Getting Creative with Vacation Plans #227

and stuff like that in school. So obviously, um, we're feeling that less now that school has been out, but like we went almost the entire spring without school being in session. But now we're also seeing how it's affecting our summer travels, how we vacation. And so I'm excited that we're talking about this topic here in the middle of summer to hopefully give our listeners some different idea, some some out of the box ways to think about

how they should go about taking their time off. Yeah, especially like you said, because of COVID, it's gonna have to change how we take our time off. And we still think it's important for people to take time off, you know, and so we'll talk about that too. But yeah, before we get to that, Matt, I wanted to to let you know I had a rental property. One of my rental properties just recently come up. One of my tenants is buying a home just just for the Yeah.

I love it when my tenants stay in the neighborhood. It's kind of so fun. I see him around jogging or at a restaurant when we go to restaurants again someday. How far away are they moving from that house? So I think it's just just over a mile, not far. Okay, not bad, I've got your beat. I had to send it at one of our houses close by, and they moved literally four houses away. They purchased the house that was right around the corner from the rental, which totally

the same thing, same sort of mentality. It made me so happy that they love the neighborhood so much. And of course they probably saw that house and knew about it because they're just out for a walk. I saw the sign in the front yard, like, oh, I can stay in the neighborhood. Known something. It makes me feel good about the house and about the neighborhood as well, and I'm glad just to see that they're still kind of in the neighborhood, you know, being a part of it,

investing in the neighborhood to make Atlanta better. Yeah, I completely agree. But I had to go through the relisting process right and find some new tenants and a couple of things. One I got poison ivy while I was trying to do the weeding in the front yard. I still see the scabs on your arms. Dude, It's terrible. I'm so susceptible to poison ivy. I really got to stop digging around in the yard like that, or you

just need to get better at recognizing it. Do or wearing long sleeves no matter what when I'm doing that stuff. But yeah, I get it so bad. It was ridiculous with some like chin on my arms on my legs. So yeah, I'm gonna watch out for that next time. But I also I learned something else besides the dangerous of playing in poison ivy. I learned that Zillo is now charging landlords to list their property. Yes they are.

They're charging ten bucks per week every time you need to realist a property and up until this point in time, it's been free to list your property, and so I've constantly used Zillo. I've had a great experience. I always been able to find good tenants. They end up dispersing that listing to a bunch of other websites where where people look, including hot pads and Trulia, And so I'm I'm kind of frugal, right, maybe borderline cheap, And so I figured I would run an experiment. What if instead?

I've heard people having good results from posting their rental property on Facebook yard sale, So I figured I'd give that a shot. I had plenty of time, I had a nice window of two months to find a new tenant, and so I held off on posting on Zillo and I just posted on Facebook yard sale and crickets. I didn't get anybody reaching interest, no interest at all, nobody inquiring about touring the home. So yeah, I let that

run for a couple of weeks and got nobody. And so I realized, all right, I'm not to buy the bullet, pay the ten bucks for a week and hop on Zillo. Dude, instantaneous emails, It's like turning this picket on. It's completely worth the ten bucks. I had ten showings over basically essentially one morning and one person in an afternoon. And so yeah, over just two hours of showing them home, had all these people coming in found a great tenant.

So for all the landlords out there who are trying to figure out where to list your properties, now that Zillo cost money, maybe Facebook yard Tale will work out for you. It didn't for me. I ended up having to pay the ten bucks. But ten bucks for a week when you're talking about finding a great tenant and being out there in front of as many potential tenants

as possible, that's small potatoes. That's a price worth thing. Yeah, more than anything, I feel like what it does is it kind of removes from the clutter because the problem with Zillo and a lot of these listing services is that folks would just leave their properties up there and it just clutters the results. And so folks who are looking for properties, they're kind of spinning their wheels on chasing after these properties that aren't even available, or or

ones that aren't actual listings. They're just I don't know why they're up there, but people leave listings up there's fake listings everywhere, But it cuts the clutter, you know, and so like I'm more than happy to pay ten bucks a week. I mean, like, what's two three weeks like thirty bucks? You know, like even two months eighty bucks? Eighty bucks is nothing to find a really qualit city tendant if that's how long it takes. And I really was able to do it in only weeks, so I

only had to pay with ten bucks. So well, some unsolicited advice, if you've got that many inquiries in one day, maybe you need to like raise the price a little bit there. Well, I will say supply and demand, Tolmie. That's a good point. But out of all the responses I got and the ten people touring, only one person wanted to sign on the dotted line. So I think I did kind of hit the sweet spot, I think, so,

