Traveling with Purpose on the Cheap #007

thin mince. Yeah, I know a neighbor to to three houses down. Their daughter came by and Edvye was there when she came by and was totally fascinated with like the sale. I think that's why she was mostly drawn to the fact that she had like a clipboard or like the paper. It was like writing stuff down. EV's like all about that. Neantime, she any time we play, she's always like taking orders like she's a waitress. She's

like a scorekeeper. Yeah exactly. Yeah. So a few days ago, like in the last week, she was saying that she wanted to wanted to make cookies and what what we realized is that she basically just wanted to like take orders. She didn't really want to make cookies. And so we went around and uh yeah, I can't walked up to y'all's place. She gave she gave me the hard sell. She was she was practiced by then, she was versed, she knew what to say. She was like one play

to cookies only, Mr Joel, are you sure? Three dollars? Was like, fine, y'all buy more whatever you say. Uh yeah, But I mean it's honestly, it's it's actually pretty cool right to kind of see ways to teach my daughter how to be a businesswoman, you know, and like how to think of something and kind of follow through with it as well. That's really the biggest thing because so many things we do at home are like you do it for a minute, you know, thirty seconds, and then

just you abandon it. And so that was something Kate was really making sure she stuck to it the grit, you know, stick to witness. Well, that's one thing I gotta say, you've done really well already and that I would love to do better with my girls, is to teach to teach you girls about money. And kind of give them some real life situations and how it plays out. And so I think we'll dedicate another podcast, a future episode to specifically talking about how we teach our girls

about money and you get kids the only one. Yeah, and you do such a great job. Thanks man, We'll let you leave that one. So, and that was great. And by the way, maybe we'll polcated on that one too, because she's Yeah, she's definitely led the charge with the with the cookies and the business order. And I could business reform. I could tell she was the one that did the banking. They were phenomenal cookies there, man, did you try the lemon ones? I haven't tried the lemon one.

I tried the chocolate chip so good you just wait all right, yeah, with pink frosting on top. There. It's amazing. That makes me think of a topic too that somebody in our Facebook group mentioned a topic like that as well as far as like how to encourage sort of the entrepreneurial spirit with your with you know, with your kids, right, yeah, totally without the question. Yeah, So on that note, did you have a job as a kid, How old are you when you first started working? And what did Where

did you start working? Yeah, good question, man. The first job I had was as a caddie at the golf course where or where my parents lived nowhere where I grew up as a kid in Augusta. I didn't get an early on job like like like a lot of kids, my parents were very much their mindset was well, definitely, my dad was just like, make I want to I

want you to focus on your grades. Don't worry about you know, if you maintained a certain level of responsibility and chores and things at home, we'll make sure you have enough spending money to kind of hang out with your friends and um. And it was plenty, you know. It's not like I was like I want more, um, but grades and education definitely kind of became the I

guess the focus for my folks. Yeah, how about you. Yeah, so my first legit job were you eight and a half a little bit older than that, but my first my first job was mowing lawn into the neighborhood and so oh kind of yeah, did the old school thing posted the flyers and I just remember there was one specific lawn where the lady was just like so picky about the issue. Was an older lady and it took my dad. My dad was like super kind to help

me out. He'd been you know, he worked a full week and then on that Saturday he spent five hours with me over that lady's house. Yeah, trim in the bush everything, And we're like, I didn't I didn't advertise all this on the flyer of doing all this for

fifteen bucks. But I learned a lot from doing that with my dad about sticking to it, following through on what you say you're gonna do, and like the customer services but side of it as well, right, like trying to keep folks happy and totally Yeah, I did not think of I didn't think of lawns at all. But yeah, I mean I did lawns. Uh. I did pool cleaning. I was like the little I was a little pool boy, come Bana boy. Just in the leaves again, the leaves

out and stuff like that. Yeah. Uh anyway, but then my first real job was is working at Chick fil A at the age of fourteen. It was right across the street from my high school. So I would walk over right after school and I would work at three hour shift and then I would go home. I think legally I was only allowed to work like fifteen hours a week or something like that. So I'd work, you know,

