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Here's a sneak peek from this week's episode. I'm Scott. And I'm Melissa. And we
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are the Sunshine
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Travelers. Our passion is travel and sharing our experiences with those who enjoy it as much as we do, or those who want to learn more about travel, or even those that just want to live vicariously through our travel stories. No matter where you follow along that journey, get ready to hear about our first-hand experiences as we visit some of the most interesting and amazing places on Earth. It's Halloween, and there is no better time to address some of the common fears about travel. We asked our followers to tell us what keeps them from achieving their travel goals and have distilled it down to the top five reasons. But we don't think travel is scary at all. So we want to give you some suggestions on what you can do to tackle those fears and live your best life seeing the world one place at a time. So grab your trick or treat bags because we have some goodies for you today. So happy Halloween, Melissa, and for those of you listening on release day, it's Halloween and we've got a special episode planned for you. When we looked at the calendar, we saw that this episode would land on Halloween and wanted to take a slightly different approach.
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Yes, but we've got some treats for you that will be good anytime.
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Yep. So no tricks here, only treats. Correct.
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So when we first started thinking about what we wanted to share about scary things about travel, I wanted to find out what our followers and listeners actually thought was scary about travel. So I did a poll on Instagram and a question box on Instagram and just asked what were some things that people were nervous about travel, scared about travel, what was scary about travel. And so that's what we're going to address today. Some of these topics that I think will be of very much interest to the people who
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submitted those and to everyone. Yes. So we're going to tackle the top five today. And let's get started with the cost of travel is scary.
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Yeah, so you definitely aren't alone on this. When we looked at some of the biggest fears or concerns about people about travel in general and looked them up online, this is actually the most common things that come up. So people are searching for topics such as how to travel for free, how to travel for cheap, how to travel on a budget, and how to find discounted travel. And I probably see a lot more of these on social media because I've looked at them. But so many accounts have come out with all these travel hacks where you use credit card points and miles and, you know, ways to get discounted travel, because I think that is a legitimate question.
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Yeah, I mean, listen, travel can be expensive. But, you know, we had a great conversation with some friends of ours and we were talking about travel and, you know, why some people would think that travel is so expensive. And if you travel inside the U.S., it is very expensive. Matter of fact, a lot more expensive than maybe even if you traveled outside the U.S.
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Yeah. So a lot of time a flight within the U S is going to cost you several hundred dollars. And we've been seeing flight deals come through on going and that are for the rest of this year and early next year that are in the low, like less than $500. And sometimes flights in the U S are not that much.
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Yeah. And, you know, we've, we've made a conscientious decision that we're going to start watching some of the travel discounts and maybe choose some of our locations based on the availability of cheap flights versus picking necessary locations per se. And then being, we're going to go there now let's find a flight to get there.
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Right. And so I guess we should start out by saying that that's probably the most expensive way to travel. If you say, I want to go to Hawaii on this day. Now I'm going to go find the flights. That's when you're probably going to pay the most for it. So if you are flexible on, if you're not flexible on your destination, but more flexible on your dates, But especially if you're like, Oh, hey, here's a good deal that comes through. And that's why signing up for something like going and we'll put the link to that. We've mentioned that several times. So when a destination pops up and you're like, Oh, I heard the sunshine travelers talk about Barcelona. I want to go there. Here's a deal or to Portugal or to London or just all these places. Then you say, okay, what are, you know, when are those good and can I make that work?
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So let's give everybody an action item right now. Put the podcast on pause for just a second. Go out to our website, and we'll have the link there for going. And you should sign up for that. Because that right there, when we talk about inspiration for travel, there is no better inspiration than getting a cheap flight.
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Yes. And I think we've mentioned that before where I'll be like, and this week, especially as we're recording this, like there are some really good deals and they keep coming out. And so like every day I've said, we've talked about like Spain and the El Camino trail and different places like that. And then I'll get these alerts that, okay, that's what's on sale or all over Europe or that kind of thing. And so that link will actually be, it is on our website, but just to make it super easy, that link is right here in the show notes, no matter where you are listening to that.
