How To Fund My Next Trip

Firstly I'd like to say I don't actually know where i'm going to go, maybe back to camp in America and travel afterwards, maybe a trip round Europe or potentially further.
Whatever I choose to do i'm going to need money and after travelling in America with almost no money and missing out on things because I just couldn't afford it was pretty awful. So I don't want to be in the same situation again.

1. Live at home -  I could probably afford to move out into a 1 bed flat and live by myself, however that would mean all my money gone. I'd have nothing left for meals out, drinks, clothes etc... let alone saving. I think this is a standard one now on most people saving lists.


2. Transfer half my pay check to savings - if it's not in my current account I won't spend it, also when I look at my account and see that I don't actually have that much money in there it'll make me think twice before spending on things I don't need.

3. Be minimalist - just cut down on things, I don't need new books when I have loads I can re-read, I don't need another pair of shoes that are pretty similar to some i've already got and I don't need a going out top i'll wear very rarely.

4. Make full use of student/ work discount -  I have 3 year NUS card with about 2 years left on it, and while 10% discount isn't massive it's still something and I will be using this at every opportunity. Also after 3 months of working at my current job I will get a rather large amount of discount on the business products and it will make a massive difference as it's products I use every day multiple times and things that can get pretty expensive. The also included cards such a nectar and advantage points.

5. Drive carefully - recently I made a massive mistake and got caught speeding, so that £91 gone on a driver awareness course! So firstly no more of that, by driving carefully I also mean driving economically. Petrol is a massive out going for me especially with having a boyfriend that doesn't live in the same city as me so the less I spend on petrol the better.

6. Pack lunches/ snacks -  where I work there are so many food options in the building, 2 Starbucks stands, a Costa shop, a cafe and the company store meaning it'd be so easy to buy breakfast and lunch every day. A packed lunch will sae my budget and my waist line.

do you have any other ideas for me?

Early Christmas Shopping + Travel Gifts

Now i'm not usually an early christmas shopper and this is partly due to me either being at uni and having no spare cash or having just got back from travelling and having no spare cash. Plus i'm just not that organised.

However, this year seems to have started differently when I spotted some pretty great things on a website called Uncommongoods.com

The instant draw was the fact the products are sustainable, organic and often recycled which is a big deal when you have a vegan sister and the possible gift ideas are massively narrowed down. Therefore, when I spotted this hummingbird garden stake I knew I had to get it for her. I found this on the Christmas gifts for women page. I was torn between this stake and a flower one but decided that the vibrant colours on the hummingbird was the best choice. I'm glad I did because it's lovely, seriously glad I got this but it is fairly delicate so a nice sheltered spot in the garden will be ideal for this.

I then spotted this gorgeous gala photo display for my mum! As with a lot of mums she's easy to buy for, a book, toiletries or chocolate are always a go too however, it's so nice to be able to get her a unique gift for once that I know no-one else will have thought of. There was also so many other Christmas gifts on this page for mums too. When this arrived I also realised that the pot at the end can be used for pens/ pencils as well as a plant (as seen on the box) which is great! and it comes with some pictures already (although these will be replaced) but it's nice to have a couple different things to play around with to start. 

I then decided to treat myself to an early Christmas present too, when looking at the Christmas gifts idea page I saw a travel section! So I obviously had to look, there was so much I wanted but I settled on this travel scratch journal to help me plan and document the next long trip I take. It has a planning journal with a diary section as well as individual scratch maps for each continent. The only down side of the is that on the North American map it doesn't have individual states so it's either scratch it all or guess the state lines for the places i've been.

Have you started Christmas shopping yet? Are there any other gift sites I should be checking out?

Ghosts, Crocodiles and Bourbon Street in New Orleans

I don't really know where to start with New Orleans, I was there for 5 days; 4 with friends and 1 by myself. Anyone thats travelled a bit will know that 5 days is kinda a long time for a city so New Orleans ended up being a pretty slow one. It was a mid way city for me between me ending my adventures on the East Coast and flying out to the L.A to start my West Coast journey. 

It all started the way any New Orleans trip should: Bourbon Street

From Bourbon street I have one photo that i'm not even gonna try and edit and i'll just leave that here think it'll sum up the craziness that ensured after hurricane cocktails, mechanical bull riding and disgusting test tube shots.