two days after school and then on a Saturday. Um, and saved up enough money, you know by the time I was sixteen and a half or sixteen to to buy my first car, my own cash. So yeah, So I would say for me learning the work ethic early on, it was really really helpful. And working from an early age taught me a lot that still continues to carry me through to this day. And so yeah, I think what you're doing with teaching Eavy to work starting a

four and a half is admirable. It's awesome, it's fun, right, Yeah. And she and those kinds of lessons you know, as you continue those they will they'll laster the rest of her life. Those lessons I learned mowing the lawn with my dad when I didn't want to do it and I was tired, and I was like, this is ridiculous. I learned a lot um and it was. It was really good for me. Alright. So, uh, every episode we obviously drink a beer, and this week's beer Matt tell

us about it. Yeah, man, so this beer tonight is Bell's hop Slam, which is actually kind of interesting because we mentioned hop Slam last episode as sort of an aside. How it's you know, it's been a couple of years since I've had this one, and uh, my neighbor brought some over, which is awesome, and he listens to the podcast time too, And the last episode had not been published by the time we're recording this one right now, so it's not he didn't hear it, and it's not

like he heard us talking about hop Slam. It just read your mind. It was meant to be. So as soon as you brought it over, my eyes lit up. I was like, are you kidding? This is awesome. I mean, obviously it's been a it's been a minute since we've had it, but let's crack this joker. This if you are into I p A s This was like the first I PA the game to Colt following um and I gotta say the label still one of my favorites. Dude, just straight up bowled over by a pile of hops.

So and by the way, we will take your beer donations. Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter at not Poor Matt and at not Poor Joel. Also breweries if you want to get your name out there on the podcast, feel free to donate. We got some beers coming in from a couple of breweries and we'll be drinking them on the podcast and um giving a shout out. Let's let me know what we think. But today's from Matt's neighbor, some free hop slam. Well I can say

it is still good, man. That's so different than some of the ips we've been drinking recently. Yeah. Yeah, it's got like a real multi backbone, but it's still it's got that like nice bright and honey sweetness to it. That's delicious. Yeah. So for those of you that have had I p s before, maybe aren't as similiar with

hop slam. And so this is considered a double I p A. So that I mean they sit around in percent I feel like typically, so it's little bitter, but this one being a double, it's got higher alcohol and higher sugar sugar content, so it's a little bit sweeter. Right, It's it's got that honey makes it easier to drink as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, but it's also the a lot of the I p A is being made today are even more hop heavy or hop forward than this beer. Um. And so you're gonna get a little

more of the traditional piney bitterness on this one. Um, which is great. It's just not it's just a different style. Yeah, it's just a different style than what people are mostly making right now. Yeah, in my mind, right now, this tastes like drinks like a West Coast I p A. When, like, years ago, I would never have said that. I would have been like, oh no, Bell's Hop Slam is its

own thing totally. But now that it's been just been a couple of years and everybody's putting all these sort of the the hazier New England style I p A s that literally look like orange juice. They're so fruit kind of heavy. Um this, Yeah, it really does feel like a West Coast I PA. But it's amazing, it's delicious. We'll have a link to the Hot Slam on Tap profile on our show notes if you want to learn

more about it. And now that we've talked about the beer, and we've talked about Matt's circummending child labor laws to get his daughter in the workforce early, let's get to the subject at hand. Matt traveling with Purpose on the cheap. So I don't know actual child labor laws, but what I do know is that once you have an actual job and you're employed, you can open up a roth ira.

A just right, that's right. Uh. Some My a friend of mine, she started working for her dad, who is an accountant, and I think literally they opened a roth ira for her at the age of fifteen. Oh nice and max that joker out and I think they're in

pretty good shape as far as that goes. So my boss Clark, so his wife is an actor and she got his son on a commercial shoot when he was like one or two, and they filed a tax return for him that year and he was able to claim that on his taxes and then open up a wrath. So he's had a roth since he was an infant. Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah, leave that to leave that to Clark playing the games. Genius right there, man, like

a legit player. I love it. So the subjective hand traveling with the purpose on the cheap Matt, the let's talk about kind of the philosophy. First off, vacation and travel like they're two different terms, and what do we mean when we say each one? So in our minds we define vacation as being more like something you do to go and relax. So, you know, if and that's what we're doing, you know later this summer or beginning of the summer, we're gonna go to the beach. We're

taking it easy. For some folks, maybe that's going to like the mountains, like a cabin up in the mountains, just vegan out, taking it easy, relaxing, playing games, playing board games versus travel, right, which is more How would you define that? Travel? I think of as more exploratory, less kicking your feet up. And uh, I like a good dose of both in my life. I personally prefer travel and keep kind of skip vacation to do more trap.

