First, before I start giving you guys some of my awesome tips for traveling I want to say, WELCOME TO MY BLOG! Its official. I am now a blogger who will be giving you new articles with my thoughts and life altering ideas and or advice. This will be a blog that will contain all kinds of information. From Traveling Cheaply and Efficiently to talking about certain people I meet on my trips. I hope you all are as excited as I am to be on this journey with me and will help me to expand and share with the world how I do my traveling. 

So without Further ado, Let’s get into some of my tips for you all to put to use:

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A lot of people ask me about how I am able to travel as often as I do. Usually I respond sarcastically and without a second thought. Something along the lines of "Well you save the money, pick a date, and just go" and I usually get a look that says everything I need to know. I responded in a way they weren't expecting and in a way that comes off as rude. Truth be told though, it really is along those lines. It’s all about how bad you WANT to travel. How bad you want to see this new place that you've been dreaming of. How bad you desire the need to get away from your coworkers, you friends, your town. YOU are what drives that force and what you decide to do to make it happen is how you will get to your destination. 

With that in mind, I am going to give you a couple of tips to get you guys started on how to travel efficiently and cheaply. Now I will say before you continue that what I do is not for everybody. I really do go cheap and some of the ways I save money is just from my three years of being on and off the road. Nothing is guaranteed to help you save money and nothing is 100%. Money spending is all on your decisions, I am just here to give you some tips on how to change your ways or incorporate them into your traveling. 

Tip 1: Essentials made smaller: When you are packing for a trip always think of ways to make it easier on yourself. Are you ok with getting some food from Gas stations? Do you maybe wanna bring a cooler so that you can store bottles of water in there so you don’t have to buy liquids as much? Do you want a lot of luggage or very little? When I pack I always pack the essentials. I think of how long I am going to be gone and think about how much I use of each product. For shampoo and Conditioner I use 3 oz snap closed flip top bottles. This saves so much space and lessens the weight of your bag. Next I take only one Razor, one stick of deodorant which I compact down to a travel size. With that I also pack a tiny hair brush (which should be easy for you guys, just need a comb for most of you so that takes away from the weight) and tiny toothpaste (like the kind from the dentist office) along with a easy slim toothbrush (also you can get from the dentist office). You really don’t need very much stuff, you need very little when you do travel. I always have just the essentials and I am always looking for ways to make it easier on myself. 

Tip 2: Clothes. Oh dear lord clothes. This is always the most difficult part of anyone’s packing. Honestly I still struggle with it but as I have traveled more I have found a way to make it work for me. Usually when I am packing I think about where I am going. Is it further North or is it South? I look up my destination and the weather reports and from there I make some decisions. For me it takes about an hour to really pick what I know I will use. Depending on the season I almost always have two or more pairs of jeans. When I pack Jeans I always pack half of what I think I need because I end up using a pair of jeans twice before I consider them dirty. For T-Shirts It’s a little harder. I go half long, half short unless if its summer, then I pack all short sleeved and put a jacked on the side. When I am putting them in my suitcase I always make sure that they are separated and folded neatly and compressed. Sometimes I roll T-Shirts and jeans to save space. When it comes to dirty clothes, I always bring a plastic bag to put them in so I don’t reuse them on my trip. Light and doesn’t weigh anything. Always be thinking about you and if you get cold easily or if you get hot easily. Make changes accordingly. 

Tip 3: Double and Triple check: I don’t know how many times I have forgotten something because I just decided not to check my bags. So this is key to not having to buy anything extra while you’re gone. When you have everything you think you need and you have this idea in your head that you didn’t forget anything, erase that thought and take everything out. Maybe put all of your items out on a bed or on a floor (if you have animals I suggest you lock them out for this as they tend to want to mess up your piles or play with your belongings) and make sure they have specific piles. So one for jeans, one for T-Shirts, one for your bathroom necessities, etc etc. Make sure to go over how many pairs you have, check to make sure you have enough toothpaste, a toothbrush, and of course the one thing that almost gets left behind, chargers. Always make sure you have your chargers of you will be spending some good money to replace it. When you have double checked pack it up and put it off to the side and then the day before your trip.. CHECK IT AGAIN. Yes it seems redundant but if you forgot something or you needed to add something at the last second you will be glad you looked. 

Tip 4: Always check your vehicle: Before I leave I always make sure to check my tires for air. I also clean out my car and make sure any access things I don't need are taken out or thrown away. I then take a plastic bag and put it in the car for trash purposes. Sometimes you just get messy and can’t make it to that trash can or you’re doing double time and it just slips past you. Make sure everything in your car is up to date and ready to go. My top five to check are air in my tires, trash bag in the car, oil is good and up to date, no red lights on in my car, and I always check my gas gauge to see if I need to stop at the gas station before I take off. 

Tip 5: Camping VS Hotels: One of the biggest money spenders on trips besides food is always the need to stay in hotels. When I travel I almost never stay in a hotel. They can cost from $60 - $300 a night! The longer your trip is the more you will be spending on that hotel. To reduce the spending I started camping. Now I can feel some of you just deflated a bit by reading that word, camping. Trust me, it saves so much time and money. All over the U.S there are these amazing camp sites called KOA's. For a night of camping it is about $20 - $30 a night. Now that is cheap. All you need is a easy to put up tent, a sleeping bag, and that’s it. You don’t need anything fancy. you don’t need to have a blow up mattress, firewood, a way to cook food, nothing like that. Just something so easy as a tent and a sleeping bag and you are set. A tent is quick to put up, easy to take down, and somewhere where you can sleep for a night. It seems kind of out there and a stretch for some but I have been doing it for three years now and without this I for sure would have spent thousands of dollars on each and every trip I go on. 

So for now I leave you with these five tips to work with. Again, this is not 100% guaranteed to help you save money, this is just some tricks I have learned by traveling as much as I do. If you wish to know more of them just let me know. I hope this does help some of you to make a change and to start getting out there and traveling.

Sometimes it’s the easiest things we can do to save some money and make it easier on ourselves. 

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