Bourbon Street definitely lived up to its name, the atmosphere is electric and we had coincidentally arrived on a Saturday so it was rammed with every type of person you could think of, and yes people really do throw beads down off the balconies. Drinks are a little pricey but they are strong so not many are needed! There are also so many bars to choose from it's kind of impossible to pick, some have live music, some are more clubby and others have weird attractions like the mechanical bull. We stayed out pretty late and worked our way from one end of the street to the other hopping in and out of bars before heading home. 

The next day started rather late for us after the antics of the night before, our AirBnB was a little way out so after getting ready we got an Uber to the French Quarter where we started our sight seeing. We started with the French Quarter market which is full of stalls selling all types of things. We then moved onto to Jackson Square where the St Louis Cathedral stands (below), this cathedral is the oldest active Roman  Catholic Cathedral in the United States. They do have tours however we opted to just go and sit inside for a short time to look at the spectacular architecture. We also had lunch in Jackson Square at a place called Stanleys, we had great sandwiches there with friendly staff serving us and very reasonably priced to say it was so central in the French Quarter.

 Our second night was a lot quieter than our first as we had a swamp tour booked for our second day so we had to be up early. For anyone thinking of visiting New Orleans going out to the swamps is a must, we had the best time! Again we got an Uber there as it was a little way out to the companies base. We where on a boat with around 10 other people and the tour lasted 2 hours. We where driven right out into the swamps and saw crocodiles of every size! Our guide fed them marshmallows to attract them closer so we could see them up close. As he drove us through the swamp he also told us about the history of the swamp people and what living and working there was like.

We also had the opportunity to hold a baby crocodile, now the ethics of this are obviously questionable. You will notice on most boat tours that the croc you hold will have its mouth taped shut for the entire tour but as you can see from the photo below this wasn't the case for ours so I felt slightly better about how this tour ran. I was the first to volunteer to hold it, I wasn't gonna miss out on that, a few of the other passengers where a touch more reluctant but after some encouragement everyone held it.

That night we headed out to Frenchman Street to see some live Jazz music. his is a big part of new Orleans culture. We had barley arrived when a band started playing right in the street and they where amazing! If you want live music this is the street to go to, it was lined with bars all advertising live music. We went to one called the Blue Nile and we weren't disappointed the band didn't just play music they put on a real show and really helped us see that side of NOLA culture. 

The next day was our final full day and we had a few stereotypical things we wanted to do in New Orleans such as ride a ferry across the Mississippi. We couldn't afford a proper steam boat dinner tour  so we opted for the ferry that goes from one side to the other for 2 dollars each! It's pretty short and i'm sure not as exciting as a proper steam boat tour but needs must when it comes to budget. Next we walked a long long long way to see the American Horror Story Coven house from season 3. It was honestly the biggest house I have ever seen it goes on forever!

We then attempted to go to one of the famous above ground cemeteries, Lafayette No 1 but we where too late it had already closed for the day. There was another women wanting to go in to and she suggested we break in, an idea we where definitely not keen on. One because we didn't want to get arrested and two it doesn't feel morally right at all the break into a cemetery...

This all lead us to the highlight of our day - The Night Ghost Tour 

New Orleans is famous for it ghost and voodoo stories from people like Marie Leavou (voodoo queen) and Marie Le Pen (torturous slave owner) the city has a lot of history when it comes to magic. Our guide took us on a 3 hour walk across the city showing us the sites of grizzly murders, suicides, renegade butcher doctors, and much more. 

I don't have any pictures from the as it was mostly ordinary looking buildings and it was the stories that brought them to life. The interesting part of this is that it is a fact that some of the events have happened such as Marie Le Pens torture chamber which was also featured in American Horror Story season 3 so it was really interesting to hear more about it.

Unfortunately the next day was when my friends left me for the rest of their trip, after lunch we said goodbye and I headed to my hostel. India House. It was beautiful. painted bright yellow, there was even a pool which was so welcome in the 40 degree heat. The actual room in the hostel wasn't the nicest a little run down but couldn't really complain, I shared with 5 other girls. The lack of AC however killed me at night. I also made the mistake of trying to walk from the centre to the hostel to save money, I made it but it was so far and so hot. That night I went down to the pool with one of the girls in my room and chatted to some other guest at the hostel but headed up for an earlyish night.

