travel budget – Maps and Meanderings

Camping while Travelling

Published on June 30, 2020November 16, 2020 by Meaghan Elizabeth

In my post about Catching the Travel Bug, I wrote a bit about my relationship with camping. I love camping for it’s own sake, and I also love being able to incorporate it into other trips. Our trip to Nova Scotia included camping and, whenever we get to take our trip to Newfoundland, it will include a form of camping as well.

We include camping not only because we enjoy it, but also because it can help to bring down accommodation costs. Of course, the accommodation savings probably won’t draw you if you dislike camping, but there may be different types of camping, or camping type accommodations that you can consider.

Incorporating camping into a trip creates an experience different than you get staying in hotel type accommodations. And, though I would encourage everyone to consider it, I know that camping on trips is not going to be for everyone. For those of you who are interested in working camping into your trips, here are some of my thoughts on the benefits of camping as part of travel and some general things to consider when you’re planning this type of trip.

5 Benefits of Camping while Travelling

1. Reduced Accommodation Costs

It costs less to camp than it does to stay in a hotel. Especially if you’re staying in a tent. There are more up front costs, that can vary depending on your budget, and how you want to spend, but the per night cost is lower to camp. In some cases camping can significantly lower your accommodation costs on a trip. Even if you choose to stay in a park accommodation or cabin, which cost more than a typical site, they still generally cost less than a hotel type room.

For many of our trips, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in particular, we plan a mix of accommodations. Sometimes we stay in hotels, but the option to camp at least some of the time does wonders for a budget. I wish we were going to be able to take our camping gear with us to Newfoundland!

2. Reduced Food Costs

There is not much better than a camping breakfast.

This benefit depends a lot on what gear you own, but when you can prepare some of your own means you can significantly reduce your food costs. This is something you can sometimes do when staying in hotels type accomodations, but it’s more difficult to find hotels with meal preparation capabilities. Especially if you want more than microwaveable dishes. We love to plan fun places to eat into our trips. Eating out at new places is part of the fun of travel for us. But we try to lower our food budget by only eating out for some meals. You can reduce your budget significantly if you grab food at a grocery store for a few meals and prepare it yourself.

3. Increased Social Distancing

This isn’t something I would have included in this list before this year, even though I’ve always appreciated the way camping can let you retreat a bit from being around too many people. But this year, social distancing has become something to consider in trip planning. Not only are you able to keep distance from others on your own campsite, when you’re camping, most of the things you touch are only being touched by you and your family. You also know exactly when things were last cleaned.

Depending on whether you camp in a tent or trailer, and what type of trailer you have, you can increase your social distancing even more. Camping also has the added bonus of being outdoors (I know, I know, shocker). And being outdoors brings it’s own benefits along with reducing potential spread of illnesses.

4. A Variety of Accommodation Types

So, you hate sleeping a tent or don’t want to spend the money on equipment for something you’ll only do occasionally? That doesn’t mean that camping is off the table for you if you are wanting to try it out, or dip your toes in. There are many different types of camping accommodations available in many parks across Canada. And I believe that is the case in other areas as well, though I haven’t done much research into this.

Some parks have Yurts or oTentiks (exclusive to Canadian national parks), which are a cross between tents and cabins. Some camp grounds offer small trailers or cabins that you can stay in. These types of accommodations are more expensive than regular campsites, but they are often still less expensive than hotels, and they bring all the other benefits of camping. There are even places where, for an extra cost, you can rent camping equipment. This is especially good if you’re testing out camping and not sure you want to commit.

5. The Experience Itself

In my opinion, camping is its own benefit. There is something special about waking up while camping and enjoying a coffee while fully immersed in the beauty of the park or campground. You also can’t enjoy a campfire in a hotel. I know that not everyone will agree with me, and many just don’t enjoy the experience of camping, but I think it’s definitely something to try at least once. And that doesn’t mean you need to sleep in a tent.

