Some people consider traveling the best way to spend their vacation time while others think travel is a waste of time and money. We love traveling and we encourage others to travel. Our travels are more the stretching-the-budget kind of trips. We pack in as much into our days we can. We travel with a big list of places to see within a short span of time. No it is not the style most people enjoy. But it works for us and that is what the perfect travel plans are about. Tailor-made to suit individual needs.
The process of deciding where to go is a big task in itself for us. We have a big list of to visit places. The where-to-go debate rages for days and it is the dreaming part of the planning. We look into websites for reviews and pictures and try to convince the better half. It is probably the most challenging part of any vacation planning. It involves looking into the calender and checking how many days we can afford to take off from our respective jobs. If we need to fly to the destination we also check flight rates, hotel rates and kind of work a tentative budget. Sometimes our vacations are tied together with obligations like visiting family, friends, occasions and in that case it makes things easier. The destination is just one! Typically for any vacation we have 2 such choices, his and hers.
The next step is further planning, where we pick up books from the library and start reading about the destinations. It is the exciting phase of planning and our house is filled with books for two dream vacations and every free minute reading. After a week or so, we sit down and finalize the destination. Yes one of them has to compromise and say, there is always the next time.
Once the decision has been made, we start reading like crazy. This is the best past of the vacation, sometimes more exciting than the travel itself. We bring back so many books and start writing copious notes and planning out details. Another list of possible places to visit and choosing what we really would enjoy. We enjoy off-beat things and the hunt for such places in the vicinity. And the more we read, the more we learn about the history, the culture and everything interesting. It brings the photos in the book to life and we enter the day dream phase…
More planning and notes later we are on our way. To another dream destination. Pinching pennies we travel and is it worth it? Yes it is worth every single penny saved.. Seeing the day dreams come true is really amazing. After all life is all about dreams coming true and reality merging with fantasies. We travel for fulfillment of the soul. And we look forward to many more traveling adventures…
And do we have our next trip planned? Yes we are working on it.. it is a long time dream and a fantasy vacation for most people… will update details soon.