On my last day in New Orleans I got up early to visit a cemetery as we hadn't managed to get into Lafayette No 1, it was really interesting seeing these type of above ground graves and how each family has a different style. But if you are visiting there isn't really any need to allocate a large time slot theres not really much to see in the gave yards.

I spent the rest of my day chilling by the hostel pool, I had check out my room and arranged a airport shuttle so decided it was best to stick around and relax while I had the chance before my crazy West Coat trip started. There was a few people from the night before there so after a phone call to my best friend at home I hung out with them until it was time for me to leave for L.A.

 Do you want to visit New Orleans? What do you think would be your favourite thing to see there?

Tips & Tricks: Who to fly with in the USA

Now I by no means claim to be an expert but in this post i'll tell you about my personal experience of both short haul internal flights and long haul international flights for the USA.

I myself am British but during my time working at a camp in New York and the subsequent time afterwards travelling I definitely picked up some tips when it comes to flying in America.

All I can say for internal flights is book with Southwest! They are by far the best that I have experienced especially for budget travellers and here's why:

• No extra charge for baggage - some airlines will be charging $20 plus on top of your ticket price for luggage where as it's completely free with Southwest!

• 2 pieces of hand luggage - during check in when our cases where way over the weight the lovely check in lady at Washington Baltimore airport informed us we could check our bags, have our rucksacks AND an additional piece of hand luggage! She even went to her locker to grab us a plastic bag for our extra piece. I've never had such great service from a member of staff from an airline before.

• Free snacks on board - every Southwest flight i've taken has had free snacks, either pretzels or peanuts which is such a nice added bonus for a budget traveller when airplane food is so expensive there was even free water and orange juice. 

• Flight prices -  in my experience even with all the extras Southwest tend to have the cheapest ticket prices especially if you consider what you'd spend on baggage with other airlines.

• Frequency - Southwest fly so many places internally and flights are super frequent meaning you can almost always find one with them.

International flights are slightly more tricky and often price is the biggest decider, however when possible British Airways will be my #1 and here's why:

• The food! - I'm a big foodie and as we all know airplane food is not the best but I have always been impressed by BA's long haul options on my flight from London to NY and San Fran to London I received 2 meals, multiple snacks and as many drinks as I could manage all included with the price.

• Seats - there's only so much comfort you can get on an 12 hour flight but arriving at your seat to a pillow and blanket as well as a TV in the back of the seat fully loaded with all the latest films, TV and multiple games definitely helps.

• Now this one is a bit bias but being British, flying with BA is sort of iconic, growing up it was by far the biggest, most well known and fanciest airline so flying BA feels special even if like me you're flying economy!

• Frequency - like Southwest, BA fly everywhere all the time meaning it's not difficult to find a flight with them, they are also one of the only british airline to offer frequent flyer miles, although this isn't quite as straight forward as with American airlines. It does require you to sign up for a specific credit card.

As I said, my international argument is less fact based and more opinion but I hope this at least gives you a little insight into making you airline decisions and what to expect.

Let me know what your favourite airline is in the comments!

Disclaimer the airlines have not asked for this promotion i'm just a big fan!

Exploring London!

Recently I travelled down to London to visit my boyfriend who lives there and as I am going again this week I thought it was time to write about my first trip! My boyfriend has just recently moved back so this was my first of many visits.

Right off the bat I made a massive mistake; I drove. Never ever again will I be driving down to London. He lives in South London meaning not only did I have to travel all the way down the M1 which was actually ok, I then had to drive through central London and it was the worst experience of my life. It took hours to get virtually no where! It was so so frustrating being that close but it taking so long. This was me being a bit too confident and not listening to the advice I was given to not drive! Well lesson learnt and the train is going to be my new best friend from now on.

The drive did put a big downer on the start of my trip as  arrived frustrated and about 2 hours after I thought I would but luckily it did improve!

That night I met his family for the first time and we had a family dinner, which was a little overwhelming as my boyfriend has a family of 6. Meaning it was a lot of people to meet and talk too!