I think so yeah, But I think I agree. Zillo is great because they push out their listenings to hot pads to truly as some of these other companies that they own, they all source from Zillo. And Zello is great too, man, because when you log into as a property manager, they save your account and so you just all you have to do is log back in, you reactivate that account, and so from a landlord perspective, it's great for that reason. At the other end of the

spectrum of what we would not recommend you doing is Craigslist. Craigs. This is the worst, dude. Not only do you have to create that listing every single time, but I have never had a serious applicant uh for a property through Craigslist. And you're listing is always it ripped off on Craigslist, you know, like some scammer will uh will rip your photos, steal your copy, create a new listing for like five cheaper, and it will have have a different, different headline, so

it's not easy to find. But I've had folks show up to the property before while I'm showing it to two folks who have contacted via the real listing, and they're like, Hey, is this the house for seven? I'm like, oh no, no, no, it's uh where did you see this? There's a huge problem with those scams listening. And I think Craigslist is charging for some listings now too, I think potentially even for rental properties. I know they are

probably to clean up all their listings. Yeah, and I know they are when you're when you're listing like a car for sale. So yeah, that's another thing. If you're gonna pay money, your money is better spent on a service where everybody's flocking, you know that you're actually gonna find the most potential tenants. Definitely. Yeah, heads up for all the landlords out there. All right, let's mention the

beer that we're having on this show today. We're drinking a beer called Finnizy Swamp Thing by Savannah River Brewing Company. This was sent to us by listener Jeff and Matt. This beer comes out of your hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Another one from Savannah Brewing Company. Yeah, so this one's called Finnizy Swamp Thing, Fantasy Fantasy, that's how we say it. Well, so, yeah, you mentioned right before we we started recording that that's a local swamp and Augusta. Have you been there? Yeah,

so it's a swamp. And you know what's funny is that I know that name because there are some kids in my high school and they named their band Fantasy. What's a good name. Yeah, pretty good name. I think they're kind of going with a jam band kind of feel. I was gonna say, emo, Oh yeah, we weren't quite in that emo era just yet. But no, I actually

have never been to that swamp before. And I was looking at some pictures online, and we're planning a trip to Augusta pretty soon here, and that might be another fun, little little day trip, you know, other than visiting family, of course, but getting out and seeing a cool local destination, like a like a cool swamp like that. That might sound boring to some folks, but mayeah, let's right up my alley. So wherever you go all the swamps. I got a little swamp checklist. You would have visit all

the swamps in off Ffty states. I wouldn't put it a past youre alright. But Matt actually brings us perfectly to the topic that we're going to discuss on the show today, getting creative with vacation ideas. And obviously COVID has changed summer planes for so many people, and it's time to get creative if you have hopes of having a decent little vacation. Uh, so many people have had

their previously planned vacation canceled all together. Right, my neighbors, they were supposed to go to Italy to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary in early April Italy. That of course didn't pan out. Yeah, that's when things were the worst, especially Italy. Yeah. So and then we go to Italy and the hit up Spain. Oh not the time for that. Yeah, and we had travel experts. Scott kais on a recent episode

to discuss refunds and the safety of air travel. But getting on an airplane to travel while actually being decently safe still isn't something many people want to do. So we're going to explore some creative options for summer travel that will be fun and also super affordable. That's what

we're going to get into today. Yeah. I mean, you know, the CEO of Airbnb, you know, he said that travel will never be the same again, that it'll never get back to the way that it was pre COVID, And you know, I appreciate what he's saying, although I'm not completely convinced that he's right. Uh. He also mentioned how more people aren't getting on planes and flying to you know, the different touristy cities, but instead are getting in their

cars and driving too smaller cities and outdoor destinations. This is one trend that I hope really sticks, because like, this is the type of travel that really resonates with me. But either way, you might already have a week off from work that you have planned, and it's important to still take that time off. Like we mentioned earlier, even if your plans may have changed due to COVID, don't abandon that vacation altogether. Instead, we would recommend you to

get creative. Yeah, man, we we recently talked about avoiding burnout and how close to half of stressed out employees avoid taking time off of work in order to kind

of be seen as a quote unquote work martyr. But the studies show that this is actually a bad thing, right, and it tends to lead more towards occupational burnout and potentially even clinical depression not taking time off from work, especially considering the incredibly stress environment COVID is created for so many people, so many individuals, so many families too. It's a recipe for higher stress levels and lower levels

