Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about traveling with purpose on the cheap,
Speaker 1: all right, Matt. So your daughter came to my door.
Speaker 1: She just wouldn't was relentlessly selling me cookies. What's up
Speaker 1: with this? Uh yeah, the eavy cookies? Yeah? What is this?
Speaker 1: A she just trying to like take out the girl's shout?
Speaker 1: A girl scout came by our house maybe last week
Speaker 1: or two weeks ago. Because have any come by your place? No,
Speaker 1: we haven't had him. Me. I'm like waiting for the
Speaker 1: thin mince. Yeah, I know a neighbor to to three
Speaker 1: houses down. Their daughter came by and Edvye was there
Speaker 1: when she came by and was totally fascinated with like
Speaker 1: the sale. I think that's why she was mostly drawn
Speaker 1: to the fact that she had like a clipboard or
Speaker 1: like the paper. It was like writing stuff down. EV's
Speaker 1: like all about that. Neantime, she any time we play,
Speaker 1: she's always like taking orders like she's a waitress. She's
Speaker 1: like a scorekeeper. Yeah exactly. Yeah. So a few days ago,
Speaker 1: like in the last week, she was saying that she
Speaker 1: wanted to wanted to make cookies and what what we
Speaker 1: realized is that she basically just wanted to like take orders.
Speaker 1: She didn't really want to make cookies. And so we
Speaker 1: went around and uh yeah, I can't walked up to
Speaker 1: y'all's place. She gave she gave me the hard sell.
Speaker 1: She was she was practiced by then, she was versed,
Speaker 1: she knew what to say. She was like one play
Speaker 1: to cookies only, Mr Joel, are you sure? Three dollars?
Speaker 1: Was like, fine, y'all buy more whatever you say. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean it's honestly, it's it's actually pretty cool
Speaker 1: right to kind of see ways to teach my daughter
Speaker 1: how to be a businesswoman, you know, and like how
Speaker 1: to think of something and kind of follow through with
Speaker 1: it as well. That's really the biggest thing because so
Speaker 1: many things we do at home are like you do
Speaker 1: it for a minute, you know, thirty seconds, and then
Speaker 1: just you abandon it. And so that was something Kate
Speaker 1: was really making sure she stuck to it the grit,
Speaker 1: you know, stick to witness. Well, that's one thing I
Speaker 1: gotta say, you've done really well already and that I
Speaker 1: would love to do better with my girls, is to
Speaker 1: teach to teach you girls about money. And kind of
Speaker 1: give them some real life situations and how it plays out.
Speaker 1: And so I think we'll dedicate another podcast, a future
Speaker 1: episode to specifically talking about how we teach our girls
Speaker 1: about money and you get kids the only one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you do such a great job. Thanks man, We'll
Speaker 1: let you leave that one. So, and that was great.
Speaker 1: And by the way, maybe we'll polcated on that one too,
Speaker 1: because she's Yeah, she's definitely led the charge with the
Speaker 1: with the cookies and the business order. And I could
Speaker 1: business reform. I could tell she was the one that
Speaker 1: did the banking. They were phenomenal cookies there, man, did
Speaker 1: you try the lemon ones? I haven't tried the lemon one.
Speaker 1: I tried the chocolate chip so good you just wait
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, with pink frosting on top. There. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: That makes me think of a topic too that somebody
Speaker 1: in our Facebook group mentioned a topic like that as
Speaker 1: well as far as like how to encourage sort of
Speaker 1: the entrepreneurial spirit with your with you know, with your kids, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally without the question. Yeah, So on that note, did
Speaker 1: you have a job as a kid, How old are
Speaker 1: you when you first started working? And what did Where
Speaker 1: did you start working? Yeah, good question, man. The first
Speaker 1: job I had was as a caddie at the golf
Speaker 1: course where or where my parents lived nowhere where I
Speaker 1: grew up as a kid in Augusta. I didn't get
Speaker 1: an early on job like like like a lot of kids,
Speaker 1: my parents were very much their mindset was well, definitely,
Speaker 1: my dad was just like, make I want to I
Speaker 1: want you to focus on your grades. Don't worry about
Speaker 1: you know, if you maintained a certain level of responsibility
Speaker 1: and chores and things at home, we'll make sure you
Speaker 1: have enough spending money to kind of hang out with
Speaker 1: your friends and um. And it was plenty, you know.
Speaker 1: It's not like I was like I want more, um,
Speaker 1: but grades and education definitely kind of became the I
Speaker 1: guess the focus for my folks. Yeah, how about you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so my first legit job were you eight and a
Speaker 1: half a little bit older than that, but my first
Speaker 1: my first job was mowing lawn into the neighborhood and
Speaker 1: so oh kind of yeah, did the old school thing
Speaker 1: posted the flyers and I just remember there was one
Speaker 1: specific lawn where the lady was just like so picky
Speaker 1: about the issue. Was an older lady and it took
Speaker 1: my dad. My dad was like super kind to help
Speaker 1: me out. He'd been you know, he worked a full
Speaker 1: week and then on that Saturday he spent five hours
Speaker 1: with me over that lady's house. Yeah, trim in the
Speaker 1: bush everything, And we're like, I didn't I didn't advertise
Speaker 1: all this on the flyer of doing all this for
Speaker 1: fifteen bucks. But I learned a lot from doing that
Speaker 1: with my dad about sticking to it, following through on
Speaker 1: what you say you're gonna do, and like the customer
Speaker 1: services but side of it as well, right, like trying
Speaker 1: to keep folks happy and totally Yeah, I did not
Speaker 1: think of I didn't think of lawns at all. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I did lawns. Uh. I did pool cleaning.
Speaker 1: I was like the little I was a little pool boy,
Speaker 1: come Bana boy. Just in the leaves again, the leaves
Speaker 1: out and stuff like that. Yeah. Uh anyway, but then
Speaker 1: my first real job was is working at Chick fil
Speaker 1: A at the age of fourteen. It was right across
Speaker 1: the street from my high school. So I would walk
Speaker 1: over right after school and I would work at three
Speaker 1: hour shift and then I would go home. I think
Speaker 1: legally I was only allowed to work like fifteen hours
Speaker 1: a week or something like that. So I'd work, you know,
Speaker 1: two days after school and then on a Saturday. Um,
Speaker 1: and saved up enough money, you know by the time
Speaker 1: I was sixteen and a half or sixteen to to
Speaker 1: buy my first car, my own cash. So yeah, So
Speaker 1: I would say for me learning the work ethic early on,
Speaker 1: it was really really helpful. And working from an early
Speaker 1: age taught me a lot that still continues to carry
Speaker 1: me through to this day. And so yeah, I think
Speaker 1: what you're doing with teaching Eavy to work starting a
Speaker 1: four and a half is admirable. It's awesome, it's fun, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And she and those kinds of lessons you know, as
Speaker 1: you continue those they will they'll laster the rest of
Speaker 1: her life. Those lessons I learned mowing the lawn with
Speaker 1: my dad when I didn't want to do it and
Speaker 1: I was tired, and I was like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot um and it was. It was
Speaker 1: really good for me. Alright. So, uh, every episode we
Speaker 1: obviously drink a beer, and this week's beer Matt tell
Speaker 1: us about it. Yeah, man, so this beer tonight is
Speaker 1: Bell's hop Slam, which is actually kind of interesting because
Speaker 1: we mentioned hop Slam last episode as sort of an aside.