I have also found that staying at a park allows you the opportunity to explore it more, or in a different way. You may be able to spend more time exploring the park if you’re not needing to leave to get to your accommodations. I love adding camping into my travels, it has always added something to the experience for us.

5 Considerations when Adding Camping into your Trips

1. What type of trip are you planning

Though I would like to say that camping can or should be worked into any trip, that’s not actually the case. Some trips aren’t ideal to add camping into. Obviously, camping doesn’t go fit into a resort based tropical vacation – but there are also other trips where it doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t work as well.

If your trip is going to be focused on big cities, camping may not be the best fit. You can make it work by staying on the outskirts of town and driving in, but there are times when staying within the city brings it’s own advantages, which make it more than worth it to spend a bit more to stay in a hotel type accommodation.

2. How are you travelling?

Depending on how you’re travelling on your trip, or travelling to get there, camping may be more or less feasible. When we drove out to Nova Scotia, we were able to plan for tent camping because we had the space to pack all our necessary camping gear. Road trips lend themselves well to camping for this very reason.

Because we are flying into Newfoundland, and then renting a car, our camping options are more limited. We aren’t taking our camping gear with us on the flight. Though it is theoretically possible, it was not something we wanted to do. We are still planning park accommodation type camping, however, which requires much less equipment. The feasibility of camping with your travel method is an important consideration.

3. Are you camping the whole trip?

The type of trip you’re taking, and how often you will be moving from one place to another, will help you decide how much of your trip can be camping. Sometimes it makes sense to spend the night in a hotel type accommodation. Maybe you are just stopping to sleep after a long day of driving or travelling, and setting up camp, especially with a tent, will be too much added effort. Or perhaps you’re spending a day or two exploring a city and it makes sense to stay within the city as your home base. There’s nothing to stay you need to camp the whole time, and there’s nothing to say you can’t camp the whole time either. We’ve certainly done both types of trips. Figure out what works best for you trip.

4. Where are you going to camp?

Sometimes camping can be part of the experience – take these adorable camping caravans I stayed in just outside of Amsterdam. Camping Zeeburg was the perfect spot for exploring Amsterdam and the experience was one I will never forget!

This consideration may seem obvious, but there are many parts to this question. What are you looking for from the campground? Some campgrounds are best for short stays or certain types of camping but don’t offer much in terms of sightseeing. Others are good for the hikes and the sites as well as the camping. Both types serve a purpose on a trip. If you were already planning on visiting provincial or national parks as part of your trip, it might be worth it considering camping there for a night or two (or more depending on your trip). This would give you so much more opportunity to explore the park and soak up the experience.

5. What Type of Camping are you going to do?

This point ties in with what I talked about in the ‘how are you travelling’ consideration. You need to decide whether you want to camp in a tent, a trailer, or in park accommodations. Now, some of this will depend on what equipment you own and your budget. You can rent a trailer or RV, but this will add expenses that you need to consider. Not to mention, most trailers and RV’s come with a learning curve that you should be aware of.

Each of these types of camping have different advantages and disadvantages. And some will work better for some people more than others. I know plenty of people who strongly dislike tent camping but they love trailers or other park accommodations. I’ve done plenty of tent camping, because it can be easier than a tent trailer depending on your trip. But I’m looking forward to when we get our new trailer, because the easy set up will be great for road trip stops.

These are just some of the benefits and considerations for working camping into your travels and trips. Camping is great as a trip in and of itself, but it’s also great as part of other travels. Since camping is such a big part of my adventure and travel experience, I am probably going to write quite a lot about camping. Let me know if there’s anything you would be interested to hear about!

What about you? Do you enjoy camping either on it’s own or part of other trips? Is there anything you would add to this list of benefits and considerations?