of productivity. So really we need breaks, and in particularly in a high stress season, we need breaks even more than we typically do. So I think for foregoing a vacation in is an even worse idea than it typically is. Yeah, man, I couldn't agree more. And so, you know, what does it look like? To think creatively when your travel plans abroad are canceled. Some folks may not feel comfortable getting

out of town and going on vacations. So what we would recommend for folks to do is to start with small ways to to make their summer and their time off feel a bit more special. Think through some new traditions or special treats that you wouldn't normally you know, participated, or that you wouldn't normally buy. So, for example, U there are several neighbors nearby that have purchased these outdoor

movie screens. Basically, it's like this giant white screen and you know, you're able to project a movie or you know, project TV on there. I'm not even kidding. Two houses down on one side of me, uh, they've got one set up. Four houses down on the other side they've got one set up as well, and you can kind of hear the movie at night. It's kind of cool.

But I don't think these are things that our neighbors would have done if it weren't for COVID, right, Like, instead, they would normally be off traveling somewhere, but instead they're looking to find ways to make home a little more fun. Because they know they're they're kind of stuck at home a little bit, at least for the time being. Yeah, my coworker Kim, bought some sort of projector that is about the size of this beer can actually, and she

said it's great. They're watching movies outside all the time. She's got this decent sized above ground pool. They'll hang out in the pool and watch a movie night, yeah, which is pretty great. So, yeah, those are the kind of things right the outside of the box thinking that it really takes to make sure you're able to create some fun memories. This summer, Matt, we bought like this inflatable pool that we sit in the front yard and

I've I've played in it, I know you have. And we've got a slide and the girls just pour water down it. I've slid down it, and it's just so fun. We break out the beach chairs, we pop open the umbrella. We kind of make it feel like we went to a destination. It costs almost no money, and we get so much use out of something like that. Just every

time we set it up. We're playing it for you know, three or four days in a row, and it's kind of become this mainstay, right, This staycation fun creative way to to enjoy summer together when we're just not going nearly as many places. Yeah, Plus we've gotten so much rain lately. I bet that thing's overflowing if you just leave it out for a little bit and gets that fresh water in there, the fresh rain of brain water.

But yeah, that's an example I feel like of you're sticking to the same location, but you're you're basically changing your mindset, You're changing how you're viewing your time at home, and that's got to be probably the most affordable way to make it feel like vacation even though you're not really going anywhere and you do. Another option too, is like just the technology that we have at our fingertips. Right.

I'm not talking about, you know, going down to Google Rabbit trail of of dumb stuff, but like different local companies are hosting free guided tours of city landmarks. Uh, the Museum of Natural History they're doing Facebook Live. There are different virtual VECSE and guided experiences EA tourism that folks are doing, you know. Or if you want even more skin in the game, you can even look into

getting something like a masterclass membership. I was looking on there and you can learn how to do some Texas style barbecue from Aaron Franklin. You've heard of Franklin's barbecue. He's the master. I want to go to Franklin so bad. But like, there's some big time folks on their Natalie Portman's doing acting has a whole course on acting. I saw Danny Elfman that kind of dove into it a little more. Danny Elfman, have you heard of him? He's

a composer. I know the name. You know him because he does a lot of the soundtracks for Tim Burton movies. So how cool would it be to sit through a course, you know of all these classes where he just dives into you know, what goes into his process and how you can kind of think through that. Super fascinating. I find that really interesting. Yeah, that's that sounds awesome. Man. That sounds like kind of a fun thing to participate

in to check out. Plus, I want you to level up your your your meat smoking game out there on the front port I gotta get better at that. I mean, you know, I'm I'm I'm hitting like doubles right now, but I want to hit a home run at some point. You can do that with Aaron Franklin. But most of us are probably sick of sitting in front of our screens on zoom calls. So so maybe learning about stuff online it's probably not what you have in mind. Yeah,

virtual vacation isn't something that sounds appealing to me at all. Yeah, it's not idea. I don't want to do that. Right, Maybe I'll think a master class, but that's that's not my idea of a creative vacation idea. Right, So, if you are looking to take some time off, you'll likely want to get out of the house some So you're gonna need to look to getting creative exploring locally. And so later on we're gonna talk about taking a bigger

trip and what that might look like. But first let's get into kind of stay cations and how you can maximize your off time, your downtime near where you actually live. We'll get to that right after the break. All right, man, we are back from the break, and we're talking essentially right now about stay cations. Right, we're talking about getting

creative with your summer vacation ideas. Uh, and we're gonna talk about starting basically hyper local, right, one of the best things that we've been able to discover is how many great destinations that we have that are within our neighborhoo in our part of Atlanta. You know, we've always enjoyed, uh, this little local quote unquote farm that we can easily walk to. It's actually between your house and my house.