Speaker 1: How it's you know, it's been a couple of years
Speaker 1: since I've had this one, and uh, my neighbor brought
Speaker 1: some over, which is awesome, and he listens to the
Speaker 1: podcast time too, And the last episode had not been
Speaker 1: published by the time we're recording this one right now,
Speaker 1: so it's not he didn't hear it, and it's not
Speaker 1: like he heard us talking about hop Slam. It just
Speaker 1: read your mind. It was meant to be. So as
Speaker 1: soon as you brought it over, my eyes lit up.
Speaker 1: I was like, are you kidding? This is awesome. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously it's been a it's been a minute since we've
Speaker 1: had it, but let's crack this joker. This if you
Speaker 1: are into I p A s This was like the
Speaker 1: first I PA the game to Colt following um and
Speaker 1: I gotta say the label still one of my favorites. Dude,
Speaker 1: just straight up bowled over by a pile of hops.
Speaker 1: So and by the way, we will take your beer donations.
Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: not Poor Matt and at not Poor Joel. Also breweries
Speaker 1: if you want to get your name out there on
Speaker 1: the podcast, feel free to donate. We got some beers
Speaker 1: coming in from a couple of breweries and we'll be
Speaker 1: drinking them on the podcast and um giving a shout out.
Speaker 1: Let's let me know what we think. But today's from
Speaker 1: Matt's neighbor, some free hop slam. Well I can say
Speaker 1: it is still good, man. That's so different than some
Speaker 1: of the ips we've been drinking recently. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: got like a real multi backbone, but it's still it's
Speaker 1: got that like nice bright and honey sweetness to it.
Speaker 1: That's delicious. Yeah. So for those of you that have
Speaker 1: had I p s before, maybe aren't as similiar with
Speaker 1: hop slam. And so this is considered a double I
Speaker 1: p A. So that I mean they sit around in
Speaker 1: percent I feel like typically, so it's little bitter, but
Speaker 1: this one being a double, it's got higher alcohol and
Speaker 1: higher sugar sugar content, so it's a little bit sweeter. Right,
Speaker 1: It's it's got that honey makes it easier to drink
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, but it's also the
Speaker 1: a lot of the I p A is being made
Speaker 1: today are even more hop heavy or hop forward than
Speaker 1: this beer. Um. And so you're gonna get a little
Speaker 1: more of the traditional piney bitterness on this one. Um,
Speaker 1: which is great. It's just not it's just a different style. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a different style than what people are mostly
Speaker 1: making right now. Yeah, in my mind, right now, this
Speaker 1: tastes like drinks like a West Coast I p A. When, like,
Speaker 1: years ago, I would never have said that. I would
Speaker 1: have been like, oh no, Bell's Hop Slam is its
Speaker 1: own thing totally. But now that it's been just been
Speaker 1: a couple of years and everybody's putting all these sort
Speaker 1: of the the hazier New England style I p A
Speaker 1: s that literally look like orange juice. They're so fruit
Speaker 1: kind of heavy. Um this, Yeah, it really does feel
Speaker 1: like a West Coast I PA. But it's amazing, it's delicious.
Speaker 1: We'll have a link to the Hot Slam on Tap
Speaker 1: profile on our show notes if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about it. And now that we've talked about the beer,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about Matt's circummending child labor laws to
Speaker 1: get his daughter in the workforce early, let's get to
Speaker 1: the subject at hand. Matt traveling with Purpose on the cheap.
Speaker 1: So I don't know actual child labor laws, but what
Speaker 1: I do know is that once you have an actual
Speaker 1: job and you're employed, you can open up a roth ira.
Speaker 1: A just right, that's right. Uh. Some My a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, she started working for her dad, who is
Speaker 1: an accountant, and I think literally they opened a roth
Speaker 1: ira for her at the age of fifteen. Oh nice
Speaker 1: and max that joker out and I think they're in
Speaker 1: pretty good shape as far as that goes. So my
Speaker 1: boss Clark, so his wife is an actor and she
Speaker 1: got his son on a commercial shoot when he was
Speaker 1: like one or two, and they filed a tax return
Speaker 1: for him that year and he was able to claim
Speaker 1: that on his taxes and then open up a wrath.
Speaker 1: So he's had a roth since he was an infant.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah, leave that to leave that
Speaker 1: to Clark playing the games. Genius right there, man, like
Speaker 1: a legit player. I love it. So the subjective hand
Speaker 1: traveling with the purpose on the cheap Matt, the let's
Speaker 1: talk about kind of the philosophy. First off, vacation and
Speaker 1: travel like they're two different terms, and what do we
Speaker 1: mean when we say each one? So in our minds
Speaker 1: we define vacation as being more like something you do
Speaker 1: to go and relax. So, you know, if and that's
Speaker 1: what we're doing, you know later this summer or beginning
Speaker 1: of the summer, we're gonna go to the beach. We're
Speaker 1: taking it easy. For some folks, maybe that's going to
Speaker 1: like the mountains, like a cabin up in the mountains,
Speaker 1: just vegan out, taking it easy, relaxing, playing games, playing
Speaker 1: board games versus travel, right, which is more How would
Speaker 1: you define that? Travel? I think of as more exploratory,
Speaker 1: less kicking your feet up. And uh, I like a
Speaker 1: good dose of both in my life. I personally prefer
Speaker 1: travel and keep kind of skip vacation to do more trap.
Speaker 1: But I'd like a good mix of both. And so
Speaker 1: I think if travel is more exploratory, going somewhere new
Speaker 1: or that you've been where you want to see more,
Speaker 1: see more stuff. Uh, And I think a vacation as
Speaker 1: like yeah, finding the beach house from the mountain house
Speaker 1: and kind of kicking it for for you know, a
Speaker 1: few days, a long weekend to a week and that
Speaker 1: being more relaxing. For me, travel is a little more
Speaker 1: draining because I'm exploring the whole time. But it's draining
Speaker 1: in just the right way. And I think life stage
Speaker 1: also has a lot to do with it too, right.
Speaker 1: I mean sure with kids, we've got friends that fly
Speaker 1: all the time and travel all over the world. We
Speaker 1: haven't done that yet with with our girls, mostly because
Speaker 1: we're thinking and if if we're gonna go travel somewhere,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be me and me and Kate for us.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money to spend extra on a
Speaker 1: plane ticket for a kid that's not either he may
Speaker 1: not remember it or be doesn't you know, may not
Speaker 1: appreciate it as you know, even some other kids who
Speaker 1: might appreciate it more or may throw a tantrum in
Speaker 1: the plane the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna avoid that for the next few years. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think yeah, there's the prohibitive cost
Speaker 1: involved if you want to actually do some traveling and
Speaker 1: some exploring with your kids. Our kids are on the
Speaker 1: on the young side, are four and under, and you've
Speaker 1: got three four and under. I've got two four and under. So, uh,
Speaker 1: taking actual trips overseas or whatever, it's gonna be cost
Speaker 1: prohibitive to buy more plane tickets and and all that
Speaker 1: other stuff. So, yeah, when when I'm talking about travel,
Speaker 1: for us at this point in time, it's when Emily
Speaker 1: and I get to do things today. And for you guys,
Speaker 1: it's when you and kids take it away for anniversary
Speaker 1: trip or maybe getting away for the weekend something like that.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're gonna spend the rest of the
Speaker 1: podcast talking about most mostly is as travel. They'll they'll
Speaker 1: be some things that can apply to vacation, but in
Speaker 1: general on the move travel. And you might be listening
Speaker 1: to this in your young twenties and you've got the
Speaker 1: ability monetarily and time wise to do a lot of this,
Speaker 1: or you might be listening to this and just have
Speaker 1: had a newborn and you know what, that's not going
Speaker 1: to be on your list for at least the next year.
