With Memorial Day just colse to the corner, our thoughts often drift to taking a few days off from work for a much deserved vacation. If you are lucky sufficient to enjoy the advantage of paid vacation days from your employer, you should right on consider them part of your total payment package and take them each year. You should pay extra concentration to whether they expire at the end of the year, and if they do, you should certainly take them before they expire. Letting them lapse is the same thing as leaving free money on the table.
With that being said, using vacation days can be a double-edged sword. Most vacations end up costing a lot of extra money that could otherwise significantly help reach our longer term goals.
MISSIONS TRIPS TO AFRICA
I've compiled a list of suggestions to use your vacation days in less expensive, yet still very enjoyable, ways.
1. Stay Home
At first glance, this might sound like a lame suggestion, but it certainly might be the best one on the list! Tell everybody (friends, family, and coworkers) that you will be out of town
and unreachable (maybe you are camping in the mountains or something??). Do a big grocery shopping run, go home, lock the door and spend a cozy week enjoying yourself in your very own house! Turn off your cell phone and unplug your land line. Sleep in late... Take long baths... Have movie marathons and game nights with your spouse/family... Eat junk food and stay up late. Simply relax - you deserve it!
2. Give Back
If you are charitably inclined, there may be many sharp opportunities for you to spend your vacation days helping those population who are more in need than you. You won't spend your time relaxing, but you will have an enriching, rewarding contact and you may have the chance to turn someone's whole life for the great Simply by volunteering during your vacation days.
If there is a cause that's leading to you (i.e. Katrina Survivors, Aids in Africa, Poverty in India), start researching the organizations that are providing relief to those population affected by the issue. Many organizations will be able to direct you as to the best way to volunteer your time. Often, if you are volunteering, you will be able to derive free or dramatically low-cost housing for the duration of your stay. Additionally, your church or community society may be willing to sponsor a portion of your tour to the region. Sometimes churches and school groups fabricate whole "mission" trips that focus on addressing some of these causes.
A less dramatic version of this idea is to contact a local soup kitchen, hospital, animal shelter or boys and girls club and volunteer your services for the week.
3. Vacation in Boston (or the city where you live)
Obviously, this is only a good deal if you live in the Boston area and can stay at your own house! We are so lucky to live in a place that population from all over the world want to visit, but it is so easy to take all of that for granted. Have you visited all of the great attractions and sites that this city has to offer? Personally, I've lived here my whole life and I can think of some places I have not been (the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, the new Ica and the Museum of African American History, for example). With a tiny research, it's easy to find ways to visit local attractions for free or for very tiny cost.
For example, visit the fabricate for modern Art on Thursday evenings for Target's Free Thursday Nights from 5:00 - 9:00 pm (icaboston.org). The Museum of African American History has a suggested donation of only .00 (afroammuseum.org). The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum welcomes all those named "Isabella" free anytime! (Otherwise, admission is for adults - gardnermuseum.org). I highly recommend visiting your local communal library to examine about any free passes you could borrow to local museums and other attractions for the day. Look online - you may be surprised how reasonable it can be to contact the local attractions you've all the time wanted to visit.
4. Work on a Life-Long Goal/Project
If you have a week to spare but tiny cash to spend, think about those goals and projects you have all the time hoped to accomplish. Have you all the time wanted to get in great shape? Spend the week establishing a certainly great exercise routine. Could your living room use a bolder color? Spend the week painting and reorganizing your furniture. Do you have a favorite author or topic you'd like to learn more about? Go to the library and borrow a consolidate of books you have been meaning to read, head to the beach or local park with a blanket and picnic lunch and curl up with your book in the sunshine.
5. Go Camping
The greatest reasonable vacation is camping. Although, you should be careful, since even camping can get pricey if you don't plan well. Your least high-priced option will be avoiding secret campgrounds and planning to stay at a National Park. You can normally drive your car to the campsite, which will be clean and level, set up a tent and enjoy all from a campfire to a hike in the local area trails.
To certainly save some money, try to get colse to purchasing new camping gear for your trip. If you don't already have a tent, ask colse to and see if you can borrow one from a friend or a family member. If necessary, however, I've noticed that tents at Target, for example, are as reasonable as .00. Also, check Craigslist.org to see if anything is getting rid of any camping gear that you could have for free or for very low cost.