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Yeah. And so, you know, go out there, use that link, sign up, and you will absolutely be amazed at some of the deals that we're seeing right now. You know, when we talk about the cost of travel being scary, it's scary cheap right now. That's one way is we can, you know, find cheap flights to go places, but we've got some other suggestions as well.
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Yeah, absolutely. So using reward travel. And so this one's kind of twofold, is that, you know, when you sign up for these different travel credit cards, or whatever, like it might be an airline credit card, and then you might accumulate airline miles, it might be a hotel credit card, and then you get hotel points that you could then use, it might be like a general credit card that you can exchange for travel. So just make sure two things that you are not just exchanging those points for money. Like, I mean, I always see an option. You could spend that on gift cards or you could spend it on your Amazon purchases, but you'll get a or cash back, but you'll get a way better deal on that if you use it for reward travel, especially the credit card points. Yeah.
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So think about if you could get a hundred dollar gift card, you know, for those points, or you could get a $300 hotel night. Yeah. Which one's a better deal.
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And I don't want you to think too, because I think that you do see a lot of people online. Okay. They've opened like 10 credit cards and you're not comfortable doing that. But for most people, if you're going to take a trip or two a year, like one credit card, and then, you know, using your everyday purchases on that responsibly, and of course paying it off is going to get you to that at least free flights. you know, at least enough points for flights and, you know, depending on how many people are traveling and where you're trying to go and stuff like that. So it's not like you need, you know, these people who are traveling like all the time and taking a zillion trips. Yeah, they want to open all these, but if you're just going to do a trip or two, like that is plenty enough. And we really have only done this recently, but we always have had some kind of travel card and have, Really most of our flights I would say over the past few years have for the majority been covered or we've used the companion certificate on it or something like that. So it really can be a way to get some free travel perks.
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And like Melissa said, we've had a couple of different cards over time. But until just recently, we always used the Delta SkyMiles American Express. And that offered benefits, like Melissa said, the companion certificate, the membership that we had, had the lounge in it. And so there were some really good benefits to that. But then just recently, we've really started using a Chase Sapphire card. And we see the benefit in that one because it's not tied to a particular carrier or a particular hotel. Right. You can use that across multiple different ones.
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Yeah. And then just, you know, obviously it takes some time to learn, but I think there are so many more resources out there now. There's lots of people that you can, and I can put a link to a few of those in the show notes, but there's lots of different ones that will show you how to do that. So I'll link to some of the ones that kind of go through it, like a step-by-step system, if you are curious about how to do that. And then the thing that I really want to point out is I want to kind of normalize that you don't have to be a luxury traveler and you don't have to be a backpack traveler. you can be somewhere in between. And I'm kind of saying this jokingly because it's kind of something that you're seeing on social media now, right? About normalizing this and that. And that's a particular one that I saw. But Scott and I have said, as we have, you know, talked about doing this podcast and the way that we share with you is that we don't stay in all like we don't go full on luxury. I mean, sometimes we do stay in nicer places, right? And we certainly don't do backpack stuff. There's been a couple of
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times staying in hostels and
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Right now, have we traveled in Europe with a backpack, but yeah, not exactly the same kind of experience, right? More for convenience. We are more of the middle of the road, right? So we enjoy the nice experiences, but we want to capitalize and maximize on these rewards, but we are willing to spend some of our own money to have nice accommodations. And so I think that that needs to be something that is practical and is, you know, and is talked about is that you don't have to be these extremes. Right. And if you take a couple of vacations a year, like it is absolutely very doable. And like Scott mentioned, not as expensive to go out of the country as you might originally think that it is.
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Yeah. And remember when we interviewed Colin and Meg, one of the things that Colin said, and I think that was like episode 26, he talked about how they prioritize travel because that's what they enjoy. And so when I hear people saying, oh, how do you have the money to travel like that? He answered that right out. He said, this is what we enjoy doing. And so we prioritize spending our money on the travel. And there's other things that they could spend their money on, but they don't so that they can afford to travel that way. And so when you're thinking about travel being scary from an expense or cost perspective, start thinking about some of those things, right? Maybe, you know, instead of getting a Starbucks every day for the next six months, You know, maybe you get a McDonald's coffee or something. You know, I don't know. Make one at home. The 99 cents coffee or, you know, make one at home or whatever it is and just take that $4 or $5 savings. And if you do that every day, all of a sudden now you got your flight paid for.