Speaker 1: We're going to kind of try to lay out the
Speaker 1: basics for how you can travel well and then also
Speaker 1: travel on a on a limited budget, which is actually
Speaker 1: how you should approach it. It's better for you if
Speaker 1: you approach it that way. Um, we're going to kind
Speaker 1: of approach from those things, and and you might not
Speaker 1: be at the point where you're gonna book a plane
Speaker 1: ticket tomorrow but we want to kind of give you
Speaker 1: this this as a resource where whether it's tomorrow or
Speaker 1: next year that you're booking your trip, you can use
Speaker 1: some of these things as a guide to book great
Speaker 1: travel for a really good deal. Yeah, and before we
Speaker 1: get to some of those more practical tips, I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we talk about a very big overview,
Speaker 1: sort of more of a philosophical standpoint, which is what
Speaker 1: kind of travel do you like to do. It's a
Speaker 1: question that Kate and I've sort of asked each other
Speaker 1: because we kind of learned how to travel once together,
Speaker 1: Like you know, once we got married, we start traveling more.
Speaker 1: And what we realized is that we like to travel
Speaker 1: the same way we like to live, right, And so
Speaker 1: what that means for us is not necessarily doing super
Speaker 1: tourist these things, uh like museums or tourist attractions, things
Speaker 1: like that, which there's nothing wrong with. I think for
Speaker 1: the longest time, we sort of had this meant this
Speaker 1: notion where we thought that that's what travel is, because
Speaker 1: that's what you see, that's what you see people post
Speaker 1: pictures of, and that's what you hear people talking about,
Speaker 1: is going to a city and going to a tourist attraction. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think it's the way a lot of people approach travel,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. Maybe you're really into museums, you know,
Speaker 1: go find the museums you want to go see. But
Speaker 1: we kind of tend to travel in the same same
Speaker 1: way as you and Kate, and we would prefer to
Speaker 1: find a neighborhood that we enjoy in a place where
Speaker 1: we're going and kind of center our trip around there,
Speaker 1: or maybe a really good brewery. Yeah, the breweries are
Speaker 1: always involved, much to Emily sugrin at times. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're lucky enough to have wise that also enjoy beer
Speaker 1: as well. But yeah, it can't all be about the beer,
Speaker 1: yeah for sure. But you know, there's there's certainly some
Speaker 1: places that we travel where where we make museums a
Speaker 1: higher priority. Like when we went to Florence, Italy, it
Speaker 1: was i priority for us to go see a museum.
Speaker 1: In April, we're going to go to Paris, France, and
Speaker 1: we're going to make it. There's like tons of museums.
Speaker 1: There's like you could fill your whole time with museums,
Speaker 1: but we'll pick one and we'll go to it and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll have fun. But for us, yeah, it's more
Speaker 1: about neighborhood exploring and also natural beauty. So wherever we are,
Speaker 1: we want to see the outsides. Um Like when we
Speaker 1: were in Amsterdam, we wanted to see the tulip gardens.
Speaker 1: There's nothing else like it in the world. You know.
Speaker 1: When we go to Washington State, we want to go
Speaker 1: see Mountaraineer, uh, wherever it is we're traveling, like, we
Speaker 1: want to see that natural beauty thing that that nowhere
Speaker 1: else has that kind of makes this place stand on
Speaker 1: its own. It's kind of unique and every place has
Speaker 1: something like that. So find kind of that that natural
Speaker 1: beauty that you can find on your trip to It's cheap.
Speaker 1: It's it's cheap to find the natural beauty and it's
Speaker 1: out there, and it's cheap to walk around exploring the
Speaker 1: neighbors and we try to do that here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: The other night, Emily and I went on a date
Speaker 1: and what did we do, Well, we went out to dinner,
Speaker 1: but before that, we literally walked around this neighborhood close
Speaker 1: by and we we admired all this beautiful street art
Speaker 1: that we have. We love we love street art. Cabbage Town.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so we just we love street art
Speaker 1: and it was the most beautiful walk. We love the
Speaker 1: street art and the architecture, and so to get to
Speaker 1: walk around that neighborhood before dinner was super cool, so wonderful,
Speaker 1: just walking and talking and enjoying that. I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of what differentiates like a destination where you
Speaker 1: might go to a museum and do some of those
Speaker 1: things and experience culture as opposed to say, going to
Speaker 1: a destination where you live sort of your life that
Speaker 1: you normally do is the maybe like state side versus
Speaker 1: going abroad, right, And I feel like when Kate and
Speaker 1: I when we when we travel, you know, or when
Speaker 1: we travel even with you guys too, and we're state side,
Speaker 1: we try to maintain like our rhythms of our life
Speaker 1: and basically try to picture ourselves in that new location
Speaker 1: and live the way that like we would if we
Speaker 1: live there, which is a lot of times while we
Speaker 1: end up looking at real estate and being like, what
Speaker 1: would be like to live here? You probably go to
Speaker 1: the same coffee shop three days ago, people, I mean literally,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it sounds hipster to say, but we
Speaker 1: try to live like a local versus when you go, say,
Speaker 1: when you're going abroad, do you go to work to
Speaker 1: do you just like show up somewhere and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm here, where's my w two? But yeah, Versus when
Speaker 1: you go abroad somewhere when you're trying to experience a
Speaker 1: new culture, well a lot of that you're wanting to
Speaker 1: a lot of times, but kind of bombards yourself with
Speaker 1: culture and it's not about sort of just sitting around
Speaker 1: and doing what you normally went at home. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: we're here, so let's maybe kind of kind of check
Speaker 1: out some of these these other things. And that might
Speaker 1: be why we really like traveling in the States. So
Speaker 1: I just wanted to mention that because you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think sight seeing and being a tourist is necessarily
Speaker 1: a bad way to travel. I just think there is
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure to do those sort of things,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you go on vacation, because
Speaker 1: that's why people ask you. They're like, oh, did you
Speaker 1: go see the Eiffel Tower? Right, people you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: at you know when when you guys go to Paris.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think one of the biggest things is
Speaker 1: people playing their trip around. What the what a couple
Speaker 1: of websites or a couple of guidebooks tell them to
Speaker 1: do and just what they've always heard because their pop culture,
Speaker 1: well you have to go to the Eiffel Tower or
Speaker 1: you have to do this for that, and they end
Speaker 1: up wasting time and money on certain things like that,
Speaker 1: doing things that they don't even necessarily enjoy. Right. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I haven't been to Paris yet, going in April,
Speaker 1: but you can go have a picnic at the base
Speaker 1: of the Eiffel Tower, which sounds awesome, or you can
Speaker 1: wait in line and pay twenty five dollars or however
Speaker 1: much it is to go up in the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 1: Not only can you have the picnic, he can show
Speaker 1: up at the Bottle of Wine and I did a
Speaker 1: few years ago and lay out a blanket man and
Speaker 1: watch the tower light up at night. Uh like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty sure that's what you guys will be doing.
