While I was at my husband’s high school reunion a few weekends ago, I met one of his old friends, who is now a missionary in Russia! I probably grilled him a little too much about his experiences, but it was so interesting. I’ve since learned that there are travel agencies that specialize in booking travel for missionaries like my husband’s friend. Golden Rule Travel is one of those agencies that assists people in booking mission flights all over the world! They even have special contracts with airlines allowing them to receive special rates for missionaries, and all of the staff were missionaries at one point or another.

The company can also offer assistance with adoption travel. Having had friends who adopted, I know how plans can change at the last minute, so Golden Rule has negotiated special agreements with the airlines to allow you to change dates at a moment’s notice. It’s good to see someone realizes how stressful that time is for new parents!

International traveler costs a pretty penny. When you add up airfare, lodging, foot, and sightseeing, you’ll often find that you’ve invested a couple of grand into your trip overseas. The very first time I went to London, I decided to save money by not purchasing optional trip insurance. Whoops! Not only did the airline lose my luggage for a few days, but the I missed my connection flight, and the delay caused me to catch up with my tour group 2 days late. We lost the first few days of our tours, and spent the next few days wearing the same clothes.

A few years ago, while in Mexico, we took a day trip to snorkel. One of the older men on our boat had chest pains and had to be taken by ambulance to a clinic. Of course, the care there was not covered by his insurance, he hadn’t purchased trip insurance, and the whole experience added several thousand dollars to his cruise cost.

Since those two incidents, I don’t think travel medical insurance is a waste anymore. Nor is trip cancellation insurance! If you’re investing thousands of dollars in a vacation, and / or going to a country where the hospitals aren’t as nice as they are at home, please make sure you’re protected!

When I was 12, we took a trip from our home in Tarpon Springs, Florida, through Missouri, all the way to Denver, Colorado, and then south through New Mexico and back east through Texas back home. We did this in 2 weeks, and our tight time line was the reason we didn’t go up into the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. We stopped to admire the arch, but the wait time to go up one of the two trams was 4 hours, and my father decided we couldn’t, or that he wouldn’t, wait.

Visitors to the Gateway Arch this summer will also have a wait ahead of them, as one of the two trams used to take visitors to the top has closed, and will remain closed for the next two months. A snapped cable trapped 200 people at the top of the arch this week, and in new cables have to be made and installed now. (Which makes me wonder - why don’t they have backup cables in a warehouse somewhere?)

When I was in high school, I briefly entertained the thought of becoming a foreign exchange student. Two things stopped me - I had only taken 1 year of French at that point (not what I considered to be enough) and I knew I’d be incredibly homesick if I went to Europe for 3 months. Had there been educational travel tours available back then, I would have been first in line to sign up. Rather than spending your time in the same house for a period of months, these tours allow students to visit places with a group of their peers and see all the major sites and attractions. For example, a tour in Germany allows for stops at:

• Olympic Stadium
• Nymphenburg Palace
• Black Forest
• A cruise on the Danube
• And more!

Believe me - your kids will have a much better time touring Europe with kids than they will with you! And it’s a great chance to let your teen have some independence and shine.

If only all travel could be vacation travel - stress free, relaxing, exotic destinations. But there are other types of travel, for example, business travel. Or how about traveling cross-country or to another country entirely to take a new job? Moving is never easy, but it certainly is more difficult when you’re moving across the world instead of across town. Relocation.com is a moving dedicated to making your moving day as stress free as possible. The site has a moving guide that can help you figure out how to best deal with the kids and the pets during this busy time, as well as tips on how to choose a moving company. Maybe you plan on doing it yourself and driving the U-Haul to your new home. How will you get your vehicles there? Auto shipping is something you’ll need to check into. (FYI, auto shipping isn’t just for moves. We used it when my grandfather died and we needed to transport his car from New Jersey to Florida. It was much easier than flying to his home and spending 2 days driving his car back home!) Relocation.com also has international movers, should your new career be taking you overseas.

Having moved 4 times in 11 years, I can honestly say each time was one of the happiest, but busiest and most stress filled days in our life. You can make it a little less stressful by planning ahead as MUCH as possible!

This is a sponsored review.

One more reason my home airport rocks - they offer FREE wireless access to travelers who are toting laptops around. Take THAT, Detroit! It’s a nice little perk for the torture my shoulder is taking by lumping this laptop bag around. I’ve got a DVD to watch on the plane, too. By the time I touch down in Pittsburgh, I should be all caught up on season 5 of The Dead Zone.

My husband and will be heading off for a beach weekend in August, ALL by ourselves! The reason for the trip is to attend my husband’s 20th high school reunion. It’s being held at a resort on Clearwater Beach, in Clearwater, FL. The resort is high priced - normally $300 for a suite, but thanks to the reunion organizers, we got our suite for half of that. The first night will be an informal night at a local restaurant, and the 2nd evening is a banquet and dance.

Even though the events aren’t until the evening, I plan on taking advantage of my time at the beach. We’ll be leaving home on the morning of the event so we can spend the day on the beach before schmoozing that night.

Much love to everyone who donated this year. I’ll keep you all on my mind and in my heart as I walk 60 miles through Tampa this fall. I couldn’t have done it without all of you!

Special thanks to:

Alli
Carolyn
Mike from Sinus Infection
Robyn
Matthew from Blog About Your Blog
Funny Junk
Cybercelt from the Texas RV Travel blog
Karen from My Road
and Sian Lun Lau

When my sister and I walk 60 miles in October, we’ll be thinking of the people who got us there!

Thanks to:
Kitty
Kelly at That’s What She Said.
Vedis
Barnett Associates (Marysville WA homes)

Find out how you can help here, and you’ll be getting the link love too!