But I'd like a good mix of both. And so I think if travel is more exploratory, going somewhere new or that you've been where you want to see more, see more stuff. Uh, And I think a vacation as like yeah, finding the beach house from the mountain house and kind of kicking it for for you know, a few days, a long weekend to a week and that being more relaxing. For me, travel is a little more draining because I'm exploring the whole time. But it's draining

in just the right way. And I think life stage also has a lot to do with it too, right. I mean sure with kids, we've got friends that fly all the time and travel all over the world. We haven't done that yet with with our girls, mostly because we're thinking and if if we're gonna go travel somewhere, it's gonna be me and me and Kate for us.

It's a lot of money to spend extra on a plane ticket for a kid that's not either he may not remember it or be doesn't you know, may not appreciate it as you know, even some other kids who might appreciate it more or may throw a tantrum in the plane the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm I'm gonna avoid that for the next few years. I think, yeah, I agree, And I think yeah, there's the prohibitive cost involved if you want to actually do some traveling and

some exploring with your kids. Our kids are on the on the young side, are four and under, and you've got three four and under. I've got two four and under. So, uh, taking actual trips overseas or whatever, it's gonna be cost prohibitive to buy more plane tickets and and all that other stuff. So, yeah, when when I'm talking about travel, for us at this point in time, it's when Emily

and I get to do things today. And for you guys, it's when you and kids take it away for anniversary trip or maybe getting away for the weekend something like that. And that's what we're gonna spend the rest of the podcast talking about most mostly is as travel. They'll they'll be some things that can apply to vacation, but in

general on the move travel. And you might be listening to this in your young twenties and you've got the ability monetarily and time wise to do a lot of this, or you might be listening to this and just have had a newborn and you know what, that's not going to be on your list for at least the next year. We're going to kind of try to lay out the basics for how you can travel well and then also travel on a on a limited budget, which is actually how you should approach it. It's better for you if

you approach it that way. Um, we're going to kind of approach from those things, and and you might not be at the point where you're gonna book a plane ticket tomorrow but we want to kind of give you this this as a resource where whether it's tomorrow or next year that you're booking your trip, you can use some of these things as a guide to book great

travel for a really good deal. Yeah, and before we get to some of those more practical tips, I want to make sure that we talk about a very big overview, sort of more of a philosophical standpoint, which is what kind of travel do you like to do. It's a question that Kate and I've sort of asked each other because we kind of learned how to travel once together, Like you know, once we got married, we start traveling more.

And what we realized is that we like to travel the same way we like to live, right, And so what that means for us is not necessarily doing super tourist these things, uh like museums or tourist attractions, things like that, which there's nothing wrong with. I think for the longest time, we sort of had this meant this notion where we thought that that's what travel is, because that's what you see, that's what you see people post pictures of, and that's what you hear people talking about,

is going to a city and going to a tourist attraction. Yeah. No, I think it's the way a lot of people approach travel, and that's okay. Maybe you're really into museums, you know, go find the museums you want to go see. But we kind of tend to travel in the same same way as you and Kate, and we would prefer to find a neighborhood that we enjoy in a place where we're going and kind of center our trip around there, or maybe a really good brewery. Yeah, the breweries are

always involved, much to Emily sugrin at times. Yeah, I mean, we're lucky enough to have wise that also enjoy beer as well. But yeah, it can't all be about the beer, yeah for sure. But you know, there's there's certainly some places that we travel where where we make museums a higher priority. Like when we went to Florence, Italy, it was i priority for us to go see a museum. In April, we're going to go to Paris, France, and we're going to make it. There's like tons of museums.

There's like you could fill your whole time with museums, but we'll pick one and we'll go to it and we'll we'll have fun. But for us, yeah, it's more about neighborhood exploring and also natural beauty. So wherever we are, we want to see the outsides. Um Like when we were in Amsterdam, we wanted to see the tulip gardens. There's nothing else like it in the world. You know.