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Yeah, I was trying to do the math real quick to see but surely that is a flight, you
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know, like, I mean, if you did it for 100 days, right, so not even six months, $500,
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right, that's
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$500. Yeah, so there you
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go. And so you don't, you don't think about sometimes how that stuff adds up. That's absolutely true. And so, then a couple of other things that we talked about and that we have been talking about too is that if you are using like the Marriott rewards and you have points that you're using, if you go on there and using points, book four nights, you get that fifth night free. So, you'll put in for the five nights and it actually comes out to be what four nights would be. And so you have to book through them and you have to be using points. That's something that Scott and I haven't done a good job of that, because a lot of times we might go somewhere for three nights and then move on to something else. But maybe being more conscious of that, because if you are using points, especially internationally, to book a hotel room that would be over a thousand dollars a night, and you're getting that fifth night free, that's a big deal. So just being aware of those hotel and flight rewards things as well. And then also, and we'll tease this a little bit, Scott mentioned that we had talked to our friends, but we actually have a podcast episode. coming out next week. And we just recorded that with them. And they made a good point that they were actually able to get a flight recently where you were the bought some or all of the points to finish off a trip. But buying the points would have actually been less than just
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buying the flight outright. They bought a flight, a 16 16 hour flight And they bought a first class ticket and buying the points. I think they said they paid like twelve hundred dollars. Oh, my gosh. You couldn't get a, you know, first class ticket on a 16 hour flight for twelve hundred dollars. You're going to pay nine thousand plus dollars for that. That ticket. So looking at things like that as well when you're planning your travel.
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Yeah. And so just being aware of some of that and you'll have to dig in and do some research and, but there's so much good information about that. And we had that recently too. A lot of people have told me, Oh, you never want to buy, like especially Marriott points. But earlier this year they had a deal where it was, I
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think 40%.
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Yeah. So it was like, if you bought a hundred thousand, you got 140,000, but I had a specific thing that I was going to use it for a specific hotel that I needed to book at a certain time. And so I just did the math and looking at that, it was going to cost me more to pay for the hotel room than to buy the point. So, you know, in that case I could definitely justify it as, as they could. So just something to look at. So just be aware, they've got some great tips, got a great episode to come in for with them next week. And they've got some excellent tips about all kinds of different kinds of travel. So be sure to subscribe so that you will. That one will land in your notification. You're going to
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want to hear this interview.
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So one final thought on this before we move to number two is I actually have a list of different places that I just kind of look for not only the cheaper flights, but also just like different travel deals. So if you are looking for those, so instead of just calling them all off, I'm going to just put a link in the show notes. Some of them I subscribe to and get emails just so I can see they are all the way from budget all the way to luxury type stuff just to see what is out there. So those will be in there.
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Well, let's move on to the second scary topic. And it's that it feels scary to travel alone. So some of our listeners who are out there, they say, you know, I would be traveling alone. And that's kind of a scary thought is being out there.
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So as we were talking about this, cause this was one of the questions that I had gotten. And so as we were kind of talking about doing this, I wanted to share a couple of experiences that I have had. So while I have not traveled a whole trip alone, well, I guess I should share one time we were on a trip and you had to end up going somewhere else for work. And so there has been a couple of times where I have traveled back alone. Well, and actually the time travel interruptions, So you can listen to that episode where I then traveled to Disneyland Paris alone because my flight got canceled and stuff like that. So I read this actually in Travel and Leisure magazine that just came out, and I just thought it was a really good tip that I wanted to share. And the person saying it said, first go and have a meal by yourself. So if you're not used to even doing that. Make go somewhere and have a meal by yourself in a busy restaurant at like a busy time. And just like test the waters out there
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first. And we're not talking about go to Chick-fil-A. We're saying go to like a nicer restaurant and sit there, you know, and have a meal.