Until next time,

Planning to Travel Pt 2 – Being Intentional About Saving

Published on June 9, 2020November 16, 2020 by Meaghan Elizabeth

Last week I talked about how travel doesn’t just happen. It takes planning, and intentionality. I shared a bit about how I learned about the importance of being intentional in planning and saving for travel if it is something that you are interested in doing. If you missed that post, I would recommend checking it out here before you continue.

Today I want to look at 6 steps I’ve used to make regular travel saving a part of my budget. I’m not a financial expert in anyway, and these steps are in no way exhaustive, or the only way to go about creating a plan. But I hope that these steps might help you to find the time and money to include travel in your life.

Books on a Map — Books on a map. Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay

Step #1: Do you actually want to Travel?

I can already hear you saying “Of course I want to travel, I’m here aren’t I?” But before you skip past this step, I want you to take a few minutes to really think about it. Do you really want to make the time and save the funds required for travel? Or do you just think that you want to travel, or that you should want to travel?

These days it can seem like travel is something that everyone does, or wishes they were doing. But it is okay for travel to not be one of your priorities. It is okay to read travel blogs, and follow travel pages on instagram or Pinterest, and not want to travel yourself. Maybe there are other things you would prefer to spend your resources on, and that is okay.

We don’t have unlimited resources. And this means we need to prioritize and make decisions about where we want to spend the resources we have. And this applies just as much to non-monetary resources such as time and energy. If travel isn’t something you want to prioritize, then you won’t follow through on the changes you would need to make to save and plan for travel. So take the time to truly think about this step. And keep reading, because you can use the following tips to save for and explore your preferred activities.

Step #2 – Take a look at your Time

It’s important to recognize that time is as much, or more, of a limited resource as money. Think about how much time you could set aside for travel or exploration, as well has how much time you want to set aside for travel. You might be lucky enough to have 5 weeks of vacation time, but that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily want to spend all that time on travel. Consider also how you may be able to make use of long weekends for travel and exploring.

While you’re looking at your potential vacation time and long weekends, you’ll also need to consider other activities or obligations already slotted into those times. Christmas, for instance, might be a time of year where you have time off, but it may not be time that is free to dedicate to travel.

Also keep in mind that you’re going to need to consider your time and money alongside each other to determine how much you can travel. Quitting your job might give you seemingly infinite time to travel, but it’s going to seriously reduce the budget you have for travel.

Step #3: Take a look at your Budget

I will admit, this is typically the least exciting part of the process, but it is also one of the most necessary steps. And it’s important that you take the time to do it with care. You need to have a complete understanding of your budget before you can decide whether some of it can be put aside for travel savings. I’m not going to go into detail here about setting up a general budget, but if you have not done this before, there are many good articles and tips only a Google search away.

For our purposes you will be looking at the money you have in miscellaneous, or more discretionary fund categories. Your landlord isn’t going to like it if you decide to slash your rent budget by $100 a month, for instance. I want you to figure out how much money you have in these categories and then write down exactly where that money goes every month. You need to be precise. This won’t work if you just write down $200 for miscellaneous spending.

Write down everything from clothes shopping, to Netflix, to your morning coffee purchases. If your miscellaneous category varies, then maybe track it for a couple months. Write down exactly how you spend the money that’s not going directly into non-negotiable bills or long-term savings and emergency funds. This step is tedious, but it’s what will allow you to figure out where you can save in the next step.

Step # 4: Find places where you can save

Okay, so you’ve analyzed your budget and figured out exactly where your money is going, now you can start to figure out where you can cut expenses to start to save for your future travels. How much you can save regularly will determine what types of trips you can take and how often, along with how long it will take you to save for each trip.

What if you made your coffee at home everyday? How much could you save? Write it down. How much would you save if you only buy one coffee out a week? You might be surprised at how much you can save just making this one change. Maybe you spend $50 on dining out each week. If you were to cut that back to every other week, you could save $100 a month. That’s $1200 a year! Think of the travel you could put that towards.

