I booked a round-trip ticket to Salt Lake City to crash at my parents house and visit my sister + some long lost friends in Utah this week. I also wanted to go snowboarding in a place that isn’t -30C for a change! I arrived on February 6th and will head home on the 14th. There’s nothing I love more on earth than travelling, so I’m having a wonderful time on my week away. Additionally, visiting your parents is one of the cheapest vacations to be had.

Why visiting Mom & Dad is easy on the wallet:

Free accommodations.

Free meals.

Free laundry.

Notice the key word “free” in all of those? No complaints here!

The total for this entire trip will come to roughly $1,000 when all is said and done, since I’ve been really good about staying at home to eat. Additionally, his vacation falls right in the middle of my 30-days of no spending, which means I’m not going on a shopping spree either.

Not bad, right? There’s lots of perks to being on vacation.

How I’m spending my time off:

• snowboarding
• going to yoga
• watching movies
• eating everything in sight
• writing
• more writing
• more and more and more writing
• doing taxes
• plotting my ultimate takeover of the world
• reflection and personal growth
• reading books

In short, doing all the things I love.  Well, maybe not the taxes, but everything else I love. As per usual, vacation is giving me time to relax, rejuvenate, and refocus on what’s important. A week away so early in the year is giving me a wonderful opportunity to plan 2013.

Books I’m currently reading this vacation:

Hope you’re having a great week!

I’m blogging this from a cool Vancouver coffeeshop. Work has sent me on my second trip to YVR this year and I’m so grateful to be in a lovely sunny city instead of my blizzard-ridden hometown. I stayed two nights at the Four Seasons again, and then for the rest of my trip I’m staying with a friend. Last time I was only here for a weekend, this time I’m here for five days because a) Vancouver is awesome, b) work really wants me to use up some vacation time.

Even though I’m on a longer trip and plenty of time to prepare for it, I wasn’t organized at all. This is the busiest time of year at work for me, and I am on no uncertain terms totally burning out. Only a week before I left for Vancouver, I was ambling around Calgary, again on a multi-day work trip. Travel is absolutely one of my passions and with 2013 probably going to be full of even more trips than this year (Toronto, please? And somewhere hot & tropical maybe?), I need to get my act together.

The following is some advice for myself, and other work/pleasure travellers alike…

Do not: haphazardly pack your bag mere hours before your flight, shoving everything you think you “might need” into your suitcase and hoping it’s enough only to arrive at your destination wondering why you packed 6 pairs of shoes and only two shirts.

Do: keep stored packing lists for 3-day, 5-day, and week+ long trips readily accessible so you consult them as needed. I actually do do this… I just apparently don’t ever look at them.

Do not: book your accommodations and travel arrangements days before you leave, hoping that frequent tweeting at the hotel and/or airline will win you the discount you could have had, if only you’d planned better.

Do: check multiple sites for the best rates months/weeks in advance. To date, I’ve booked almost every trip I’ve ever taken, both for work and for personal travel, with Expedia. I’ve always gotten super affordable domestic and international flights.

Do not: assume that because it’s a “work trip” that everything will be paid for by work. Those $185 shoes sure won’t be.

Do: try to stick to your normal eating, sleeping and going-out routine. Your money is not unlimited and your appetite isn’t either. You will find that you really didn’t need a poutine after duck canelloni after all.

Happy travels!

When I was in high school, my only goal in life was to see the world. I wanted to backpack Europe and trudge through the rainforest in South America and eat from local food vendors in Asia. After I graduated I did some minor wandering to nearby safe places: Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas.  I have many incredible experiences and happy memories of these times, but the fun was pretty limited. This was 8 years ago and I only had a high school diploma: all I was qualified for was entry level jobs where I made $7/hr. It wasn’t easy to fund my local vacations only a few hours from my parent’s home in Utah, and it was impossible to plan and save to go abroad. To make more money, I needed a better job. To get a better job, I needed an education.

I moved back to Canada where I funded my post-secondary education with a mix of part-time income and student loans. I was pretty bad at managing my finances when I started out, but I got better as the years went by (it’s still a struggle). I still had dreams of traveling, but I always found myself in long-term relationships with men that didn’t share my passion for seeing the world. Over the years, I sometimes took trips by myself but more often than not I just didn’t go at all.

I’m a solo traveler because despite how social I am, I often like to be alone. I like the freedom and quiet of solitude, and more often than not, the joy I get from traveling is from simply being in another place rather than going out to see things and hit all the tourist spots. It is in those long stretches of free time that I indulge in self-improvement, and consequently I find traveling has always been for introspection, personal growth, and the opportunity to prepare yourself to re-enter your life back home refreshed and ready to tackle something new.

I feel like I have achieved more in the past year than in the five years leading up to it. And I attribute much of my success to having the chance to centre myself, take inventory of my life, choose a direction, and move forward. There’s been some considerable stumbling and banging into things and mistakes and barriers along the way, but I’ve never been one to assume encountering obstacles means you’re headed in the wrong direction. There’s no path free of obstacles, and frankly, set-backs are part of the journey. Travel gives me the energy and the resources to overcome them.