Trees and Travels

We all know that traveling has the potential to be very expensive. One of the most effective ways to ensure that you don't spend all of your money on a trip is to create a budget. Setting a budget is one of the tips I outlined in my video / blog post about 5 major ways to save money while traveling. Budgeting is one of the more straight-forward ways to manage your travel money, but can sometimes be difficult to manage. Before You Plan... Before you begin to figure out a budget, you have to ask yourself if there are some things that you know that you want from your trip. Is there a specific amount of time you want to spend on your trip? Are there places in particular that you are already starting to plan to visit during the trip? Having a vague idea of your trip will help you to set a viable budget before you start the specific planning. For instance, if you know that you want to spend a week camping, you know that you’ll need to pay for a week’s worth of food and campsites...

1:00pm      There's no way around it-- from August to May, I'm stuck in the Chicago suburbs for the school year. I get restless. This only increases as the time goes on, particularly in the winter time. Travel is hard, and frankly, I'm a baby when it comes to the cold. What am I to do? How am I supposed to get my nature fill when I am trapped in middle-class subdivision-warehouse-department store-chain restaurant-land? The only thing that one could do in this situation is enjoy the little things.      As I type this out, we are receiving the first snowfall of the year. On most years, the first snowfall comes quite a bit before December 4th. Attribute the lateness to climate change, abnormally mild weather conditions, or coincidence-- I kind of like the timing. There was no snow until the start of meteorological winter, and I'm okay with that. Plus it's a Sunday. I don't even need to drive in it.      Anyway, I've been able to spend my Sun...