But when you can't or you don't want to visit a more typical destination that might be a bit crowded, having spots like this to explore, Man, they are amazing and they've really been priceless during this difficult times, during this pandemic. Yeah, we've enjoyed hitting up some spots that we normally hit up, but at the same time, we've kind of challenged ourselves to get even more creative and to explore locally places that we we haven't even thought

to look at yet. And we've uncovered some hidden gems right that we basically we missed until COVID hit and we found the need to to think more outside of the box and do some more digging into places that we could go to have some fun. And I kind of had like this small list going of nearby places

that I wanted to explore, and because of COVID. It's gotten longer and longer as I've heard from from more people, cool things to do, you know, around town, and we've actually been able to put some of a dent in it. Because of social distancing and and our normal calendar being completely upended, we've been able to enjoy some really cool spots around Georgia and in particular around Atlanta that we otherwise like just probably would have avoided or wouldn't have

thought about. Yeah, man, you know, COVID it's forced us out of sort of like our typical routines, right, like the routines and the ruts that we often find ourselves in. Uh. For example, if it wasn't for COVID, like we wouldn't know about this this tiny little nature preserve where like there's all sorts of wildlife, there's beavers, all sorts of other birds that you don't normally see like find around the houses. Um, and you can also go there and

you can pick blackberries and figs. Man, it's amazing. But you know, maybe you're listening to this and like that's not something that you have, and so for you, maybe that's just getting out and exploring a local park in your neighborhood, but just challenging yourself to to look beyond what you would normally do because that's essentially what you've always done, or you know, that's what all the other families in the neighborhood do, or that's what your friends do.

I do feel like this is one rare bright spot of COVID is that it's forced us out of our normal routines. Yeah, for so many people, it's just opened their eyes into how much stuff is really in dobly local to where they are, how many experiences that are free or cheap that they can easily partake in and that they don't have to travel very far to enjoy.

I know that's been the case for us, Like there are so many things so we've been able to find out about and enjoy in large part because we've been forced to and so and that's been kind of Yeah, I agree. One of the one of the highlights, one of the perks. Yeah, one more I'm thinking of two is that like we were going to go together as a family to the state park, which is maybe for some folks kind of like, uh, not an ordinary thing to do, but for us we love state parks. But

we got there and it was closed. This is like early on during COVID when everything was shut down. All the state parks were closed in Georgia. And even that allowed us to kind of look outside what we normally do, which is instead of going to like a state park, we kind of went to this park that we've always kind of seen from the road. Uh it's on Pons Daily, on like one of the major roads in Atlanta, and dude,

it's one of our favorite parks. Now. It's got like bridges and creeks and these huge, massive trees that have fallen across the creek that the girls are able to walk across on. There's like this giant field for dogs to run around in if you've got a dog. But like, even that was able to allow us to kind of look outside what we would normally do and kind of expand our horizons a little bit. And now we've got this favorite park that's even closer than some of these

other bigger state parks. Yeah. That's awesome, man. So yeah, I definitely want to recommend people consider hyper local things nearby where you are, but also to you know, some people will want to explore even further, and in particular to take a vacation, right sometimes it feels like you've got to get out of town in order to be able to enjoy that. And maybe you just don't have as many cool spots near where you live, and so you feel an even greater need to hop in the car.

And you know what, driving is actually looking pretty attractive these days for a couple of reasons. One, gas prices, right, gas prices are so cheap right now. Obviously air fare has been pretty cheap right now too, especially for domestic travel. But of course there are obvious reasons to potentially avoid airplanes right now. But gas prices being inexpensive means that taking a trip likely won't cost you all that much,

at least in fuel expenses. Right So, on average, the price of gasoline per gallon is close to what it was in two thousand five right now, Matt haven't been this low and fifteen years. Man, it's pretty incredible. Yeah, So for people looking to get out on the road, I think the ultra low gas prices should be that extra kick in the pants to kind of make that

trip happen. Yeah. Plus, the more folks that you load up in your car, right, like your different family members, like each time you have to buy a plane takeet per family member, it costs you more, but good point. Every kid that you add to your vehicle, or every friend who you add to your trip, who you know has taken the proper health precautions like that just brings that overall cost down. And I love that. Basically, the more the merrier, right, and the cheaper, but all the

note of health. You can easily social distance well in a car with your family, you know, or some of those close friends. Each individual is going to feel a little bit differently when it comes to you know, mass transit, right getting on a bus, a train, or you know, an airplane with a bunch of strangers. But when you're taking a car, you can avoid that stress all together. Yeah.