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Yeah, and have to order and stuff like that. Because I will say like, like I've talked to my daughter before, and she's like, well, who'd you eat with her? What did you do to eat? And I was like, oh, I ate by myself. So let me explain, like, why I would say that is because a lot of the times when we have traveled, and I've been able, fortunate enough to travel with Scott for work, and he isn't working or in meetings or whatever, I have gone off and explored on my own, right? I've gone to some kind of tourist destination, museums, whatever. So, of course, you have to have meals, right? Breakfast or lunch or, you know, sometimes even dinner when you've had events. Or I've even gone in Portugal, like we were in this one particular location and I was like, I've got a lot of time, what if I book a couple of tours, right? It wasn't to where I could really felt comfortable like rent the car and doing all this on my own, but I could easily get back to Lisbon and then take out to the wine country up to Fatima, you know, and to see in Nazare and to see some of these things. So, I guess just being comfortable with or trying that out to navigate some of those things on your own. So I would start with like meals by yourself. And then I would start with like going on a shorter trip to somewhere you've been before, you know, that you're familiar with, and just test it out that way. So then that way, like you're traveling by yourself, you are having meals by yourself, you are sightseeing by yourself and stuff like that as well. And so, yes, I would say that I definitely approach that differently. Like it's even with the transportation, like a lot of times when I'm with Scott, like I'm not particularly like looking at the you know, the timetable for the buses or the timetable for the transportation or things like that, because it's like, I don't know, it's just a little I mean, I totally agree. So I mean, I totally understand this, because, you know, like, got somebody else, it's like, oh, we can just figure this out together, right. But if I'm by myself, like I've got, I feel like I have to be a lot more planned. But it has been very rewarding, I guess, to then have these experiences. And I still think back to those two tours that I did in Portugal and the people that I met, right? Because I wasn't on my own and there was a lady with a couple little girls and they invited me to have lunch with them. So I think a lot of times when you travel like that, people just kind of like welcome you in. And so that would be another reason. I don't want to spoil it. But so next week on that podcast, we talked with them about something that would be a great activity to do as a solo traveler.
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If you can't tell, we're excited about that episode. And so anyhow, and you know, we talked a little bit, you said book a tour, but I think that's a great thing for someone who's traveling alone is to book a tour with a group and, you know, look on via tour, find a, a group tour that's going out somewhere, you know, a great walking tour of a city, you know, those types of things. And that's one way to be able to see it but not be by yourself.
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And then you can still have your beside, you know, by yourself time. So let's say you don't want to book a tour for the whole trip, which is definitely a possibility, right? If you're traveling solo, if you need that whole, you know, thing with a group, but if you'd still want your alone time, or then you can have an activity every day where you are doing some kind of tour or something like that. I think that would be a great, a great way to do that. And then sometimes that is just navigating and asking. I'll tell one other story too, is one time, we were in Leeds, England, and I literally could not figure out like why the buses with that particular number that we're supposed to stop at this certain place, like why they were not stopping, you know, and then having to, you know, just to ask, like, go back in the hotel and ask, like, okay, how do you get these buses to stop? I think it's supposed to, you know, stop and there's, oh, you have to put your arm out and stuff like that. So I think by yourself, like you do have to take a lot more initiative Maybe get out of your comfort zone, but I think after the fact, you'll just be so much more, I don't know, sense of accomplishment and proud of what you were able to do. I mean, I'm so glad, like another example, I'm so glad that I went to Disneyland Paris by myself. I mean, that might seem strange. I've also been in days on Disney World like wandering around by myself, too. But if I had missed that, I guess is the point. If I had said, OK, I'm nervous about doing this, I'm not going to take the chance to do this, I would have missed that experience.
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And one of the things that we end every episode with is to share these podcasts with your friends and family, because you never know, they may become your greatest travel companion. And so, you know, when you're talking to your friends and family and people that you know, and you talk about all these wonderful places that you're thinking about going, you might have somebody raise their hand and be willing to go with you. And so, you know, that's something else to think about as well.
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Yes. Share your
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passion. Yeah.
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Share your passion. Because if you don't talk about it and say, hey, who is willing to who's willing to do that? That's
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absolutely true. So number three, what about I'm uncertain about going somewhere that I'm not familiar with?