Speaker 1: And so not only does it save you money, it
Speaker 1: saves you time. I avoid lines like the plague and
Speaker 1: and I so I just don't want to wait in
Speaker 1: line to go up in this tower and pay money
Speaker 1: to do it. But yeah, so I think that's really wharton.
Speaker 1: Make sure you're not just doing what the guidebooks say,
Speaker 1: what everyone else common wisdom says, and actually think about
Speaker 1: how you want to explore a city. And what you
Speaker 1: were saying, Matt, practical tips stay in the US. I
Speaker 1: think that's a really good idea, especially if you're a
Speaker 1: beginning traveler. It's easy to travel in the United States,
Speaker 1: and the diversity of our country is outrageous. There's almost
Speaker 1: no other country with the amount of geographical diversity as
Speaker 1: the United States, and there's so much to explore here
Speaker 1: that can be, like you said, a huge money saver
Speaker 1: to you, because I mean, when you're traveling abroad, one
Speaker 1: of the biggest single expenses is your plane ticket. It's
Speaker 1: just to even get to the place. Not to mention
Speaker 1: any other expenses you're you're gonna incur so passport, all
Speaker 1: the other things that go along with traveling internationally. When
Speaker 1: you can hop in your car, if you can drive eight, ten,
Speaker 1: twelve hours, yeah, that's gonna save you a lot of
Speaker 1: money and explore a few places along the way. You know,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite Do you guys have a favorite place
Speaker 1: in the in the US? Oh? Because I know, I
Speaker 1: know you. You were born in the Pacific Northwest, and
Speaker 1: I know you like it up there. Yeah. So, speaking
Speaker 1: of traveling in the United States, my buddy Travis and
Speaker 1: I who I believe I referred to him on an
Speaker 1: earlier episode. He's the dude that meant his wife right.
Speaker 1: So we did a three month row a trip around
Speaker 1: the US. And I think my favorite spot in the
Speaker 1: United States is the Four Corners region Colorado Utah area.
Speaker 1: That that southern Colorado, northern Utah, part of Arizona right there,
Speaker 1: and Arches and Okay, so that kind of that kind
Speaker 1: of part of the Arches in Zion. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: just some amazing national parks in that in that part
Speaker 1: of the of the world. Yeah. I fell in love
Speaker 1: with it. Just so diverse and different. Um, and the
Speaker 1: natural beauties just epic. So yeah, have you guys been
Speaker 1: to uh Yosemite? No, never been to Yosemite? Man, you
Speaker 1: just wait. Been to Glacier, which, Yeah, Glacier is awesome.
Speaker 1: Uh And I love I mean you mentioned Arches and Zion.
Speaker 1: I've I've been to both of those places. Uh been
Speaker 1: there on a rich with my dad and then Kate
Speaker 1: and I and then a buddy Steve we signed up
Speaker 1: for uh oh and Kate's brother Daniel sign up for
Speaker 1: a half marathon in Moab. So yeah, so it was
Speaker 1: It's called the Canyon Lands Half and talk about lives. Incredible.
Speaker 1: Yea incredible, man. We loved it. I mean most of
Speaker 1: we mostly signed up for that one too, because we're like,
Speaker 1: where can we be inspired to want to actually run that?
Speaker 1: Polace will do it to you. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I would say it's amazing. Uh. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that the United States had sand dunes until I went
Speaker 1: on this trip with my buddy Travis, like at the beach, No,
Speaker 1: like desert sand dunes, like rolling sand dunes for forever. Okay,
Speaker 1: in south eastern California, there's sand dunes as far as
Speaker 1: I can see. It's insane. It's incredible. Like I said,
Speaker 1: the geographical diversity is impressive and you can find something
Speaker 1: for almost any one in the United States. There's the
Speaker 1: Pacific Coast Highway, the the Oregon Coast is crazy and
Speaker 1: rocky and beautiful and kind of cold. Um, there's just
Speaker 1: the vast diversity of our land is incredible, and I
Speaker 1: mean it makes me want to go visit more because
Speaker 1: there's so much I haven't seen. Yet. So when you're
Speaker 1: planning your next trip, consider staying state sized stay in
Speaker 1: the US. It's likely going to be more affordable, and
Speaker 1: there's still a lot to see. You may have seen
Speaker 1: a lot of the US, but I guarantee you haven't
Speaker 1: seen at all. But if you have your eyes set
Speaker 1: on something else, traveling internationally, we're in the golden age
Speaker 1: of traveling internationally right now. The prices have gotten to
Speaker 1: be so cheap. You can fly to France or uh
Speaker 1: Belgium or Germany cheaper than you can fly to a
Speaker 1: lot of rural the rural United States. Now. My mom
Speaker 1: wanted to take my grandma back to visit her hometown
Speaker 1: in Montana. It's like six dollars round trip to get
Speaker 1: to Montana from down here, but you can get to
Speaker 1: Amsterdam for three rounds. It's incredible. I guess that makes
Speaker 1: sense why you can fly from a major city to
Speaker 1: another major city because there's other airlines. There's other players there, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of competition from let's say Atlanta and St. Louis,
Speaker 1: New York, Boston. There's so many airlines flying out of
Speaker 1: each one of those major airports that it creates a
Speaker 1: lot of competition. But once you get to those competitions,
Speaker 1: good for us, right, But once you get some of
Speaker 1: those more minor airports that are a little bit further
Speaker 1: out there, a little more rural, there's almost no competition.
Speaker 1: And so if Delta is the only one flying in there,
Speaker 1: they get to stick it to you that they can
Speaker 1: charge eight hundred dollars su Yeah. So one of the
Speaker 1: things we want to talk about be flexible on your travel.
Speaker 1: Be flexible, not only on your dates. That's huge. You
Speaker 1: know you're gonna want to be flexible on the dates
Speaker 1: you can go. If you can leave on a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: come back on a Tuesday. Uh. If you can be flexible,
Speaker 1: like I don't have to go in June, I can
Speaker 1: go in July August too, that's gonna help you out
Speaker 1: and save you a lot of money when you're shopping
Speaker 1: for flights. Yeah. Be self employeed, man, that's a huge
Speaker 1: bonus to be able to kind of pick and choose
Speaker 1: when you want to take time off. Obviously we don't
Speaker 1: have complete control of everything, but to sort of be
Speaker 1: able to say, all right, well, this is a priority,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and do this and start planning
Speaker 1: on it. So Chalcolin up for being self employed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're also you're gonna want to be flexible on
Speaker 1: your airport. So even where we live, matt it might
Speaker 1: be worth it for us to either drive to another airport.