And you know what, there's testing available now, Matt, for it's getting more widespread man, right, and so you can get tested before you want a trip, if you want to go with a friend, you can both get tested and that just kind of broadens the appeal of that road trip, whether you're doing with just your family or you're doing it with as friends. It's nice that that's a possibility that creates that option for people where they

might have otherwise been uncomfortable with it. So, in regards to driving, you could certainly go on a super long trip across the country, but you could also do things that are mostly local and I have to go too terribly far. And that means probably doing something in your state, in another location, or in a neighboring state, anything within let's say a two or three hour drive at day trips. Yeah. Yeah, and so Matt, we recently got to check out a new to US state park and it had this kind

of cool lake beach going on. And so now my wife Emily, she's gotten a little obsessed with hitting up as many lake beaches as we possibly can. But she like, we don't need to go to the ocean, we don't need to go to a real beach. We got lake beaches here in Georgia exactly. Yeah, So it's kind of like our family goal for the summer is to to hit up as many of those as we possibly can have. Have you all been to a fort yargo? Have you heard of that one? No? Is that I put that

on my list? Oh dude, yeah, I hear. That's a really good one. Actually, I think it's maybe like forty five minutes or an hour from like the center of Atlanta. But I hear that that's a really good one. That's that's where that's on our list at least. Uh And we're not even like beach initiated yet, so I'm sure you guys would love it, all right, Well, I'm putting that on our short list, that's for sure, And so yeah, we're planning on hitting up as many of those as possible.

We're also planning to go on bike rides at this place just south of the city Matt called Callaway Gardens, And I totally remember going as a kid with my family,

and I'm really excited to take my kids. So there are these things right that are local ish, basically their day trip material, and it's stuff that had just kind of been off my radar for a long time, but now it just feels like day trip kind of stuff makes so much sense for our vacation time, and so we're going to prioritize that on the weekends and on

some of the days off that we have. Yeah, you know, I think it's cool man that one of the unexpected consequences of COVID is that I think it's allowed a lot of individuals to be more intentional with their time, and if it weren't for the pandemic, like, maybe we would be spending our time differently right if we had some of the more typical options available to us. But because we don't, it is causing us to kind of

look outside what we'd normally do. And you know, when it comes to staying local, the additional bonus of staying local right now is that you're also supporting your local economy during time that they might really need it. You know that that five dollar parking fee at a state park that supports their upkeep, and then grabbing a takeout lunch maybe while you're nearby, Like that's helpful to local

restaurants as well. I'll say that sometimes some of these parking fees they're kind of on the honor system where there's like a box and you you're supposed to stick you know, like a five dollar bill in there or something like that. Uh. And I'm gonna say this is coming from to frugal, borderline cheap dudes, but may pay that money. You might be attempted to not to do that, but but realize that money is going towards the upkeep of these nice parks Yeah, that's cheap not to put

the five bucks in the box, that's for sure. And man, I think too, it's important to mention for for folks out there who are like I don't know where to go, whether it's hyperlocal or whether it's even further out local, you know, in in a two to three hour day trips sort of range. And I think it's important to ask for recommendations. I mean, you literally just gave me one, and so uh fort Yargo is on our list now.

But for folks who don't know where to go, ask your friends, right, ask your neighbors see where they're kind of going and where and what day trips have been successful for their family. Do some googling. Also, check trip advisor. Right you'll find great tips of all stereo towards awesome places to visit that you might not even considered. Right. Trip Advisor actually recommends highly Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, which is really close to where we live. We know about

it because it's right around the corner. But I guarantee you ninety percent of Atlantains have never read right, and so it's time to make it happen. Finding that on trip Advisor, it's like, oh, that's a really awesome free place to go that isn't all that far away from me. But yeah, finding those recommendations, whether it's online or from people in your community, is going to be super helpful in helping you kind of develop an itinerary and a

schedule of places that you want to visit. Yeah. What's funny about trip Advisor and some of these different online resources is that we do this all the time when we are planning a trip to somewhere else, right, But when you list somewhere, you never really look at those recommendations. You never check out trip Advisor for your own city. But why not. There's a lot of places like that that, Like you said, I bet of city inhabitants haven't been

to some of these top rated destinations and locations. Uh so yeah, that's that's definitely something. I mean, I hardly ever do that myself since so this is a good challenge for myself as well. Yeah, for sure. And then you know, maybe what about maybe a more unique experience. Driving movies are pretty awesome. We've got this old school drive in movie theater, uh not too far from where