 On my first full day there we went into the centre of London! I have visited London several times before with school, my parents and an ex but always with a set plan for example school trips. So it was nice just to wander, I had no idea what I wanted to do so we started off at Buckingham Palace and just walked around from there. 

We went down the mall to horsegaurds parade as I am an avid horse rider and owner and for those of you that have read my other blogs will know I went to live in New York for 3 months to teach horse riding. 

We then had a mandatory pub stop before going to Trafalgar Square. There where several bike races happening that day so the roads where cordoned off making it a little more difficult to get around than it usually would have been. However later on the bike races did pay off for us.

On out way to china town we stopped for the most amazing lunch! London is expensive so when we saw a lunch menu at Steak & co for £7.95 we didn't think twice! My boyfriend had the steak which you cook yourself at the table on a hot stone and I had incredible chicken and bacon mac & cheese. We then had pudding as well in total it was under £20 each which is a bargain for 2 course and drinks in central London.

Loving the identicalness of these 2 photos including my boyfriends hiding behind his drink in the background 

We then headed to Leicester square and went in the Lego shop and M&M world, I have never seen so many different coloured M&Ms the walls where lined with them! 

We finally made it to China town where we had been heading before lunch where we saw the famous bubble wraps which I definitely plan on going back for on my next visit, then to another mandatory pub stop.

As mentioned before there where lots of bike races happening and as we entered Piccadilly circus the final 3 laps of the women international was going so we stopped to watch the finish! I know nothing about cycling but it was fun to watch and the atmosphere was great!

Our last stop was green park to sit and relax for a while before heading home! Overall it was a really nice day, very relaxed and it being sunny and warm helped as well!

Have you visited London? Any ideas of what we should do next time i'm there? I'd love to visit the natural history museum 

Post Travel Money Worries

If you've read my other blog posts you'll know I worked in New York at a summer camp teaching horse riding in 2016 and after finishing the camp I travelled for a month. This included a 2 week partnership with Intrepid Travel on their Wild West tour.

However, this post isn't about the travelling but about my final days and months that followed. As you will probably know you don't work at camp for the money. It's all about the experience of being in America living and working, making amazing new friends. If you then add on a month of travel you might have guessed that I came home flat broke.

My last stop when travelling was San Fransisco where I flew home from, by the time I got here I was pennyless and had to make the dreaded phone call home to ask for money to pay for a hostel. I am beyond grateful that my parents where able to lend me the money as I know many people don't have this option!

So as I lived out my final ays in San Fran living off pasta, cheese and bread that i'd bought at trader Joes my time of wracking up debt started. Again luckily only off my parents meaning no interest but debt is still debt either way.

Once arriving home I started back at the shop I had been working at during my time at university, but as it was coming into the quiet winter period I was getting hardly any shifts. I was making between £350 and £500 a month sometimes only working one day a week. This meant that my parents had to pay for my car insurance and a few of my car payments as I payoff for it monthly. I did what I could to earn more money selling stuff on Ebay and taking a second job working at Centre Parks giving children pony rides. This was only for a few weeks over Christmas but it helped. Even with all that I was not able to start paying my parents back.

Having so many money problems as a result of travelling did put a downer on my memories, I sometimes think about how I wish I had been able to do more things while I was there and if only i'd had more money I could have. I without a doubt I had an amazing time. Yet if I was to do it again I would be more careful. I didn't start to budget until I became low on money. I had relied on my camp pay to fund my travelling but it didn't stretch anywhere near as far as I thought after having to use some of it while at camp. In fact I don't even know how much money I went to America with, thats how little I planned.

Therefore the moral of the story and this blog post is that yes looking at money, budgeting and doing the practice things like that may be boring but they are essential and I may have been able to save myself worry and debt if I had invested more time into having a sensible plan.

Have you experienced any money troubled during or post travel? How did you cope with it? Let me know in the comments!

What to do in Berlin!

Last weekend I was away in Berlin for 3 days and had an amazing time!

My flight went from East Midlands Airport at 6.30am meaning a very early start. As I was travelling with my boyfriend we paid for airport parking. Splitting this between us made it cheaper than public transport to the airport.