Speaker 1: At times, we're pretty fortunate we have a lot of competition,
Speaker 1: but sometimes the best international fairs come out of just
Speaker 1: a few cities on the East Coast and on the
Speaker 1: West Coast, and so it might be worth it for
Speaker 1: you to drive or fly to another airport, even on
Speaker 1: a domestic ticket, in order to save money like your
Speaker 1: own layover and then fly out of exactly a Guardia
Speaker 1: or something like that. So like Boston right now has
Speaker 1: some of the best international flight deals, and from Atlanta,
Speaker 1: you can get to Boston for a hundred dollars around trip,
Speaker 1: so it might be worth it to fly to Boston
Speaker 1: and to book your ticket essentially from Boston to Europe
Speaker 1: um and that could save you a lot of money
Speaker 1: over just booking direct from whatever East Coast city you're in.
Speaker 1: One of the main things that will change how much
Speaker 1: you're able to travel is literally just by choosing your
Speaker 1: destination based on where the sale is based on the deal. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So that's what we did. Remember when we went to Ireland. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: prior to Ireland, we had the discussion and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's try to go somewhere because we had just gotten
Speaker 1: back from a trip, and we're just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's would be really fun to go together. And that's
Speaker 1: what kind of got the wheels, that's what got the
Speaker 1: gears started. We're kind of like, where do we want
Speaker 1: to go. Let's go where it's cheap, and Ireland was
Speaker 1: super cheap. A few weeks later, yeah, you we came
Speaker 1: across the deal and and that was before like all
Speaker 1: these mega airfare deals to Europe. We paid five dollars
Speaker 1: and now that's like standard, but back then it wasn't standard.
Speaker 1: That was really really cheap, very cheap. So find the
Speaker 1: deal and then kind of decide why you want to
Speaker 1: go there. And at this point, I've been to six
Speaker 1: continents fortunately, and I wouldn't have been to nearly as
Speaker 1: many if it wasn't for that rule of booking trial
Speaker 1: bole cheaply. I feel like if you do it that way,
Speaker 1: you get to go to twice as many places because
Speaker 1: you're gonna eventually get to the places you want to
Speaker 1: go anyway, you just kind of go with the deals
Speaker 1: unless you there's no reason why you need to be
Speaker 1: in a certain country at a certain time, unless you're
Speaker 1: gonna be there for Twitter fronts or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or otherwise be flexible. Yeah, so be as flexible as
Speaker 1: you can. Man. We almost want to ended up in
Speaker 1: Austin last year, Austin, Texas. Before we got our tickets
Speaker 1: to go up to Boston, we were looking at where
Speaker 1: the deals were, and the tickets to Austin were like
Speaker 1: sixty bucks probably on what like Frontier, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I had pulled up on Google Fights,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, but yeah, it was an amazing deal
Speaker 1: and we almost went there, but we decided nasty because
Speaker 1: it was August and going to Texas in August sounds
Speaker 1: kind of hot. That's a good point. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: So in the end we decided to go up north.
Speaker 1: But we almost ended up in Austin, and we for
Speaker 1: good things about it, but just because there's a deal
Speaker 1: there and I still want to go there, but maybe
Speaker 1: when it's cooler. And by the way, you just mentioned
Speaker 1: Google Flights, that is barn on the best booking engine
Speaker 1: for travel, so Google dot com slash flights, whether you're
Speaker 1: looking domestically or Internet internationally. Uh, that is the best
Speaker 1: site for you to go to. Google has it worked
Speaker 1: out where you can kind of look at this calendar
Speaker 1: of dates and find the best fair. So if you're flexible,
Speaker 1: they make it easy to spot dates that are going
Speaker 1: to be the cheapest for you. And it's just super
Speaker 1: easy to use. So it's by far, I would say
Speaker 1: at this point it's top kayak. It's the best search
Speaker 1: engine for for flights. So Google dot com slash flights.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for tickets, you wanna, yeah, you wanna
Speaker 1: tell folks about Scotts though, Yeah, don't I know you've
Speaker 1: heard of Scott's. Yeah, So Scotch Chief Flights is. You
Speaker 1: need to sign up for it right now. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: So they have a free an a paid version, and
Speaker 1: Scotch Chief Flights is just incredible. Scott's basically mining the
Speaker 1: data on what flights are cheap, and he sends out
Speaker 1: emails a couple of times a week. Uh, and if
Speaker 1: you're the free subscriber, usually get delayed and you don't
Speaker 1: quite get quite as many emails, but essentially just tells
Speaker 1: you you kind of pick the quadrant of the country
Speaker 1: where you fly out of and he sends you the sales.
Speaker 1: He tells you, here's exactly where he's on sale right now. Um,
Speaker 1: and so I'm always seeing great deals to different places.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it takes a lot of restraint on my
Speaker 1: part not to just book like more travel. But but
Speaker 1: plus i'd have to like to make you do more
Speaker 1: babysitting kids. I can only do some of that. So
Speaker 1: much of that, man, whatever, I love your kids. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say to Scott, happen to work at Google. No, No,
Speaker 1: he just started his own note, he started his own business.
Speaker 1: His name Scott Kays and he yeah, he's just like
Speaker 1: brilliant man. Yeah, he's just like a dude. He's just
Speaker 1: a dude. And he's got more people working for him
Speaker 1: now he's notten big enough. But yeah, you should totally
Speaker 1: check that out. Sign up for his emails. Go to
Speaker 1: scotts cheap flights dot com. Uh literally, they're not sponsoring
Speaker 1: the show. They're just fantastic and and we'll link to
Speaker 1: him in the show notes. Scott does an incredible job.
Speaker 1: So if you're kind of on the lookout for cheap airfare,
Speaker 1: that's probably the best resource right now. Um that in
Speaker 1: Google flights. Those are the two things you to know
Speaker 1: when when booking flights. Um. And also of note is
Speaker 1: these new budget airlines from Europe. Wow is one of them.
Speaker 1: In Norwegian is another. Those two airlines are the major
Speaker 1: reason why we're seeing such good airfare to Europe right now.
Speaker 1: You're kind of coming in and undercutting everybody. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: totally in Iceland Air that's another one. And they're just
Speaker 1: they're literally cutting the rates so hard and creating no
Speaker 1: frills airfare service that United in Delta and some of
Speaker 1: these American airlines, some of these other US based airlines
Speaker 1: have had to cut their prices just to compete, just
Speaker 1: to stay relevant. And uh, these guys don't fly out
Speaker 1: of nearly as many airports. Wow doesn't fly out of
Speaker 1: a lot of airports. Yeah, but they're super cheap, as
Speaker 1: as low as you would you trust an airline that
Speaker 1: it's called Wow. It's like, look at that planes in
Speaker 1: the air. Wow. Let's be honest. After United's recent track record,
Speaker 1: I trust Wow. I'm more than I mean. I don't
Speaker 1: want to get my nose bloody. Instead, you busted up
Speaker 1: and drug off the plane. Yeah, so yeah, so wow
Speaker 1: in Norwegian and uh and I will say this podcast
Speaker 1: by to you by United Airline. So consider a budget
Speaker 1: airline that that might be your best bet or a minimum.