When we go to Washington State, we want to go see Mountaraineer, uh, wherever it is we're traveling, like, we want to see that natural beauty thing that that nowhere else has that kind of makes this place stand on its own. It's kind of unique and every place has something like that. So find kind of that that natural beauty that you can find on your trip to It's cheap.

It's it's cheap to find the natural beauty and it's out there, and it's cheap to walk around exploring the neighbors and we try to do that here in Atlanta. The other night, Emily and I went on a date and what did we do, Well, we went out to dinner, but before that, we literally walked around this neighborhood close by and we we admired all this beautiful street art that we have. We love we love street art. Cabbage Town. Oh yeah, yeah, so we just we love street art

and it was the most beautiful walk. We love the street art and the architecture, and so to get to walk around that neighborhood before dinner was super cool, so wonderful,

just walking and talking and enjoying that. I feel like a lot of what differentiates like a destination where you might go to a museum and do some of those things and experience culture as opposed to say, going to a destination where you live sort of your life that you normally do is the maybe like state side versus going abroad, right, And I feel like when Kate and I when we when we travel, you know, or when we travel even with you guys too, and we're state side,

we try to maintain like our rhythms of our life and basically try to picture ourselves in that new location and live the way that like we would if we live there, which is a lot of times while we end up looking at real estate and being like, what

would be like to live here? You probably go to the same coffee shop three days ago, people, I mean literally, I mean, and it sounds hipster to say, but we try to live like a local versus when you go, say, when you're going abroad, do you go to work to do you just like show up somewhere and you're like, hey,

I'm here, where's my w two? But yeah, Versus when you go abroad somewhere when you're trying to experience a new culture, well a lot of that you're wanting to a lot of times, but kind of bombards yourself with culture and it's not about sort of just sitting around and doing what you normally went at home. It's like, well, we're here, so let's maybe kind of kind of check out some of these these other things. And that might

be why we really like traveling in the States. So I just wanted to mention that because you know, I don't think sight seeing and being a tourist is necessarily a bad way to travel. I just think there is a lot of pressure to do those sort of things, you know, when you're when you go on vacation, because that's why people ask you. They're like, oh, did you go see the Eiffel Tower? Right, people you're gonna hear at you know when when you guys go to Paris.

I agree. I think one of the biggest things is people playing their trip around. What the what a couple of websites or a couple of guidebooks tell them to do and just what they've always heard because their pop culture, well you have to go to the Eiffel Tower or you have to do this for that, and they end up wasting time and money on certain things like that,

doing things that they don't even necessarily enjoy. Right. So, for instance, I haven't been to Paris yet, going in April, but you can go have a picnic at the base of the Eiffel Tower, which sounds awesome, or you can wait in line and pay twenty five dollars or however much it is to go up in the Eiffel Tower. Not only can you have the picnic, he can show up at the Bottle of Wine and I did a few years ago and lay out a blanket man and

watch the tower light up at night. Uh like, yeah, that's a pretty sure that's what you guys will be doing. And so not only does it save you money, it saves you time. I avoid lines like the plague and and I so I just don't want to wait in line to go up in this tower and pay money to do it. But yeah, so I think that's really wharton. Make sure you're not just doing what the guidebooks say, what everyone else common wisdom says, and actually think about how you want to explore a city. And what you

were saying, Matt, practical tips stay in the US. I think that's a really good idea, especially if you're a beginning traveler. It's easy to travel in the United States, and the diversity of our country is outrageous. There's almost no other country with the amount of geographical diversity as the United States, and there's so much to explore here that can be, like you said, a huge money saver to you, because I mean, when you're traveling abroad, one

of the biggest single expenses is your plane ticket. It's just to even get to the place. Not to mention any other expenses you're you're gonna incur so passport, all the other things that go along with traveling internationally. When you can hop in your car, if you can drive eight, ten, twelve hours, yeah, that's gonna save you a lot of money and explore a few places along the way. You know, what's your favorite Do you guys have a favorite place in the in the US? Oh? Because I know, I

know you. You were born in the Pacific Northwest, and I know you like it up there. Yeah. So, speaking of traveling in the United States, my buddy Travis and I who I believe I referred to him on an earlier episode. He's the dude that meant his wife right. So we did a three month row a trip around the US. And I think my favorite spot in the United States is the Four Corners region Colorado Utah area.