Continue going through your list until you’ve written down all the possible places you could save. Is this number higher or lower than you expected? If this number is more than you want to save for travel, then go ahead and add some of those things you cut back into your budget. If it’s lower than you would like, then you can try to go back in and cut more things, but make sure you’re realistic here. It’s better to save at a slower pace than to make cuts that aren’t going to work for you.

It’s one thing to say that you’re going to cut out all dining, but if that’s something you love, you aren’t going to be happy cutting it out completely. The goal here is not to make saving for travel painful. You have to figure out what saving plan is going to work for you. If you can’t imagine cutting out your daily coffee, then don’t cut out your coffee budget! I’m not kidding. Find the things to cut back that work for you.

Pennies out of a jar. Image by Olya Adamovich from Pixabay

Step #5: Set up your Travel Savings Bucket

Once you have a monthly figure, break it down into the frequency of your pay schedule. In general, it’s easier to save consistently if you put aside the amount immediately off your pay. Personally, I work within a looser budget, and my spending categories aren’t always strictly regulated. But I took the time to figure out how to make this work for me, and how much I could save per pay. And I make sure to put that money into my travel savings as soon as I get paid.

You need to have somewhere to put this money you’re saving. My bank has a savings account type that’s free to setup and free of expenses and I have two of them – one of which is dedicated to travel. Maybe for you this means envelopes of cash, or a travel jar. My only suggestion would be that this should be separate from your regular, daily banking account. Because if it stays in your main account, you’re going to spend it.

If, after a couple months, you find that your new budget cuts aren’t working, then reduce your savings amount. It’s better to find something you can stick with consistently then to constantly dip into it because you’re putting aside more than you can handle. And if something comes up one month and you really can’t afford to save for travel, that’s okay too. It makes no sense to go into debt to “save” for travel.

Step #5(b): Alternative Option

If putting aside a set amount of money from each pay doesn’t work for you, that doesn’t mean you can’t save for travel. Another option might be to have a monthly budget category for your discretionary expenses and roll any leftover money at the end of the month into your travel savings. Or maybe you use a “loose change” method, where you dump all loose change into a jar each week.

Neither of these methods have worked that well for me, but the point is to find the money to travel in a way that works for you. The key is to be intentional. If you’re intentional about your approach, then you’ll see your travel budget start to grow over time.

Step #6: Start to Dream

You might think that this step should be higher on the list, but hear me out. In my experience, dreaming about a big trip and then seeing the price tag for it before you’ve established your travel savings plan, is just as likely to make you overwhelmed as it is to encourage you to save. You’ll see the price tag and your immediate reaction will be that there’s no way you’ll be able to come up with that kind of money in this lifetime.

But, if you’ve gone through all the previous steps, you now have a realistic idea of how much you can save in a month, a year, or 5 years. You can now look at that big ticket trip with a better understanding of how long it would take to save for it. You might still decide it’s too expensive, but you’ll be making an informed decision. And maybe you’ll discover that your dream trip is actually possible. Saving for 3, or even 5 years, might not seem like that long if you thought it would never be possible.

That’s why, in my opinion, it is better to have a full understanding of your potential for saving before you start to dream of the trips you want to take. Remember, you can always go back and increase or decrease your savings goals as you figure out your travel dreams. Maybe the trips that you want to take cost less than you imagined, and you can take more trips on your budget than you thought, or lower your monthly savings. Or maybe you decide that your dream trip is worth packed lunches for a year.

(Side Note: I am a big fan of dreaming and planning trips that I know I probably won’t ever be able to take. So I am 100% not saying to stop thinking about dream trips… but you don’t need a budget when you’re fantasy travelling.)

Step #7 (Bonus Step) – Brainstorm new ways to find money

I hesitated to include this step, because I want this to be a post about finding the resources to travel with in the budget that you already have. I don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to believe that I’m already busy enough without needing to find an additional stream of income to be able to travel.

But I decided to put it out there as something to consider.