This traveling fool has some people all over the U.S.A. to say thank you too!

Thanks to donations from Greg Watson, Thinking Outloud, and Surviving NJ, my sister is only about $450 away from her goal! Thanks guys!

If you’re wondering what YOU can do to help, click here and read more about the special offer I’m making people who donate.

What’s the farthest distance you’ve ever walked in a weekend? For most people, it’s probably a few miles around a city they’re visiting, or a few laps around Disney. For me, it was the 60 miles I walked around Philadelphia last October as part of the 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer. My sister and I walked together last year, and we’re both walking again this year, although in separate locations. She’s walking in Philly again, with her cousin, and I’m walking in Tampa.

If you didn’t read my post here, I’ve met my $2200 goal, and I’m helping my sister now. If you donate $50, you get 10 links in return, on 10 different sites, and 9 of those links are permanent! A big thank you to Charles over at C.Whyte’s blog for donating to my sister.

Now that one vacation is over, we can start planning the next trip!

In September, I’m going to Dallas for work. (Bor-ing!)

In November, I’m going to Las Vegas for fun. Jim will probably attend with me, but if not, I’ll go alone and meet friends there. I’ll be attending a conference on blogging, and I’ve been invited to participate in a discussion about being a top earner with PayPerPost. I’ve never been to Las Vegas, so that’s cool. And, I’ll get to knock another state off my list, in my quest to visit all 50 states.

In 2005, my map of visited states looked like this. I added Utah to the list and in 2006, my visited states map looked like this.

Now, in 2007, I’ve got this:

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

I need a road trip in the Northeast, and another to the Northwest!

I’m sitting in the Detroit airport right now, waiting for my plane. I just paid $7.95 for a day of wireless access, of which I’ll only use an hour of. I’ve got a great story about coming through security to share later, but right now I have a little boy dying to go online right now!

In the days leading up to a trip out of town, my routine is always the same. Shopping, confirming plans for the dogs to go the kennel, making sure I have hotel and airfare confirmations printed out, and obsessively checking Weather.com.

For the past few days, I’ve been checking the Toronto & Montreal weather only (our stay in Niagara Falls is too far out to check), and agonizing over the 10 day forecast. It’s not good. Rain is on the forecast for our entire Toroto stay, so we WILL be packing the ponchos. We’ll be in Montreal next weekend, and we should see sunnier weather there. Good thing, since we’ve planned our time in Montreal to coincide with Fête nationale du Québec (”Quebec National Holiday”).

We’re planning on a trip to Vegas this November for a big blogging conference I’ll be attending. Because the event is being held in Vegas, it wasn’t very hard to convince my husband and my sister to come along with me for a long weekend. They’ve both been to Vegas before, but I haven’t ever been out there. People like me tend to think of Vegas as a place for vacation only, and we forget that people actually live and work there year round. I know of a few bloggers there in fact, that I’ll be meeting in person at my conference.

All of those people living and working in Las Vegas need all of the same things we need in our own towns and cities…they grocery shop, they go to the mall, and occasionally, they get locked out of their homes. When that happens, this Las Vegas locksmith company springs into action. This company provides the residents of Las Vegas (and surrounding areas) with 24 hour emergency service, as well as residential, commercial, and auto locksmith services. (How cool would it be to get called for a job at one of the big hotels…and get to go behind the scenes in the casino, a la Oceans Eleven?)

They even offer free estimates on their website, or call for one!

We’re heading out of town tomorrow morning, but before I go, I wanted to share a few things that popped into my mind. So here’s my unofficial list of 6 tips to help you save money on travel!

1. Use Priceline. It can be tricky getting deals with airfare and hotels with Priceline, but if you don’t mind when you’re flying, or the layovers, or where the hotel is, you’ll do fine. I prefer to use it for car rentals, since you get to specify the type of car, and where and when you want to pick it up. My husband and I recently rented a convertible for a week and paid under $300. List price for the same rental when paying retail? $600!

2. Consider flying into different airports. It would have cost us big bucks to fly to Canada for our summer vacation, but I found a great sale from Tampa to Detroit on Northwest. Since we planned to rent a car anyway, it wasn’t a big deal to fly into Detroit and drive a few hours to our destination. Especially when we ended up saving $250+ per person! Likewise, if you live in an area serviced by several airports, you may save money by going a few miles out of your way.

3. Don’t be afraid of smaller airlines. We have a lot of little airlines in our area that fly out of the smaller airport (St. Pete / Clearwater) You can often get great fares on these budget airlines to major cities. A friend of mine used to travel between here and Cleveland, Ohio for $60 each way. Regional airlines have a lot of deals that will beat the big guys!

4. Take food! This one is especially important if you’re traveling anywhere with small kids. Snacks cost money. Snacks in airports, big cities, and theme parks cost even MORE money. When we go to Disney World, for example, we take a small backpack in with snacks, or even sandwiches. It really cuts our vacation budget!

5. Look for deals for residents of your area. We’re lucky to live in Florida, because so many theme parks give discounts to Florida residents who buy season passes. Residents of other states with theme parks may get the same deals. We recently saw a great offer for Florida residents to get passes to Universal on the cups at Wendy’s!

6. Research before you go. Having a plan in mind of what you want to see when you’re traveling will help make the trip that much enjoyable…especially when traveling with the family. You’ll also be able to get an idea of what things cost, so that you can budget. Nothing is worse than getting somewhere, realizing you didn’t budget enough money, and having to cut sites, tours, or extras out of your dream vacation.

Welcome to Fool4Travel.com!

I’ve done my fair share of traveling in my lifetime, and this site is to blog about the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, and the places I still hope to visit, someday. Join me on the journey!