That that southern Colorado, northern Utah, part of Arizona right there, and Arches and Okay, so that kind of that kind of part of the Arches in Zion. Yeah. So there's just some amazing national parks in that in that part of the of the world. Yeah. I fell in love with it. Just so diverse and different. Um, and the natural beauties just epic. So yeah, have you guys been to uh Yosemite? No, never been to Yosemite? Man, you just wait. Been to Glacier, which, Yeah, Glacier is awesome.

Uh And I love I mean you mentioned Arches and Zion. I've I've been to both of those places. Uh been there on a rich with my dad and then Kate and I and then a buddy Steve we signed up for uh oh and Kate's brother Daniel sign up for a half marathon in Moab. So yeah, so it was It's called the Canyon Lands Half and talk about lives. Incredible.

Yea incredible, man. We loved it. I mean most of we mostly signed up for that one too, because we're like, where can we be inspired to want to actually run that? Polace will do it to you. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Yeah, So I would say it's amazing. Uh. I didn't realize that the United States had sand dunes until I went on this trip with my buddy Travis, like at the beach, No, like desert sand dunes, like rolling sand dunes for forever. Okay, in south eastern California, there's sand dunes as far as

I can see. It's insane. It's incredible. Like I said, the geographical diversity is impressive and you can find something for almost any one in the United States. There's the Pacific Coast Highway, the the Oregon Coast is crazy and rocky and beautiful and kind of cold. Um, there's just the vast diversity of our land is incredible, and I mean it makes me want to go visit more because there's so much I haven't seen. Yet. So when you're planning your next trip, consider staying state sized stay in

the US. It's likely going to be more affordable, and there's still a lot to see. You may have seen a lot of the US, but I guarantee you haven't seen at all. But if you have your eyes set on something else, traveling internationally, we're in the golden age of traveling internationally right now. The prices have gotten to be so cheap. You can fly to France or uh Belgium or Germany cheaper than you can fly to a

lot of rural the rural United States. Now. My mom wanted to take my grandma back to visit her hometown in Montana. It's like six dollars round trip to get to Montana from down here, but you can get to Amsterdam for three rounds. It's incredible. I guess that makes sense why you can fly from a major city to another major city because there's other airlines. There's other players there, right, Yeah, there's a lot of competition from let's say Atlanta and St. Louis,

New York, Boston. There's so many airlines flying out of each one of those major airports that it creates a lot of competition. But once you get to those competitions, good for us, right, But once you get some of those more minor airports that are a little bit further out there, a little more rural, there's almost no competition. And so if Delta is the only one flying in there, they get to stick it to you that they can

charge eight hundred dollars su Yeah. So one of the things we want to talk about be flexible on your travel. Be flexible, not only on your dates. That's huge. You know you're gonna want to be flexible on the dates you can go. If you can leave on a Tuesday, come back on a Tuesday. Uh. If you can be flexible, like I don't have to go in June, I can go in July August too, that's gonna help you out and save you a lot of money when you're shopping

for flights. Yeah. Be self employeed, man, that's a huge bonus to be able to kind of pick and choose when you want to take time off. Obviously we don't have complete control of everything, but to sort of be able to say, all right, well, this is a priority, we're gonna go ahead and do this and start planning on it. So Chalcolin up for being self employed. Yeah, and you're also you're gonna want to be flexible on

your airport. So even where we live, matt it might be worth it for us to either drive to another airport. At times, we're pretty fortunate we have a lot of competition, but sometimes the best international fairs come out of just a few cities on the East Coast and on the West Coast, and so it might be worth it for you to drive or fly to another airport, even on a domestic ticket, in order to save money like your own layover and then fly out of exactly a Guardia

or something like that. So like Boston right now has some of the best international flight deals, and from Atlanta, you can get to Boston for a hundred dollars around trip, so it might be worth it to fly to Boston and to book your ticket essentially from Boston to Europe um and that could save you a lot of money over just booking direct from whatever East Coast city you're in. One of the main things that will change how much you're able to travel is literally just by choosing your