Perhaps you have found that what you can save is not going to get you on the trips you want to go on in the time period that you want. If this is the case, you might consider brainstorming an additional income stream. Perhaps you can pick up a part time job. I had a colleague once who picked up shifts at a movie theatre so that he and his wife could afford to go on a cruise. Or maybe you’re crafty and can start to sell some of your creations. There are many ways that you could pad out your travel budget if you so choose.

Final Thoughts

If you have ever been frustrated with thoughts that travel isn’t possible for you, I hope that what you take away from this post is that budgeting and planning to travel doesn’t just happen. It takes planning, and intentionality. It might take time and patience, but if it’s something you really want to do, it is may be more possible than you initially thought.

And if travel saving isn’t possible for you right now, I hope you’ll still stick around. You can enjoy reading travel posts, and dreaming about travel, even if you never plan to travel. And, as I mentioned in my travel story, travel and exploring isn’t just about the “big” trips. Sometimes it’s about a tank of gas and a bit of research into free, or low cost destinations close to home. I’m just as interested in exploring that type of travel here.

How do you budget for travel? How do you fit travel and exploring into your life?

Until next time,

I Would Love to Travel But… Being intentional about Travelling

Published on June 3, 2020November 16, 2020 by Meaghan Elizabeth

You work a full time job, have family obligations, and participate in community events, how do you find the time to travel? And then, if you do find the time, how do you afford it? Between rent, food and bills, you really don’t have any extra money for travel. So when someone talks about their trip you sigh and say, “I wish I could travel, but…”

I used to think that there was no way I could afford any type of travel. And, at a certain point of my life, that was probably true. But I have learned that sometimes the reasons we come up with for why we can’t travel – money, time – aren’t as big of hurdles as we make them to be in our minds. Yes, both money and time are required for travel, and they can be hurdles to overcome, but I have learned that they can often be overcome with a little bit (or a lot) of planning and intentionality.

I know that travel is not possible for everyone. Both money and time, not to mention life circumstances, can be very real barriers, and I don’t want to discount or ignore that. Those of us that are able to fit travel into our lives, even if it is through careful budgeting and planning like I am going to talk about here, are in a privileged position. I am not going to say that everyone can afford to travel, because I know that’s not true. Being able to fit travel into our lives is a blessing and a privilege that I am thankful for and don’t ever want to take forgranted.

In this series, I want to suggest that there are times when the things that we think of as hurdles to our travel can be overcome with planning and intentional saving. Sometimes, if we want to travel, we have to become a bit more creative in our approach to our travel budgets. Because one of the things that I have learned over the past years is that travel rarely “just happens.” You have to plan for it, and that means planning to save. Even supposed “last minute” or “spontaneous” trips more often than not include intentional saving before hand to make them possible.

Woman sitting in road looking at map — Image by Lorri Lang from Pixabay

Overcoming my Own Hurdles

Prior to moving to England I had the idea, whether conscious or unconscious, that I probably wouldn’t be able to afford any travel other than camping until I had a “good” job that was making me “good” money. I certainly couldn’t afford to do much while working part time – or even full time – retail. Because that was in the back of my mind, I didn’t think too much about the possibility of planning trips.

And then I got the idea that I wanted to move to England, and I became very determined to save and make it possible. When I finished grad school, I went back to working retail and in the year of saving, I worked a mixture of full time and part time. I lived at home to save on rent, and put away as much as I could to save for my trip. I had to pay careful attention to my budget that year in order to make it possible, but I was determined.

And I did it. I saved enough for the Visa application fee, the plane ticket, the first few weeks of accommodation and I think just over the minimum amount I needed to demonstrate in order to enter the country – approximately £1,900 or I think it was around $3,000 CAD at the time. There were also all the miscellaneous things I needed to buy for the trip.

And then I moved to London, England (a not inexpensive city) with give or take £2,000 in my bank account. Now, if could go back and give myself one piece of advice, I would highly recommend saving more than that, because it would have made life much easier in those first few months. But then I probably wouldn’t have learned as much about myself as I did.