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Yeah, I mean, that's totally I mean, every time you go to a new destination, right. And just like learning the landscape, learning how to get around, learning, you know, where your hotel is in relationship to restaurants and stuff like that. There's
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a lot of things to think about, you know, where should I stay when I go there? How, while I get around while I'm there, how do you even start to plan for a trip like this? And I would say, you know, go back, listen to episode 20 on how to plan a trip step-by-step. And so, you know, that will help you think through what are the things that you need to do and make this task a little less scary for you.
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Yeah. And the other thing that you could do, so like if that's, if that seems like a barrier, like how would I even start, you know, use either a travel agent or use like, like book a tour with a tour company. And, you know, especially if you're not familiar now, those types of things probably, You know, you travel agents don't usually charge, but might be in a little bit more expensive than you do in the research on your own and then being able to kind of control all your costs. But I will say there's something to be said. So in the episode where we talked about Quito, Ecuador and the Galapagos, That trip was a little different because it was booked, you know, start to finish to, in order to get to the Galapagos, right? They had to get there a day early. They had everything organized, right? The hotel in Quito, there were people picking you up from the airport. There were people taking you back to the airport, getting you all your paperwork and stuff like that. And I have to say, like, while that was very unfamiliar to us because we, we don't typically do that because that type of stuff like costs money. but it was actually very nice, right? It does take a little bit of the load off, right? You're not having to think about, okay, where do I get the Uber? Where do I get the taxi? You know, you are the person that has their name. Do
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I need to, you know, leave the airport to go to this Island, right?
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Right. You are the person where they have the, you know, the name on the, on the thing. So, I mean, that definitely is, a way to be able to do that if that's the barrier and like I said I mean usually that's going to be cost a little bit more but you have to kind of weigh those two you know factors but you know not necessarily. One
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of the things we've been doing recently in playing with is if you're not scared of artificial intelligence, using a thing like ChatGPT, or now it's built into the Bing browser and stuff like that, but using those artificial intelligence things to suggest an itinerary for a location that you're interested in. Now, you know, I'll tell you, don't trust those things just flat out because they can give you bad advice. However, it is a good starting point. So if you're not sure where to start, how to start, you know, where should I stay? You can take that. It'll produce a great little itinerary. You tell it, say, I'm looking for a five-day itinerary for New Orleans. And then it'll give you an itinerary of activities. And then you can even ask it another question that says, and where should I stay? And so it'll come up with some suggestions on places to stay. You can ask another question about where should I eat? And it'll give you all of these answers. Now, you take that information and you go into things, you know, like TripAdvisor and stuff like that, and you kind of cross-check it and make sure that, you know, all those places still exist, read some reviews, make sure that, you know, you would agree that that's a place where you want to stay or eat, look at a map, see where it's located. you know, in comparison to maybe some of the places that you want to go. We talked about in one episode, just creating a Google map of saved places and put pins on there. And so you can then look at where's the hotel compared to all the things that you want to see and do, and then decide whether that's a good place or not. So, you know, to take a little bit of that off of your shoulders about, oh, I've got to try to figure everything out. use some tools like this technology to give you that head start and make it a little bit less daunting. And then you're just kind of validating the information. And then you can, you know, look up other things if if something doesn't check out.
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Yeah, and use, you know, like our podcast. That's why we try to talk a lot about destinations. And here's where we aid. And, you know, here's some links and blog posts and, you know, ask family and friends and stuff, too. I asked a bunch of people about New Orleans and where should we eat. And of course, we couldn't take all those recommendations. but we could, you know, try as many as we can. We asked the concierge, you know, and stuff like that. So just as many recommendations as you can get and then pick the things that are going to be most interesting to you. And kind of circle back to it takes us some time to like get accustomed to stuff. You know, the most recent trip to New Orleans, you know, like where is that hotel in relationship to Bourbon Street? Where are we going to eat? But then after a couple of days, we were like, Oh, we're, you know, we're pros. We know how to, you know, we know how to get there and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, no matter what, it's
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going to, it's going to take you, we were jumping on the street car and knowing where that was taking us and, you know, and getting around that way. And so don't expect that you're going to just going to show up and feel a hundred percent comfortable. It does take a little bit of time to get your feet under you, but then once you have your feet under you, you know, have a blast.