we live. But most people they don't have that, well, here's the thing, Walmart, they are creating driving movie theaters in a hundred and sixty parking lot locations around the country from August through October. I thought that was super cool that they are taking advantage of. Basically, you know, they already have the driving movie theater set up, which is just a big asphalt parking lot where people can easily get in and get out. All they need to do is set up a screen. You know, why not

driving movies? Man, there's so much fun. I haven't been to one in a while, mostly because I have kids and we can't stay up that late. But they are a blast, and so I think for a lot of people, especially if you have older kids, go into one of these drive in movies at a Walmart parking lot could

be a lot of fun for your fam. But if you want to go further and see some new terrain, well, Matt and I will discuss some creative and affordable options for embarking on a bigger trip this summer, and we'll get to some of those right after the break. All right, Joel, we are back from the break, and we're talking about fun and different creative things that you can do. Uh that you wouldn't normally do in order to kind of

get away, take time off vacation a little bit. Do you remember when you and I we went fly fishing. A buddy of ours took us fly fishing. It was in like the middle of winter. We're up in the mountains. It was crazy cold, and what I remember most is that we didn't catch a single fish. We didn't. I will say, you know, I've always loved the movie and the book A River runs through it, and I have kind of these ideals of what it would look like to go fly fishing. It didn't live up to it.

It wasn't like that at all. We weren't up in Montana. It wasn't this you know, beautiful Do you call it idyllic scene? We weren't like casting super fancy like Brad Pitt does in the movie shadow casting. Oh yeah, I thought I was gonna call it ghost casting shadow casting. But you know, regardless, if you're staying local or going on a bigger trip, like we can't recommend getting outdoors enough.

You know, that could be as simple as checking out a local trail or swimming hole, maybe a beach that's not overly crowded. Uh, you know, or a trip to a national park. There are so many benefits of getting outside, moving your body, right, it's affordable, oftentimes you're getting good exercise. But also you know, this is going to be a great way to help reduce the spread of COVID. Open air situations, as we now know, are much safer places to be, so, you know, outdoor parks and hiking they

are the perfect activity. Yeah, man, I agree. I think seeing our country is is a great way to go, especially in recent years as international travel prices have just come down in a major way. So many people have thought about their vacations as as going overseas, taking a flight somewhere else, and many of us have forgotten to

even consider traveling domestically. But there are so many awesome, beautiful places to visit in our own country, and so there's so much history natural beauty that we can access without even hopping on a plane. We can drive there, and in all likelihood you can do this in the car you already own, right that. The national park system, like you mentioned matt Is, is a pretty great you can get in for free. By the way, if your

family has a fourth grader. I know you and I were planning on doing that every year we can with our children as they are in fourth grade. All of our kids reach fourth grade, Yeah, we get to go on all these even we're not even gonna save that much money, right, it's eighty five bucks. It's not that much money, but it's just that idea of being able

to do it for free instead of paying. I mean, I'm not gonna avoid the National parks because it costs eighty five bucks for the annual past but I mean, yeah, when you think about it like that, how many National parks can you hit up in a year for eighty five bucks? Probably a lot. You're definitely gonna get your money's worth it, even if you only hit up two or three. But how many more would you hit up if you could see all of them for absolutely free?

So no, I know that'd that'd be nice, right, So, yeah, I'm waiting for our second graders to become fourth graders. But if that sounds awesome, But you want more space than just your car, and you don't want to have to deal with hotels or renting a home because of potential health concerns, which I understand, you might want to consider getting away in an RV Matt. RVs have become so popular lately, especially because of the pandemic. People want

kind of their own quarters to travel in. Yeah, you know, the idea with the r V is you could basically bring your hotel room with you, right, uh, you know, and obviously this lessons the risk of getting sick. And you could, you know, buy something off Craigslist or you know,

Facebook yard sale. But RVs have become incredibly popular during the pandemic, so you might be looking at slim pickings and pretty high prices too, So you could instead short term rent one on a site like Outdoorsy or r v share dot com, or even maybe talk to a friend who's recently bought one. I'm thinking of some friends of ours who live out in the Bourbs and I

noticed online that they recently purchased one. I'm not thinking that they're gonna be using it every single week this summer, and so maybe the conversation would go something like, Hey, how about we push you guys a couple in your bucks And I gotta think that they might be down for that to help offset the cost of that thing. Right, And so, whether you decide to explore in an RV for a few days, you know, or even a few weeks.