Speaker 1: The budget airlines are going to cause the prices to
Speaker 1: go down at airports where they fly out of competition
Speaker 1: is always good. Yeah. So I mentioned Boston, I mentioned
Speaker 1: New York. Those are two cities where while in Norwegian
Speaker 1: or flying up with flying and they're Yeah. So being
Speaker 1: flexible is a huge way to to to save why
Speaker 1: you're traveling and something else we've i mean we've touched
Speaker 1: on it, we've kind of talked around it, but traveling
Speaker 1: with friends is a huge way to cut down the
Speaker 1: costs both domestically. So if you're kind of going on
Speaker 1: a vacation, say just going to the beach like we are,
Speaker 1: or even traveling abroad. We've done that with you guys.
Speaker 1: And you can split a rental car. You can get
Speaker 1: four people in the cars supposed to too. You can
Speaker 1: split in their B and B house so you can
Speaker 1: save money as opposed to get in two hotel rooms
Speaker 1: separately on different trips. You know, you could do some
Speaker 1: more cooking at the house then too, so there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of ways that you can save money if
Speaker 1: you're traveling with friends as opposed to just one or
Speaker 1: two people. Yeah, and it's not really like a huge thing,
Speaker 1: but safety, you know, like if you're just a single,
Speaker 1: like an individual, just kind of traveling on your own,
Speaker 1: like going to some different cities, like you know, you
Speaker 1: may not feel super comfortable and different neighborhoods and different cities.
Speaker 1: But if you've got two other friends with you, or
Speaker 1: there's you know, two couples you've got there's four of
Speaker 1: you total, man, there's nothing to worry about. Sure you
Speaker 1: feel safe for walking around at night, You're less of
Speaker 1: a target, no doubt that being said, I mean, traveling
Speaker 1: with friends may not be for everybody. I mean you
Speaker 1: want to make sure you've got good communication and you
Speaker 1: like set clear expectations maybe as to what like you're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing and things like that. We've been on
Speaker 1: trips before with other friends, not with you. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was with you. I'm not gonna say where. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit attention because you're kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: we wanted to kind of do this, and you guys
Speaker 1: want to do this, and everyone's kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's people I can tell. I can
Speaker 1: tell pretty quickly off the bat, like, you know what,
Speaker 1: they're my friend. I love hanging out with them. I
Speaker 1: don't think they'd be my best travel partner. I don't
Speaker 1: think that our family, my wife and I would travel
Speaker 1: with them in the same way. And like we start
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the episode, we kind of we
Speaker 1: know how you like to travel, and our families like
Speaker 1: to travel in similar ways. We'd like different things, but
Speaker 1: we know we like to travel in a similar fashion.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got similar rhythms. And yeah, yeah, actually
Speaker 1: I was gonna say this early, but I forgot. It
Speaker 1: made me think of you're talking about architecture, you know,
Speaker 1: like walking around Cabbage Town before y'all stay dat night
Speaker 1: or whatever. When Kate and I, I mean, that's one
Speaker 1: of the things we love doing too. When we're up
Speaker 1: in Portland, up in Maine for our anniversary trip, we
Speaker 1: put ourselves on like a self guided architectural tour in
Speaker 1: this one historic neighborhood where like all the early sort
Speaker 1: of settlers in in in Portland is like one of
Speaker 1: the first family neighborhoods, essentially kind of up on this bluff,
Speaker 1: And yeah, we just looked up the history of these
Speaker 1: different homes. Someone had made a pdf. We just drove
Speaker 1: around look up the homes on Zello to know exactly
Speaker 1: which home it was. That's cool. And yeah, we just
Speaker 1: took ourselves on a on a on a self guided
Speaker 1: architectural tour and it was written by architects, so there
Speaker 1: is actual history and notes as to like the style
Speaker 1: and different things like that. You guys would have loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds awesome. It was super cool. I'm all about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love doing that just in my own neighborhood,
Speaker 1: Like I never get tired of looking at the houses
Speaker 1: in our in our nineteen twenties neighborhood. Yes, So, what
Speaker 1: are some more practical, maybe more monetary stuff that we
Speaker 1: can keep in mind when you're traveling, especially when you're
Speaker 1: traveling abroad. So once you've got your ticket booked or whatever,
Speaker 1: you get and want to do a couple of things beforehand,
Speaker 1: because everyone's going to have to use in all likelihood
Speaker 1: credit and debit cards or and also cell phone service,
Speaker 1: and so make sure you have a credit card that's
Speaker 1: got no foreign transaction fees. If you have a credit
Speaker 1: card with Capital One, you'll know automatically. They're the only
Speaker 1: credit card provider that I know of that doesn't charge
Speaker 1: foreign transaction fees on any of their cards. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: if if you've got that in the wallet, use that
Speaker 1: um and if if you don't, be sure to check
Speaker 1: the fine print on your credit card statement and uh
Speaker 1: and or call your credit card company and they will
Speaker 1: let you know. They have to let you know what
Speaker 1: the foreign transaction fee is. But those fees add up.
Speaker 1: I was gonna book our hotel for France and online,
Speaker 1: and you have to think about it even when you're
Speaker 1: doing that. If I I was gonna pull out my
Speaker 1: normal credit card that I use every day, I don't
Speaker 1: use the Capital One card. It's the Internet. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's right here exactly. But then I've thought about
Speaker 1: it for a second and I wait a minute, Yep,
Speaker 1: they're gonna get me on that. It would have been
Speaker 1: an extra almost forty So make sure that you're using
Speaker 1: a credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees because
Speaker 1: that can end up costing you a lot over the
Speaker 1: life of your trip. And if you don't know, like josaid,
Speaker 1: just give him a call because you want to give
Speaker 1: him a call anyways, to give them a heads up,
Speaker 1: to let them know you're going to be traveling abroad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of the times credit cards will
Speaker 1: put a freeze if they see some weird transactions abroad.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, that's not normal behavior and you'll get
Speaker 1: your count shut down. You want to make sure you've
Speaker 1: talked to your credit card before your abroad, before your
Speaker 1: travel in a different country and your credit cards prosen totally,
Speaker 1: because that's a pain. Yeah, all right, And so you
Speaker 1: also want to think about your cell phone service. If
Speaker 1: you have T Mobile or Sprint, they've got some great
Speaker 1: international plans that are completely free. You don't have to
Speaker 1: sign up for anything on top of it. You just
Speaker 1: need to let them know that you're going. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you need to make a change once you get there too,
Speaker 1: uh to how your phone works. But it'll be free.
Speaker 1: You'll get free texting, and you get free data, although
Speaker 1: it's really slow data, and then you'll pay twenty cents
Speaker 1: a minute for phone calls. So that worked out really
Speaker 1: well for me on my last trip um that my
Speaker 1: wife wasn't able to go on and I was able
Speaker 1: to stay in touch with her. Really well on my
Speaker 1: sprint plan with free texting and getting to to check
Speaker 1: some things. Also on this you know, crummy like two
Speaker 1: G style data, but you know what, I was able
Speaker 1: to look things up when I needed to and it
Speaker 1: was really helpful to g. Yeah, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: the AOL dial up from back in the day. I
Speaker 1: just know. I wish it made the sound just for effect.
