Things I Learned About Traveling from My First Grown-Up Vacation
Randi Shevel
I got to take my first major vacation as an adult when my husband and I were dating. It was my first big vacation since childhood, when my parents planned and packed everything, told me where were going, what we would be doing, what time we would be doing it, and paid for it. Budgeting and planning for a trip to California taught me a lot about vacationing as an adult, and it’s a lot more work than what I expected! Here are a few tips I picked up along the way that may help you on your vacations too.
3. Talk to the locals. At the grocery store, we talked to the cashier, the bagger, and a couple of people in line about our vacation. Someone told us a story about his parents who met on Alcatraz Island, which led us to tell them we planned to visit there. Our trip to Alcatraz was going to require going into the city, which we didn’t realize would be a much more tedious and longer commute than anything we were familiar with. One of the local gentlemen recommended that we take a ferry from Vallejo (a place we had never heard of) into San Francisco. We took his advice, which saved us lots of time we could have been stuck in traffic and gave us the opportunity to see a few new places along the way. We never would have known had we not talked to a few strangers!
1. Airbnb. My husband and I got to stay in a small cabin on a wildlife reserve for less expensive than we could have found a hotel. Make sure that if you use Airbnb, you select all the filters that suit your needs. (For example, I prefer not to have to share a bathroom or see people when my day is over, so I make sure I always select “entire home” rather than “shared room” or “private room.”) Some people say Airbnb can be hit or miss. To get a hit like we did, look into the places with many high reviews and not just a few.
2. Pack lunches. If you’re on a budget (like we were), find a place with a kitchen and pack your lunches for the week rather than eating out. This trick saved us time on days when we wanted to go hiking or had to take a long car trip, because we didn’t have to go out of our way to find a place to eat.