Renting went up, at least at first, we think that would be the best answer to make sure that that is going to fit with how you want to travel. Yeah, the RV lifestyle is not for everybody, and if you buy one and realize it's not for you, you're gonna take a huge hit on the resale. So yeah, renting one, trying it out first, borrowing one, or renting one from a friend, that's a good idea to Matt. Yeah, have

you actually ever traveled in then RV. No, it sounds nice to me, but I've never actually done it, and so yeah, I would definitely want to make sure I was running one because I could also see myself potentially hating it. So Ever, since road Rules came out back in the day on MTV, it's always looked like this the coolest thing ever to do, but also that there would be a lot of dramas. It depends right who

you're staying within the RV. If it's with a bunch of adolescents, I mean, there's probably gonna be a lot of drama, But if you're with your family, it might be a little chiller. Yeah, Yeah, the only making out that's gonna be happening is just me my wife. Uh So that's one option, right is running the RV. Also camping, Right if you're driving your car with the camping equipment in the back, it's definitely one of the most affordable routes you can go, and bringing the tent and sleeping

bags with you. Camping is even cheaper than running an r V or getting a hote l room. Plus you're gonna be fun if you do it right, and it's an even better way to connect with nature in the outdoors, and the rest of getting COVID is even lower matter. I mean, so many people are concerned about hotel rooms. I from everything I've read, I don't feel terribly concerned. I think you definitely have some questions you need to ask of management, and there are some precautions you need

to take. But still so many people just want to forgo it altogether, which makes sense, and camping is just like an awesome way to go if you want to avoid that. Yeah. Literally, there's different scales out there that rank, you know, the risk of catching COVID With the different activities that you can participate in and camping, I think

it's like number two. Like literally, the only thing that's less risky is checking your mail, which isn't fun at all, Like that sounds nothing like a vacation physically checking your mail, but camping, like literally, it's it's one of the lowest risk activities that you can do. And by the way, like one of the highest things you can do is like go to a bar. So don't go to bars where you have to like yell at people in order to be heard and people are taking their masks off

to drink. And such a terrible idea. Going clubbing right now? Not a good idea, Not a good idea. However, something that we think is a great idea is, you know, if you don't feel incredibly comfortable, you know, going out, or maybe you're in a category that is more high risk, start booking a trip, uh, you know, for fall maybe of next year. Planning your trip truly is half of

the fund. Dreaming about the place that you're gonna go visit in the different exploring that you're gonna do while scouring Airbnb, Verbo, trip Advisor, you know, all those different sites. That makes for some really fun evenings. The Wall Street Journal actually reported that vacations for for later next year. They're actually getting booked up in droves. In large part that's because people are postponing the trips that they have had planned to take this year, and they're rolling over

that money towards taking that same vacation next year. And so by default, that's kind of something that a lot of folks are already doing right Like, you're also seeing this with weddings, as folks are postponing the big wedding. They're still getting married now, but they're going to postpone the big party. A lot of us are postponing these different big events and trips at a necessity, but it's also a way for us to realize some of that

enjoyment now, even though we can't actually travel right now. Yeah, Matt, So much of the joy from an awesome trip is in the planning aspect, is in the eat up to it right. The trip itself is always pretty fun, but the planning, in my opinion, is a ton of fun. I love looking at different Airbnb houses with Emily. When we're thinking about taking a trip, we're kind of plotting our course. You know, what are we gonna do, What

are we gonna see? Reading what other people have written about their trips and kind of taking out some of the best things that we want to do. That's super fun. So if you don't feel like you can take a vacation right now anywhere, start planning the next one. That's a brilliant piece of advice. Take that time to plan the ultimate trip next year. Yeah, exactly. And then also the back end of the trip is where a lot

of joy can be found. So maybe instead of taking a trip somewhere, reminiscing about trips previously taken is a way to go. And that's free, and it's really fun that the post vacation look back allows you to essentially relive your favorite memories. And so pop open a craft beer and take out the pictures and have have fun

thinking about, you know, one of your favorite vacations. And so Emily and I'm at we've got a night picked out on the calendar, or we're gonna sit down look at our pictures from a trip that we loved when we went to Norway. Yeah, it's gonna be just a lot of fun. It's gonna feel kind of like a date night. And obviously we have great memories from that

trip that come up from time to time. But man, I can't imagine how fun it's going to be to sit down for a couple of hours and just talk through it all and look back at some of the experiences that we got to have. What a fun, creative, unique,

different way to kind of think about vacation. I know, me, sometimes I can always think about the thing that's coming in the future, the next thing that's up on the horizon, And this is gonna be a good exercise to to stop and to remember the good things that I've already gotten to experience. So, Yeah, that's gonna be kind of fun, and I would recommend to other people check that out