Speaker 1: But yeah, uh wait, was that the trip that you
Speaker 1: went on without your wife to where? Where did you go? Australia? Australia.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, you went to Australia without your wife
Speaker 1: with a relatively new baby over Thanksgiving. Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's just now forgiving me for this mad don't bring
Speaker 1: it back up. You paid for that one for a
Speaker 1: little bit, did Hey? It was it was a work trip, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, you're lucky enough if you get to go
Speaker 1: on these suite these envious work trips where you get
Speaker 1: to go to some very cool places like Paris come up,
Speaker 1: Paris coming up, But at that time it was Australia,
Speaker 1: all right. So practical things to do once you get
Speaker 1: to your destination, things that will help you enjoy your
Speaker 1: trip more and also spend less money, schedule minimally, that's
Speaker 1: really important. I think people tend to overbook themselves. They
Speaker 1: completely wear out their feet, they get super tired, uh,
Speaker 1: and they end up just totally exhausted back at the hotel,
Speaker 1: completely exhausted. This is something for me, not necessarily the
Speaker 1: overdoing it apart, but just the scheduling part, because I'm
Speaker 1: an efficiency utilitarian man, like everything I do needs, you know,
Speaker 1: my natural tendency is everything I do kind of needs
Speaker 1: to have a purpose, and so I sometimes I have
Speaker 1: a tendency to think that like if I'm not scheduled,
Speaker 1: and if we're not doing something productive or going towards
Speaker 1: the destination, it's waste of time. But what I've learned
Speaker 1: through traveling and figuring out what what I really enjoy
Speaker 1: is that, yes, like having some general goals as far
Speaker 1: as like what you want to hit up today, it
Speaker 1: is good to have. But yeah, Matt ten years ago
Speaker 1: is like hour by hour, yes, and that just gets stressful.
Speaker 1: And I was stressing in Kate out and she wasn't
Speaker 1: having fun. I've learned to slow down a little bit too,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I used to be like, well, if I
Speaker 1: don't see at all then I'm gonna feel like I
Speaker 1: didn't didn't do the trip right. And now I've kind
Speaker 1: of learned to back off and take it easy and
Speaker 1: I don't feel like you've got to go every single place.
Speaker 1: One of one of Kate's rules actually is anytime we're
Speaker 1: traveling and kind of on the move, that we have
Speaker 1: to stay somewhere to nights. Like that's just one of
Speaker 1: her one of her rules. It's like just to make
Speaker 1: sure that you have enough time to kind of get
Speaker 1: settled in a place you know where you're that way,
Speaker 1: you're not just always constantly looking where to go next,
Speaker 1: you know, because like when you're just constantly moving forward
Speaker 1: and not, you know, it can wear on you. You're like,
Speaker 1: all right, where's my next hotel, where's the next restaurant,
Speaker 1: as opposed to if you have a place that you
Speaker 1: know you can go back to because you've been there
Speaker 1: at least one night before. Man, that does so much
Speaker 1: for you just mentally to to not wear you out,
Speaker 1: and and plus it gives you time to get a
Speaker 1: feel for a place, right like picking up the vibes
Speaker 1: of the location of either your airbnb or the little
Speaker 1: town or neighborhood that you're staying in. Having that second night,
Speaker 1: you really get a feel for it. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think spending a lot of time walking in the very
Speaker 1: beginning helps you get a feel for the city, the town,
Speaker 1: wherever you are. If you can and spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time walking around, seeing the site, seeing what's around
Speaker 1: your you in your neighborhood, it kind of helps you
Speaker 1: get an idea of where you want to go and
Speaker 1: where you want to spend your time. Um kind of
Speaker 1: like spatially place yourself, like wherever you are, you kind
Speaker 1: of figure the layout of the city. For me, that's huge.
Speaker 1: I like to like know where I am on a map. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: if i'm I know generally I'm walking towards this direction.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know, we saw that before. That's over
Speaker 1: on this side of town or whatever. Well, and walking
Speaker 1: is free, you know, that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay for it, but you get
Speaker 1: to see so much of what a city or a
Speaker 1: country has to offer is by literally walking the streets
Speaker 1: and being on the ground. So much of the culture
Speaker 1: that is true culture, you know, of of of a
Speaker 1: city is street level. I'm sure you saw that too
Speaker 1: in in Thailand. I remember you talking about the different
Speaker 1: street food that you had and yeah, yeah, you get Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think you get the layout of the city
Speaker 1: and the neighborhoods and stuff like that by walking. But
Speaker 1: you also, yes, you get this eye to eye, you
Speaker 1: get an idea for what life is actually like. We're
Speaker 1: gonna hanging out, your meeting people, you're looking at eye.
Speaker 1: You're kind of seeing the street food, seeing the vendors,
Speaker 1: seeing the shops. And there's something about seeing your the
Speaker 1: city that you're visiting like that the first day or two,
Speaker 1: taking it all in Yeah, helps, I don't know, helps
Speaker 1: connect you to the place where you are. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: walk and riding bikes. Riding bikes is great too, It's
Speaker 1: just you're not You're not going to quite get that
Speaker 1: connection on a bike. Although it's better than it's still
Speaker 1: better than jumping in a cab, say even running a
Speaker 1: train or something like that. Man, I would would still
Speaker 1: much rather bite. So on top of that, when it
Speaker 1: comes to cabs, I think to riding public transportation also
Speaker 1: gives you that instead of taking a cab, taking the
Speaker 1: bus or the train or whatever it is that everyone
Speaker 1: else takes this to the cheaper mode of transportation it's
Speaker 1: going to save you money and also kind of give
Speaker 1: you more of an idea of where you are and
Speaker 1: what other people are doing and what the vibe of
Speaker 1: the city is. Just for instance, in New York City,
Speaker 1: if you land at the airport and you take the
Speaker 1: cab into town versus you know, taking the bus to
Speaker 1: the subway, Uh, you're going to spend a lot more
Speaker 1: money and you're not gonna get a vibe. There's like
Speaker 1: something super New York about riding the subway. Or when
Speaker 1: I was in Shanghai riding their subway, there's something like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I could have hopped in a taxi
Speaker 1: and probably gotten there a few minutes quicker, but I
Speaker 1: would have missed a huge part of the experience. You
Speaker 1: get to see all the folks, You get to smell
Speaker 1: the smells of all the different people. Would be like
Speaker 1: pressed up again against the glass and it's like uper crowded.
Speaker 1: In Asia, man, they're just like literally shoving people on.
Speaker 1: It's impressive. It really is a crossing the canal on
Speaker 1: the boat for like fifty cents or whatever it was
Speaker 1: in in Shanghai, it was amazing and you're you're like
Speaker 1: literally sandwiched in between all these people, but for fifty cents, man,
Speaker 1: there's no cheaper way to get across. And that's all
Speaker 1: part of the experience, the different modes of transportation. Actually,
Speaker 1: I mean that makes me think of New York as well.
Speaker 1: Like Kate and I have arrived into New York City. Well,
Speaker 1: she's not two different ways, No, I've been it three
Speaker 1: different ways. The very first time I arrived in New
Speaker 1: York City, me and my buddy Kyle, we drove north
Speaker 1: of the city, and then we took the train down
Speaker 1: into the city, and then we arrived in Grand Central.