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So another great way to be able to travel to new destinations is to book a cruise. And yes, it could be to the Caribbean, but like to Alaska might be a great way to see Alaska and then go further in to explore with an excursion. We've talked about it a couple of times, that Mediterranean cruise. So if you haven't listened to the episode, go and listen. We got to go to some fantastic places, but we still had the comfort and the safety of our room at night on the ship and knowing what we were going to do and be and all
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those things. Yeah, and then taking
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those excursions. But I mean, they go all over the world. So if the travel part of it, and the day in and day out of moving from here to there and doing some of the road trips that we've talked about is just like, Oh, I could never do that. that is a great way to where like you have that consistency and then it's just a matter of picking and choosing in those destinations what you're going to do and the excursions there. So if you don't want to go out and you know take a train to Nice on your own or to these different places on your own, book an excursion and you know join those tours and get to see some of these fantastic places. I think that's an easy way to do that.
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And if you want to travel internationally, think about choosing somewhere that speaks the same language that you do. So, for example, we speak English, and for us, we find the following places really easy to visit because it's a lot like home to us. So the UK, Ireland, Belize, Canada, right? Those are some places that you can go to, you can get your international legs stretched, and yet everyone around you, well, maybe besides Ireland, but you'll be able to understand them. And so, just kidding, in Ireland you can understand them. Uh, you know, these are places where you can go and you'll feel just a little bit more comfortable because you're not having to, you know, look up translations and stuff
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like that. And. Interesting. So Belize, you also use the U S dollar. And so then you don't have a currency conversion or a language barrier. So you need a passport, but you don't have those other things too.
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Yeah. And listen, there's lots of other countries that speak English and, you know, or other options out there. We just threw those out as examples of places that you could visit internationally and have that comfort of home.
00:29:55 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and Scott, I will say like of everywhere we've traveled, though, and I almost hate to say this, but people speak English a lot more than we speak. You know, even if they'll say to you, oh, my English isn't very good. It's like, okay, well, it's a lot better than... I wouldn't even know how
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to say that in
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your language. There are some things like that I had read when we were in France, greet them in French, right? Go into their shop and say bonjour and and greet them and then let them know, OK, but I speak English. And I think they appreciate that, at least that gesture of hospitality.
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And I know some people have this fear of lost luggage and being in an unfamiliar place. The easy way around that, and I'm just going to make this super simple for you, is to go and follow our packing tips and go light. Make everything a carry-on and then you don't have to worry about the airlines losing your luggage. And so if you go out and listen to episode 13, 10 essential packing tips for smooth traveling, that'll help you figure out how to pack in a way that you can carry that on board with you. And this fear, totally gone.
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Yeah, and if you can't get on board with just a carry-on, we do have some tips in there with like what you do need to put in your carry-on so that you are at least covered until you can figure out a luggage situation.
00:31:17 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. So referencing a lot of our past episodes today, you know, these are tips that we've just kind of curated for this episode to talk about these fears, but go and listen to these episodes because we go into great depths to explain all of these different tips and techniques to you. So let's talk a little
00:31:39 SPEAKER_01
bit about cultural differences. Question, are you going to like the local food?
00:31:45 SPEAKER_00
I know people, this bothers them probably more than anything else, right? They're just not sure what they're going to eat. And, uh, you know, that's not, that's not us because I think we're kind of adventurous in that way, but there are people who really worry about this topic.
00:32:02 SPEAKER_01
And so the thing is, I mean, you're not going to know unless you try. And, you know, the worst case scenario, again, I hate to say this, but there's a lot of American fast food restaurants. If you go to some of these places, like with big cities, like we see McDonald's, a lot of places, you see Starbucks, like everywhere. you know, and if nothing else, they are probably going to have like some basics like chicken and different things like that for, you know, the majority of places. So, and hopefully you can get a little bit more adventurous and I'm not saying you have to go eat Guinea pig or turtle soup or octopus or those kinds of things. Just, you know, don't have to be that adventurous if you don't want to, but just, but just trying. And I think that you'll be pleasantly suppressed.
