as the sites. All of the hotels and food and transportation are lined up for you. Tours relieve a lot of the pressures of trip planning and you don't have to iron out any of the hiccups that might pop up during the trip.
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| Photo via http://www.thegobus.com/Egypt-Tours/Pyramids-and-Beaches |
We went on this tour in 2007, which by the way, back then the tour was only $500/person (Pyramids and Beaches Tour through Go Bus), and we are still friends with the people we met on the tour to this day. Some of the perks of meeting these people were that we learned more about other countries and....now had people to go visit in these other countries!
A couple years later, my brother got a work visa for New Zealand. When he first moved there he lived with one of the couples we met on the trip....apparently the guy is a famous singer/song writer in NZ, on billboards and the like (Nathan King.) He is the biggest sweetheart and such a good and fun person, I completely adore him. Check him out if you're into pop rock music. After that he flew to Australia and was able to visit every major coastal city since he knew someone that lived in each city. Nice to have the hook-up, huh? Well, they all showed him a good time and he came back with some hilarious stories!
Touring Egypt, seeing all of the amazing landmarks, sailing up the Nile in a sailboat for three days, scuba-diving in the Red Sea in Dahab, just wouldn't have been the same without all of the amazing people we met, not to mention our phenomenal tour guide. My brother and I have decided that India is our next destination and now I just have to figure out if we are going to do the trip solo, which my brother would prefer as he thinks we can plan a trip that would be much cheaper than what a tour would charge, but I'm not sure if I want to iron all of the plans out and it might be more fun touring as a group...stay tuned....
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