Speaker 1: So like literally the first experience of New York City
Speaker 1: was arriving in Times Square. Well first Grand Central station,
Speaker 1: but then taking that up to Times Square and having
Speaker 1: arrived by train. Super cool, right, and then he went
Speaker 1: to Guy Fieri's restaurant, right yeah, uh, right, before we
Speaker 1: went to the eminem Store. Not really but but yeah,
Speaker 1: but then before that, you know, we'd flown in and
Speaker 1: arrived at playing But then this last time, Kitten, I
Speaker 1: went up, Kid and I, uh, we drove up. We
Speaker 1: stopped and visited uh some friends on the way, and
Speaker 1: we parked at Staten Island, and then we took the
Speaker 1: ferry across, which was another completely different way to take
Speaker 1: in the city. You know, like literally we're you know,
Speaker 1: taking the ferry to Manhattan at sunset, like at dusk
Speaker 1: and man just talking like so much of the different
Speaker 1: experiences are involved transportation, involved sort of local transportation. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the transportation is not just the way to get you somewhere.
Speaker 1: It is part of the experience, part of the culture,
Speaker 1: and treat it like that because you know how that is,
Speaker 1: like in your city, that's probably part of your culture too,
Speaker 1: and it is where we live to it's usually it's
Speaker 1: just an awful mode, which is sitting in traffic in
Speaker 1: a car, But in a lot of cities that's a
Speaker 1: huge part of of the culture and how you get
Speaker 1: around because that's a large part of a lot of
Speaker 1: people's days. So take that into account and try to
Speaker 1: save money on how you get around. And also that's
Speaker 1: also going to be the way that most common folks
Speaker 1: get around, so you get kind of an idea of
Speaker 1: how the locals live. Another way to get an idea
Speaker 1: of how the locals live, there's a couple of apps
Speaker 1: now where you can kind of get guides from actual locals,
Speaker 1: and there's one that I would tell people to check out.
Speaker 1: It's called a cool cousin. So check that out app
Speaker 1: out And there's people that in cities all over the
Speaker 1: world now on that app that live in that city
Speaker 1: and love that city and kind of tell you what
Speaker 1: their favorite things are to do in that city. So
Speaker 1: check that one out and be friendly. Get to know people,
Speaker 1: and know a little bit about the history of the
Speaker 1: place you're visiting. And if it's uh a foreign country,
Speaker 1: know a few of the words um, just so you
Speaker 1: can at least try at least trying to reach out
Speaker 1: in their tongue. Um. Just knowing a few words, a
Speaker 1: few phrases gives the person you're talking to a sense
Speaker 1: that you're trying and that you care and that you
Speaker 1: came there too, not just be a tourist, but to
Speaker 1: understand their culture. And that goes a long long way,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have a much better experience if the
Speaker 1: people you're dealing with no that you care a little bit.
Speaker 1: So yet again, I have had all my beer and
Speaker 1: you're still swirling ears over there. I like to uh,
Speaker 1: I'm patient. I'm a patient sipper. Hey, I like to
Speaker 1: save your mind as well. But you didn't have any
Speaker 1: water for me to drink. Sorry, my throat sounds all
Speaker 1: all gunky. I'm a crappy host and everyone knows it now. No,
Speaker 1: I like recording over here. Normally we record over at
Speaker 1: my place, but coming over here, I got to get
Speaker 1: on the bike and right over in the nice music,
Speaker 1: cool evening wakes me back up. Lovely, lovely night tonight.
Speaker 1: We always record at night, in case you folks were wondering, Well,
Speaker 1: so I feel like we all as would be Alky's
Speaker 1: if we were doing this at nine am, I think so.
Speaker 1: I thought about that. It's ten am here on Wednesday morning.
Speaker 1: We're cracking open a beer. But the hop slam. It's fantastic,
Speaker 1: just as good as ever. Yeah, I'm kind of I
Speaker 1: was kind of worried going back to it because we've
Speaker 1: had such wonderful I p A since then, especially some
Speaker 1: I pas that were different style. But man, it still
Speaker 1: stands up. It's kind of refreshing to have something in
Speaker 1: that old school I p A style too, that we
Speaker 1: don't really do very often. Yeah, it doesn't feel it
Speaker 1: doesn't even though it's kind of it has that malt
Speaker 1: backbone to it. It doesn't taste as heavy as some
Speaker 1: of the some of the new New England style. I
Speaker 1: p a s that are a little more juicy hazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so but like it. I like it too.
Speaker 1: Bell's hop Slam. Will U have a picture for you
Speaker 1: in the link to the untapped profile um on our website. Alright, jel,
Speaker 1: So let's do a little quick recap then for folks,
Speaker 1: because we've kind of talked a lot about practical stuff,
Speaker 1: but then we also talked more of like the philosophical
Speaker 1: stuff early on in the podcast, and I want to
Speaker 1: make sure we tied up a nice little bow. First off,
Speaker 1: before you start planning your next trip, think about how
Speaker 1: you want to explore a city. Think about how you
Speaker 1: like to travel, and just make sure you take that
Speaker 1: into account when you're booking your travel, when you're considering
Speaker 1: where you want to go, and think about what you
Speaker 1: actually enjoy doing as well. If you're scheduled to do
Speaker 1: a bunch of things that you don't ever normally do
Speaker 1: when you're at home, well you may not enjoy doing
Speaker 1: all those things just because they're in a different city
Speaker 1: or a different country. Yeah, travel the way you want
Speaker 1: to travel, and don't let the guide books and the
Speaker 1: fancy blog posts about certain towns sway you and exactly
Speaker 1: how you need to attack that attack that visit. Uh,
Speaker 1: go at it a your pace and the way you
Speaker 1: like to travel. Also, consider staying in the United States.
Speaker 1: There's so much to explore here in our own country,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't consider traveling around the
Speaker 1: United States where you can get a cheap plane ticket
Speaker 1: or hop in your car and drive eight hours and
Speaker 1: explore a completely different terrain. They don't think that that's
Speaker 1: really travel and they decided to book a trip to
Speaker 1: Europe instead. And Europe's awesome, But consider saving a bunch
Speaker 1: of money. You can want more trips. They have a
Speaker 1: ton of money, and you can. You can see completely
Speaker 1: different cultures and completely different terrains by traveling in our
Speaker 1: country while relatively still staying in your own backyard and
Speaker 1: get to know that first. Maybe before you might need
Speaker 1: a translating device if you go to New Orleans still,
Speaker 1: but uh, yeah, it's it's awesome. I love traveling this country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sort of going along with that. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest things is being flexible, whether that means being flexible
Speaker 1: with your dates or being flexible with like your location. Right,
Speaker 1: you wanna see where the deals are, and if there's
Speaker 1: a deal saying in a city you've never heard of
Speaker 1: but it sounds kind of interesting, consider it. Man, that
Speaker 1: might be one of the one of the best vacations
Speaker 1: you've ever taken. And obviously, if you have flexibility when
Speaker 1: it comes to dates, you can find a really good deal. Yes,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening everyone. Our home on the
Speaker 1: web is how to money dot com. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check it out. We'll have our show notes up there
Speaker 1: for you, and don't forget to hit the subscribe button
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this show.
Speaker 1: Until next time, Buddy, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.