We arrived in Berlin at 9.30 and made our way to out hotel via the Tier Garten, We stayed at the Fjord hotel Berlin and paid £243 for 2 people making it £40.50 a night. The hotel was lovely to say it was on the cheaper side. We dropped our bags off as we where too early to check in and then when we went back they had been taken to our room which was a nice bonus. There was free fruit and infused water daily. Also extremely friendly staff which really helps. I'd 100% recommend this hotel.

After going to the hotel we headed out to join a free walking tour from this company: https://originalberlintours.com/tours/free-original-berlin-walking-tour/

Our guide was great and showed us all the main sights such as the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Wall, Cathedral and The Palace as well as a few places that we wouldn't have known about such as the site of Hitlers war bunker. I love walking tours as you can really get to understand the history where as by myself I may see the building but I wouldn't know the story behind it. Such as the 2 domes in the Gendermarkt, one French and one German. The Germans where angry that the French finished their dome first so the Germans decided to make theirs 1 meter higher to get back at them! He also showed us where the burning of the books happened at the university library which foreshadowed the start of the war.

We left our tour at the Brandenburg gate and went for a much needed sit down in a cafe at this point we'd been up 14 hours and where pretty tired. So we decided to head back to our hotel via the supermarket where we picked up breakfast and snacks for our trip to keep our food costs a bit lower. After checking in we went to our room to unpack and shower before heading back out for dinner.

Our hotel was close to Potsdamer Platz where there was lots of restaurants so we headed there and ate at Que Pasa. As you can probably guess from the name it was a Mexican. We shared nachos for a starter then I had a burrito and my boyfriend had tacos as well as 2 cocktails for me and 2 beers for him. The bill came to €56 which we thought wasn't bad!

On our second day we headed out early to the Topography of Terror (Berlin Wall), we spent hours reading all about the history of the wall and the wars. I was really interesting and definitely a must do for anyone heading to Berlin. 

After that we made our way towards Check Point Charlie stopping at an italian where I had the best spaghetti Bolognese i've ever had! Unfortunately I don't know the name of this restaurant but this was the best meal I had while in Berlin.

We then headed to the Check Point Charlie museum. We where actually pretty disappointed in this one, it was all very cluttered and didn't seem to follow any real plan. There was lots and lots of information shoved in random places and covered everything from World War 1 to Korean Torture camps. I think they had tried to cram too much into a small space and it just left us confused and a bit bored.

After leaving we headed to Fassbender & Rausch a famous chocolate shop in Berlin. They have models of Berlin landmarks such as the Reichstag made of of chocolate and weighting 300kg! There was also the Titanic, a plane, the Brandenburg gate and a volcano erupting chocolate! We bought a small things to sample back at our hotel.

We headed out again that night for a nice meal, this included us getting dressed up a bit! We went to a restaurant called Meredo. The service here was pretty poor it took a long long time for our drinks to arrive and then our food. Luckily when the food actually arrived it was really good! I had a chicken caesar burger which came with an amazing salad and was in fresh ciabatta bread with rotisserie chicken. My boyfriend had a traditional beef burger. The food did redeem the restaurant a bit but after waiting so long I don't think we'd go back there.

For our final day the heavens opened and it rained a lot! So instead of heading to the zoo as we had planned we went to the spy museum via a watch tower left from the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately because of the rain we where not able to go into the tower. The rain also meant the queue for the spy museum was huge! However, it was well worth the wait once we finally got in. It was the best museum we visited by far. There was so many interesting things to read about and lots of spy artifacts to look at such as cameras, modified umbrellas and suitcases. We also received money off vouchers for their cafe when we paid for our tickets so after spending a few hours walking around the museum we had hot chocolate and lemon cake. The hot chocolate was incredible to say it was a small museum cafe. I'd recommend going here just for that.

After the Spy Museum we headed back to Fassbender & Rausch to buy some more chocolate! We bought hot chocolate and a mix of their different types of chocolate. We then made one last stop before heading back to our hotel and that was Dunkin Donuts. We don't have these in England so we wanted to try it! We got a box of 6 doughnuts for €7 which we thought was pretty good value and meant we had breakfast for the next day.

As we where running low on money we headed to Pizza Hut for dinner haha. It was close to our hotel and cheap so after eating pizza and chicken sticks we headed back to the hotel for an early night as our flight was at 9.30 am the next day meaning leaving our hotel at 6am.