00:32:49 SPEAKER_00
We talked to my, my dad last night and they've just gotten back from Italy and I laughed because somewhere that they were in Venice or something like that, he went somewhere and found chicken wings.
00:33:04 SPEAKER_01
So worst case scenario,
00:33:05 SPEAKER_00
you can go somewhere and find some chicken wings probably.
00:33:10 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Or, you know, snacks, go to a grocery store, go to a convenience store. I mean, we always, I think we always, always, always end up at a convenience store. This last trip we were super prepared, except for I've realized I had broken my glasses, just like reader glasses. So I was like, okay, we got to go find the CVS. I've got to get some glasses. So, you know, just being able to pick up some snacks if worse comes to worst.
00:33:34 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I would say do not let that one hold you back in any way, shape, form or fashion. So number four, what if something happened to me medically or health wise while traveling?
00:33:46 SPEAKER_01
So I would definitely recommend that you get some kind of at least travel medical type of a policy. There are some countries that we have been to where that has been required. When we went to the Galapagos, because it is kind of remote, They required that you had some kind of travel medical that would cover something like a medical evacuation, you know, heaven forbid, but sometimes, you know, these things do happen. And so there's lots of companies that specialize in that. We actually ended up because of that trip, we ended up getting a policy that was not only a travel policy, but also a medical policy. And instead of just having it cover that 10 day trip, because we do travel quite often. I just went ahead and priced it and said, okay, if I had this cover us for any trip for the next 365 days, what would that look like? And it was definitely a lot more reasonable just to do that because then I could just cover everything. So I'm going to put a link to a couple of those in the show notes now. Fortunately, knock on wood, we haven't ever had to use those. And the flight that we talked about in the travel interruptions, the flight that we missed in London, it wasn't something that was actually covered by travel insurance. So I didn't end up filing the claim that way. But our podcast guests that we had Colin and Meg who have the did you pack snacks podcast they have an episode dedicated to a time when they had to use their world nomads travel insurance with their daughter had a fantastic experience with that so I'm going to link that one just because I know somebody personally who's used it and it's helped them recover that cost. And it was, you know, the bill was paid very quickly. Like it was something like, listen to that episode that they had, which I also linked just for convenience, if you want to hear it. But they had like, it was like, you have to pay this bill before you leave the hospital. And World Nomads had taken care of that. So they highly recommended that. So I'm just going to pass that along as well.
00:35:51 SPEAKER_00
And as Melissa said, most of these policies include some kind of medical evacuation. So if you found yourself in a position where you needed care that couldn't be provided locally, you could be medically evacuated out of there and they would cover that cost.
00:36:06 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Or it would cover like in, in country care as well. And it was something that we recommended, you know, for your dad when he was, you know, on his trip, it was something we said, Hey, this is probably a good idea. But then also if you've got a huge investment, like that Galapagos trip, that was a huge investment for us. And just making sure that we could have, you know, gotten that back if something happened either before the trip that was covered. But I will say, just make sure that you familiarize yourself with what's covered. If you want to talk to somebody, you know, these companies have, you know, people that you can talk to that will walk you through what's covered and what's not covered and stuff like that. And, and before this, we hadn't really done a lot of the, the travel insurance, but I think going forward that we probably will. I will say one time that we did when we went to Belize, right. It was during pandemic and a lot of countries required that you have that. And, and I did talk to somebody to just say, okay, we want to make sure, right. Because you had all these testing requirements. You know, what would happen, you know, is it going to be covered? And so, you know, just talking to somebody
00:37:10 SPEAKER_00
who can help you set that up. And so for number five, what about I'm afraid that I just don't have enough time off work to travel? I mean, this is something that we can totally understand. As you know, I work full time and we have to fit our travels into my vacation schedule. And so, you know, it's a real thing. We have a desire to travel. a lot more than I have vacation to take. And so we have to just prioritize. We have to sometimes make short weekend trips rather than a full length trip. So this is something I think that a lot of people would really struggle with.
