Shereen Rayle's Blog, page 24

Budget Summer Travel Tips

Summer is creeping up on us and before you know it, it’ll be sunny and the kids will be out of school and you’ll realize you haven’t starting planning a summer getaway yet. Don’t wait until the last minute, because that’s when you’ll pay the most. Airfare alone can jump as much as 40% during the summer months, so here are some tips to help keep you in the black this year and have an amazing time:

Shop for airfare on Tuesday and Wednesday and look for flights that depart on Tuesday, W...

Mother's Day Travel Gift List 2023

Hopefully, this year finds you and the mom(s) in your life well and getting you out and traveling more. Now that we're all settling back into normal vacations (with a few changes) and Mother's Day has come back around, it's time to help your mom get out of town with a little more ease, comfort, and efficiency.

I love giving items that are practical, but ones that can also make an economy travel experience a little more luxurious. Here are my top picks for Mother's Day in a variety of price points...

A New Kind of Subscription

There are all kinds of subscriptions you can order. If you're like me, you probably have at least one monthly subscription box that comes to your house. I've done Birchbox, LootCrate, Ipsy, and still do Litjoy, and BarkBox. I love getting a box full of mystery products every month or quarter. It's fun and exciting. 

Photo by Curology on Unsplash

There are subscription boxes for everything, including travel, but most are completely unaffordable. As someone who loves travel and travel products and g...

How To Travel More Freely

What if I want woolly socks?What if I want to wear a Hawaiian shirt?What if I need extra boots?What if I need more pajamas?What if I'm asked to a gala and I don't have a tuxedo?What if I go sailing and don't have the proper shoes?What if I want to go spelunking and I don't have ropes?Will people know where I'm from? Better pack four or five more Oregon shirts!

Yes, some of these questions are totally ridiculous, but if you're an overpacker, it might be hard to figure out...

Why I Love Disneyland Paris So Much

The other day I read an article about how to beat Ticketmaster prices and fees and it really struck a chord with me. In case you haven't tried to buy mainstream concert tickets in the last several years, or even heard about the Taylor Swift outrage, Ticketmaster and LiveNation merged, so they now have a monopoly on most concert tickets and can charge whatever they want. It's crazy. 

So, what does any of this have to do with Disneyland? Well, I found that it's not just concerts that are worth trav...

10 Ways To Save While Eating On Vacation

Food isn’t like souvenirs. No one goes on vacation withoutbuying it. You have to make room in your travel budget to eat, but there aremany ways you can make that part of your expenses smaller. Just because you aretrying to save money doesn’t mean that you have to eat fast food or sandwichesfor every meal or can’t experience the best cuisine a place has to offer. Belowis my top 10 list of ways to stretch your food funds.

Ask the locals where they eatOdds are,people who live whe...

Dog-gone Good Travel Tips

This week saw National Pet Day and next month is National Pet Month, plus with summer coming, people will be hitting the road (and sometimes the skies) with their dog. If you fall into that category with 30 million others, then you might need some help in traveling well with your dog. 

We've taken quite a few dog trips and they can be challenging, but can also be very rewarding.

Photo credit

Getting there isn't all there is to your traveling. You also need to think about accommodations. Choice Hote...

Visit National Parks for Free This Year

If you're hoping to get outside this year on a budge, perhaps a free trip to a National Park is an option for you. Get out and go hiking, biking, camping, see some national monuments and historical places. These do sometimes take planning, since the parks can get real busy. 

With winter dragging on and some places still getting fresh blankets of snow, you might be ready to get out of town. In preparation for the warmer temps, or for those of you who don't care how cold it is or how much snow is o...

All Those Extra Expenses You Forgot About

It's easy to go on vacation and have a budget and plan for the big things like accommodations, airfare, and food, but there's a whole list of things you forget about that can totally break your budget and make you sad. No one wants to be sad on vacation.

Since you don't want to subsist on PB&J when you get home, or (worse) in the last days of your vacay, make sure you remember these things and include them into your budget when you make your vacation plans.Gas/transportation - If you're renting a...

Your Most Important Summer Travel Accessory

There are a lot of things you should pack for your summer travels, like sunscreen and shorts and your bathing suit, but there's one thing that's much more important than anything else to a successful trip: your patience. Yes, this sounds like I'm telling you that summer travel will be annoying, and, shockingly, I am. 

How do I know? Because Summer travel is always annoying. There are too many people everywhere, things cost more than usual, traffic is bad, and there are kids everywhere. (No offens...