It wasn’t perfect, and I will admit that in the first couple months I used my credit card to pay for some of it (partially because I was afraid of running out of money), but it worked out. And once I got a job, I was able to pay it all off. Were there were things I could have done differently? Probably. But I’m not sure I would have changed it.

I found a job that paid well, and was so much more flexible for travel and exploring than I ever could have imagined or hoped for, and I was able to live in a very central part of London that I loved. My dorm style room was small, but it was private. I had my own bathroom and a shared kitchen, and I loved it. And I managed to fit in a lot of travel and exploring in that year. Not as much as I would have liked, of course, but more than I have ever managed in a single year since.

Learning to Budget Time and Money

The job I had in London was very flexible, and I essentially had the ability to dictate how much work I took on. It was a bit more complicated than that, but I had a lot of flexibility to fit in travel when I wanted. But I still had to balance work and travel. After all, I still had to pay bills and living expenses. I mentioned that living in London isn’t cheap right? And I loved being close to central London so much that I just couldn’t imagine living further out.

So I learned how to balance living expenses and saving for travel, along with balancing time for both work and travel. I took advantage of weeks where there was a lot of work available to pick up extra work, and school holiday weeks when work was slower to travel and explore. If there were specific dates I wanted to travel, I was able to take that time off easily and, in some cases I took extra long weekends. I was also able to take advantage of unplanned days off to explore London. It’s difficult to explain how my job was set up, but it wasn’t a typical 9-5, Monday – Friday.

Though my situation in London was unique, I brought a lot of what I learned back home with me. It’s more difficult to find the time to travel when we’re restricted to a certain number of vacation weeks and long weekends throughout the year. It’s hard when we know that we don’t have the time to travel the amount we would like. While I can’t turn your two weeks vacation into 5, I have learned that it’s possible to fit travel and exploring into long weekends. Not all travel has to be long distance or longer in length.

When you’re close enough to take a long weekend trip to Paris, or Scotland, you learn that a trip doesn’t have to be long to be impactful. Sure, I would have loved to spend more time in Paris, but that didn’t take away from the time I was there – and short trips can spark interest to save and plan for a longer, return visit. Or perhaps you’ll learn that a short trip was exactly the right length for the destination you chose.

Not all places are as easy to travel from as London, England. In many places, Canada in particular, distances are so much greater and a bigger factor in travel. It can make it difficult to imagine being able to take meaningful long weekend trips. But it’s not impossible. It just takes more creativity and out of the box thinking. And it takes the willingness to accept that a larger portion of your trip will be spent travelling to get there.

In the years since I’ve been home, I’ve found that the Family Day long weekend in February has been one of my favourites for travel and exploring. I started adding on an extra day to make it a 4 day weekend, but it works with 3 days as well. We’ve done 2 trips to Ottawa for Winterlude and two trips to Point Pelee National Park – which has fast become one of my favourite places – to stay in the oTentiks. (I promise to post one day about the oTentiks and winter camping in them at Pelee.) Both of these are travel I may never have done if not for being willing to travel on a long weekend.

I don’t get to travel as much as I would like. I’m not sure if I would want to travel full time, even if I could, but I would definitely travel more than I currently do if it was possible. And I would almost certainly spend more time camping in the summer months! But I have learned that I can fit more travel in than I once thought possible. And I can afford more travel as well by carefully planning, saving and balancing smaller, less expensive travel and exploration with less frequent, bigger trips.

There are lots of ways to plan to work more travel into your life, and to plan to save for travel. Today I talked mostly about my story, and the time aspect of fitting in travel. Next week, I’m going to tell you a bit about my approach to being intentional in working travel into your life through budgeting in particular, and the steps and considerations that I have found useful.

How do you work travel into your life? Do you have any tips and tricks that have worked for you? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time,