00:37:52 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And so one thing that we have tried to do anytime that we have done like a trip to Europe is then we've tried to maximize by having basically almost a non-day trip by leaving on the, like a Friday, right? So when you go to Europe from the East coast, you're going to leave on the evening. And so then you will get there Saturday morning, right? So then you have Saturday, Sunday, have the whole week, have Saturday again, and then plan to come back. And then you'll usually leave. you know, fairly early on that Sunday. And, and so you have basically a non-day trip to kind of maximize that. So yes, coming back, you, you know, would then have to start work the next day, but to just really give you the most bang for your buck. look at when holidays fall, right? So then could you tack that nine-day? Is there somewhere where holidays fall where then you could just have, you know, your holiday days on top of that? So a great resource that talks about this is actually the founder of Going, which used to be Scott's Cheap Flights. He has a book that is called Take More Vacations. And they dedicated a whole section of that into like, how can I maximize my time? Because they actually say that it's healthier for you to have a couple of trips a year instead of like taking, so let's say you get two weeks, instead of trying to take, you know, all that, that would be, that's difficult for a lot of people, right? To take two weeks at one time. So splitting that up, right? And then figuring out like you have that anticipation, you have the booking that's actually healthy for you to have that to look forward to and then maximizing those times. So that's another way that you can do that. So I'll put a link to that. Take more vacations. His name is Scott Keys, but just, just a great short read, but we'll kind of give you some, some good ideas about that.
00:39:42 SPEAKER_00
So one of my favorites is around Christmas time. So if you have a Monday through Friday job, I know not everybody does, but if you have a Monday through Friday job and you get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, same with New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, you literally could take a week's vacation, but only use three days. So sometimes when Christmas Eve falls on a Monday, right? So you get Monday, Tuesday off for Christmas. You take Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then you have the weekend and Monday, Tuesday. So, you know, that's one to think about as well.
00:40:24 SPEAKER_01
Scott knows this very well because by the time we get to that time of the year, there's no vacation left. So he's like, okay. Now I will say we don't usually vacation a lot during the holidays. A lot of people do, and it can be a great time to do that. We're trying to spend time with family and things like that, but he's got to know, okay, what days am I not working? Cause I've basically eaten up all his vacation by that time. But
00:40:45 SPEAKER_00
it's good because like my my employees then can take time off and be with their families and stuff like that. And you know, I can cover things for them. So I don't
00:40:55 SPEAKER_01
mind doing that. Yeah. And if you have the ability to work remotely, then is that a possibility? Right. So does it matter where you are working? Can you use that? So, yes, you are, you know, Sometimes the time zone could be an issue or, you know, you may have to be there a little bit longer to do some of the things, but is it a way that you can, you know, see a destination and still be able to work at the same time?
00:41:21 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we've got a couple of trips coming up this coming weekend, as well as around Thanksgiving, where we're going to take some trips. But I've said for these, there are certain days that I just don't want to burn as vacation time. And so I'm going to work, you know, like when we go on our cruise, I'm going to work on the days that we're at sea. And there's nothing but water to to be seen. So, you know, I'll take those. We're going we're getting the, you know, Internet plan and I'm going to work from the cruise ship those days. Yeah. So a lot of times. Nice for you.
00:41:55 SPEAKER_01
But still, you know, still working and taking the calls and doing the things that you need to do. So and I would say, I mean, if you catch the travel bug, like you'll you'll figure out how to make it work.
00:42:08 SPEAKER_00
Our goal was to help remove a little fear out of travel for many of you that want to travel, but you're just not sure. Thank you for providing us with your biggest barriers to travel so that we could talk about them on this episode. Our biggest fear is that you will never experience the joys of travel because of these barriers. For those of you that have already overcome these fears, send us a message and let us know what is next on your bucket list. We love hearing from you. And because of you, our bucket list continues to grow day by day.
00:42:39 SPEAKER_01
We hope you enjoyed this episode and will find some inspiration to help you with your travel journeys. Please consider going on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review. The more five-star reviews we have, the more likely we are to be featured and discovered by others. Make sure to follow or subscribe to our podcast to be notified of new episodes as they are released. You can also find us on Instagram as Sunshine Travelers Podcast. Remember that's travelers with one L. Most importantly, share it with your friends and help them catch the travel bug. You never know, they may become your greatest travel companion. Happy Halloween!