6. Spend the Week at a Local Beach
People tour from everywhere to enjoy the New England beaches in the summertime. We are so lucky to live within driving length from these fabulous beaches. It would be lots of fun to spend the week at your closest beach, enjoying the sun, water and snack shop fare. If you pick a beach that is close to your home, you can sleep in your own bed and then drive over to the beach each day. If you would rather take communal transportation each morning, there are a few fabulous options. You can take the Red Line to Jfk/Umass and visit Carson Beach. Revere Beach on the Blue Line has undergone many improvements over the past consolidate of years and is a gorgeous option with a boardwalk atmosphere. If you are finding to tour a bit farther, you can take the Amtrak Downeaster to Old Orchard Beach in Maine from Boston. It appears to be .00 each way, but could make for a nice, fairly inexpensive, day trip during your vacation!
7. Make a Plan Before You Go
If you have read straight through the above suggestions, but still want more of a accepted vacation, there are abundance of ways to do so less expensively than you normally would. The best idea is to put in quite a bit of planning before you head off on your trip. It's too easy to book the flight and hotel only and plan to select your activities when you arrive at your destination. The problem is that usually, when you arrive at your destination, you are already in "vacation mode" and you are more apt to spend money less carefully. How easy is it to say "we are on vacation - we deserve it!"?
If you put in the time before you leave to think about those things that you would like to do, you can do some study online and find ways to do the things you want to do less expensively. I recommend doing all from production supper reservations, booking tours and activities, to planning definite days to relax and do nothing. The more time that you leave unplanned before you leave, the more money you are likely to spend. A great hint is beginning with a whole budget tour guide such as Lonely Planet's Usa & Canada on a Shoestring. Plus, if you plan and study before you go, you don't have to worry or think about anything while you are away and you can Simply enjoy your vacation - you deserve it!
8. Shop colse to for the Best Deals
Before you even book your trip, you can save significantly by shopping colse to for the best vacation deals. These days, we are all well-known with the major reduction tour sites, like expedia.com, orbitz.com and travelocity.com. Those sites are fabulous places to start. Sometimes if you look for a package deal, such as purchasing your airfare and hotel together, you can save quite a bit (however, be sure to price them out separately as well, just in case they are cheaper on their own!).
There is other aid out there that not many population know about. A website called Travelzoo.com publishes the "Travel Zoo Top 20" every Wednesday at roughly 11:15am. If you visit the website, you can subscribe to receive the tour Zoo Top 20 by e-mail. Each week, the business finds the best tour deals colse to and includes them in their list. The deals are anything from packaged vacations, to cruises, to car rentals, and are normally difficult to beat. If you see something you like, you need to be willing to move speedily as most of the deals sell out very shortly after the list is published. It's a great e-mail to subscribe to if you are somewhat flexible with your tour plans and you are Simply finding for a great deal on a vacation!
9. consider Hostelling
Especially if you are a young person, hostelling can be a wonderful, reasonable and enriching way to see the world. The hostel culture seems to be most active in Europe, but there are hostels all colse to the world, even right here in Massachusetts! A hostel is a less high-priced alternative to a hotel. The most common situation will be one in which you are staying in a room with other population that you don't know (however, it is most often possible to get a secret room for an additional fee). Hostel fees go down based on the estimate of population in the room, so you could stay in a room with some other population and pay very tiny money for your stay. You will normally have access to lockers in which to keep any valuables, and you should call ahead to see if you will need to bring your own sheets. Hostelling can be a great chance for you to save some money, but also to meet new friends from all colse to the world! It is possible to find hostels that are family oriented, but hostels are most often geared to singular people, couples, or groups of friends. Check out hostelworld.com to learn all about the hostel culture and to find one that suits your needs.
10. Take Your Vacation Off-Season
If there is a place you have all the time wanted to visit, consider doing so slightly before or after the "season" begins. There are so many benefits to doing so. You will avoid all the crazy crowds, and you can often negotiate a significantly lower rate than you would normally be charged. Some examples would be trying southern Maine or Alaska in early May or at the end of the season or Florida during the summer. The same idea would apply to staying places during the "off-peak" time of the week. If a definite location is most favorite during the weekends, try staying Monday straight through Thursday. Your best bet is to look for bed and breakfasts, inns and independently owned hotels, as they will normally be more willing to negotiate the rates with you than the larger hotel chains would. This is also a great hint if you are planning a weekend getaway at the last minute. A small hotel or inn that is not full might be willing to cut you a deal if you call them Friday morning and they are not yet full for that weekend, especially if you are calling during an off-peak time of year. The down-side is that some of the quarterly attractions might be terminated and the weather might be less than exquisite for that area, but it's a great option to see an area for far less money.
Please reply and let me know your own tips for using your vacation days less expensively. I'd love to hear them!
Less high-priced Ways To Use Your Vacation Days MISSIONS TRIPS TO AFRICA
No comments:
Post a Comment