We got up at 5.30am and left our hotel at 6am to walk to the Berlin Central station for the train to the airport. We attempted to make our way back through the Tier Garten as we had done the first day only to find it all fenced off meaning we had to go all the way around. This may have taken us a long time but meant we got another look at the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag which turned out to be a nice little send off for our weekend in Berlin.

Have you been to Berlin? Would you like to? Let me know in the comments!

Wekend Away: Pickering

This weekend I visited Pickering in the North of England. It is a small country village near Scarborough. 

My boyfriend and I arrived in Pickering before our check-in time so we wandered down to the main street which was full of local shops many selling antiques and collectables and then various local business such as butchers and cafes. At this point, after being roasting hot and sunny during our whole drive north it decided to chuck it down! So we had to hide in some shops for a while before heading back to check in.

We rented a cottage in the centre of Pickering called Bramblewood cottage, it was a gorgeous stereotypical quaint English cottage with lots of interesting features like little windows and cubby holes but also had all modern features including a huge shower and a beautiful garden.

After power naps on the sofa we headed out for the evening and worked our way down the pubs on the high street, due to Pickering being so small we found it difficult to find a place to eat as everywhere was fully booked. However, we then stumbled across an Indian restaurant called Cilantro and had an amazing meal! The food was great and we ordered way too much which meant we ended up coming home with a doggy bag. I had a chicken and chickpea curry in a tomato sauce which was great but along with our rice, sides, nann bread and starters I couldn't finish it. The great thing about Pickering being so small is that it is only a few minutes walk from anywhere in the village to our cottage.

On our second day we headed to Scarborough the closest beach to our cottage, the day started out scorching hot again so once we found parking we headed to the sea front and walked along the promenade. This included stopping at a fudge shop which had all kinds of flavours in the end we settled on, Mint Chocolate Chip, Oreo Vanilla and Mango. The fudge was disappointing not quite the melt in your mouth fudge you can get but it was ok. However, no one apart from me liked it at all so I've been working my way through all 3 bars since! We then carried on along to the pier where we sat and took in the beautiful view on the pier!

The big attraction in Scarborough apart from the beach is the castle. Which like all castles is on the top of a hill so we started our climb up many many steps to reach it. As you can see from these photos the view from the top is pretty amazing!

After the castle we headed down the hill to a fish and chip shop which is a British seaside classic and we had an amazing lunch. The cod was great covered in thick crispy batter. I really wish i'd taken a picture to show you how good it was. Before heading back to our cottage we wandered to the beach and sat on the sand for a while which resulted in us getting a bit sandy and wet as we didn't go prepared with towels but it was all good fun as well as getting to stroke the cutest donkey called Marvin who was there to give children rides.

The sun and walking had tired us out so we headed back and ended up having a nap before eating dinner in the cottage and getting ready to head out to one of the pubs we had visited the night before which was holding a quiz. We had a few drinks and did the quiz which which somehow managed to win getting 32/40 questions right! It was a great end to our weekend.

For anyone looking for a quiet weekend away Pickering will be perfect for you!

Do you have any trips planned? Tell me in the comments!

I'm off to Berlin on Friday 

Tips & Tricks: What to pack for a weekend break

This weekend i'm going away to a cottage in Pickering. My aim is to pack light which is definitely helped by the beautiful weather we're having in the UK right now. However I am awful at taking far far to much stuff so here is a list of what i'm taking. I don't think it's too bad for 3 days

Tops 
-  T-shirt to sleep in
- long sleeved body suit for the evenings
- Flower vest top for day/ evening
- Aztec vest for the beach.
- Jumper - because you never know with British weather

Bottoms
- Black Denim Shirts
- Blue ripped Jeans (this may change to black jeans)
- Black cotton shorts for the beach
- Blue PJ shorts



Others
- Underwear
- Socks
- Belt
- 2 x bikini top, 1 x bikini bottom
- Sandels
- Nike trainers

Extras
- Make-up
- Straighteners
- Hair Brush
- Dry Shampoo
- Deodorant
- Shoulder bag
- Book
- Sunglasses
- Toothbrush
- Face wash
- Make-up wipes
- Book





What would you pack for a weekend away? Is this too much or too little?