as well. Yeah, man, that's a great idea. That's not something I think Kate and I have ever done, which is a shame, because Kate and I are photographers and we oftentimes take our you know, our nice cameras with us when we travel, so that means we have a lot of great photos of a lot of the different

places we've been to all over the world. Um, And something else that's coming in my mind too, is that this might be an awesome way to teach our kids about some of the different places we've been to and to teach them about us, right, like to for them to learn that, like, hey, we're more than just mommy and daddy, like like we used to be world travelers, Like look at all the cool things that we've seen. And it's a a way for them to maybe learn about our history a little bit. Yeah, a little family

slide show night. That sounds good exactly, and I think they would think it's cool. At this point. You know, they're not so old that they're just like you know, so they're a captive audience at this point. Basically, at this stage, anytime you put anything on the TV, you've got to cap the body, you know. Basically, at the end of the day, what we're trying to communicate here is to to not let COVID ruin your vacation plans.

You know, there are lots of creative ways to to either work around it or even to plan ahead for future vacations and to make the most of the time that you have off now. Uh and and definitely do make sure that you do take that vacation time right. You need to rest and to recharge. So we would recommend for folks to to get creative and then specifically look to the different locations and attractions that you have

available to you locally. And you know, one other added bonus is that when you get creative, like it's almost always uh synonymous with saving money as well. Yeah, I like creativity, I like money saving, so I think, yeah, to travel, it's all kind of fits together, and I think so many people Hopefully this broaden your horiz sin is about what your time off this summer or this fall could look like, whether you're an individual or with

your family. Obviously, the virus has impeded a lot of our plans, but it doesn't mean that they all have to crash and burn and we have to lock ourselves inside of our houses only checking our mail, which is the only safe thing to do. There are other things that we can do. We can take precautions, and there are a lot of creative things that we can do in order to to enjoy that time off. And we

need that time off. It's important for resting and recharging and then for getting back to work and being able to kick button do a good job. So all right, Matt, let's get back to the beer that we had on this episode. Today, we drank a beer called the Fantasy swamp Thing. Fantasy that always say fantasy fantasy. Okay, so fantasy fantasy Swaanzy. This was a sour whit beer from Savannah River Brewing Company, given to us by listener Jeff So. Jeff, thanks for uh tossing this beer our way, Matt. What

were your thoughts on this beer? Man? I liked it, man, this was a really tasty, refreshing beer for the summer. There's like an immediate tartness that I feel like you that accompanies the blackberries. It's almost like getting some blackberries that are a little bit under ripe a little bit. It was pretty sour like. It almost kind of bordered on like warhead candy material. You remember war heads, Like you pop them in your mouth and you're like, whoa

tear jerker. Yeah, yeah, kind of get you a little bit. But at the same time, I still had a little bit of sweetness with that, with that kind of wheat that whitt beer kind of rounded it out a little bit. I really like the artwork on here as well. I had, like it's called swamp Thing, and so it's kind of got like this swamp monster, kind of old school sixties

retro monster on the front of it um. And I also noticed on the side it says no regrets, but it's like it's written like egrets, because that's like a Georgia bird that like hang out and swamps a lot. So I think it's just a nice little play on words. Instead of no regrets, it's no regrets pronounced. Is it egrets or regrets? No? I always say egrets, okay, but I'll say in regrets just to rhyme with regrets. Yeah, okay, gotcha,

gota okay, all right? Yeah, Well, I thought this beer was was interesting, the blackberries in the guava and the sour kind of I forgot to mention the guava. Yeah, it's there. It's definitely there. It's definitely there. And that combo was was pretty nice. It was bright, it was fruity. It had definitely had that mouth buckering thing going on. Hey, Matt. It actually reminded me of this BlackBerry pie, this homemade BlackBerry pie that Emily recently made that was absolutely delicious.

And we picked those blackberries just down the street at this local place that we found during the Panda Well, that's the tiny little nature preserve we mentioned earlier, like thousands and thousands of blackberries there for sure. Yeah, so this this beer reminded me of that beautiful pie with the free blackberries. So yeah, it was a really good one. I enjoyed having this one on the show with you today, man, Yeah, man,

I did as well. And thanks again to Jeff for donating this beer as well as the beer from Monday's episode to the show. So, Joel, that's gonna be it for this episode. We will have our show notes up on the website at how some money dot com. We'll put some of those resources up there that we mentioned. Yeah, so happy trails to everybody out there who's going to do some exploring after listening to this one. Hope you find something unique and interesting that you've never seen before.

All right, Matt, Until next time, Best friends out, Best friends Out. M