destination based on where the sale is based on the deal. Yeah, right, So that's what we did. Remember when we went to Ireland. Yeah, well, prior to Ireland, we had the discussion and we're like, hey, let's try to go somewhere because we had just gotten back from a trip, and we're just like, you know what, let's would be really fun to go together. And that's what kind of got the wheels, that's what got the gears started. We're kind of like, where do we want

to go. Let's go where it's cheap, and Ireland was super cheap. A few weeks later, yeah, you we came across the deal and and that was before like all these mega airfare deals to Europe. We paid five dollars and now that's like standard, but back then it wasn't standard. That was really really cheap, very cheap. So find the deal and then kind of decide why you want to

go there. And at this point, I've been to six continents fortunately, and I wouldn't have been to nearly as many if it wasn't for that rule of booking trial bole cheaply. I feel like if you do it that way, you get to go to twice as many places because you're gonna eventually get to the places you want to go anyway, you just kind of go with the deals unless you there's no reason why you need to be in a certain country at a certain time, unless you're

gonna be there for Twitter fronts or something like that. Yeah, or otherwise be flexible. Yeah, so be as flexible as you can. Man. We almost want to ended up in Austin last year, Austin, Texas. Before we got our tickets to go up to Boston, we were looking at where the deals were, and the tickets to Austin were like sixty bucks probably on what like Frontier, I can't remember.

I mean, yeah, I had pulled up on Google Fights, I think, uh, but yeah, it was an amazing deal and we almost went there, but we decided nasty because it was August and going to Texas in August sounds kind of hot. That's a good point. That's a good point. So in the end we decided to go up north. But we almost ended up in Austin, and we for good things about it, but just because there's a deal there and I still want to go there, but maybe

when it's cooler. And by the way, you just mentioned Google Flights, that is barn on the best booking engine for travel, so Google dot com slash flights, whether you're looking domestically or Internet internationally. Uh, that is the best site for you to go to. Google has it worked out where you can kind of look at this calendar of dates and find the best fair. So if you're flexible, they make it easy to spot dates that are going to be the cheapest for you. And it's just super

easy to use. So it's by far, I would say at this point it's top kayak. It's the best search engine for for flights. So Google dot com slash flights. If you're looking for tickets, you wanna, yeah, you wanna tell folks about Scotts though, Yeah, don't I know you've heard of Scott's. Yeah, So Scotch Chief Flights is. You need to sign up for it right now. It's amazing. So they have a free an a paid version, and

Scotch Chief Flights is just incredible. Scott's basically mining the data on what flights are cheap, and he sends out emails a couple of times a week. Uh, and if you're the free subscriber, usually get delayed and you don't quite get quite as many emails, but essentially just tells you you kind of pick the quadrant of the country where you fly out of and he sends you the sales.

He tells you, here's exactly where he's on sale right now. Um, and so I'm always seeing great deals to different places. And sometimes it takes a lot of restraint on my part not to just book like more travel. But but plus i'd have to like to make you do more babysitting kids. I can only do some of that. So much of that, man, whatever, I love your kids. I was gonna say to Scott, happen to work at Google. No, No, he just started his own note, he started his own business.

His name Scott Kays and he yeah, he's just like brilliant man. Yeah, he's just like a dude. He's just a dude. And he's got more people working for him now he's notten big enough. But yeah, you should totally check that out. Sign up for his emails. Go to scotts cheap flights dot com. Uh literally, they're not sponsoring the show. They're just fantastic and and we'll link to him in the show notes. Scott does an incredible job. So if you're kind of on the lookout for cheap airfare,

that's probably the best resource right now. Um that in Google flights. Those are the two things you to know when when booking flights. Um. And also of note is these new budget airlines from Europe. Wow is one of them. In Norwegian is another. Those two airlines are the major reason why we're seeing such good airfare to Europe right now. You're kind of coming in and undercutting everybody. Yeah, and

totally in Iceland Air that's another one. And they're just they're literally cutting the rates so hard and creating no frills airfare service that United in Delta and some of these American airlines, some of these other US based airlines have had to cut their prices just to compete, just to stay relevant. And uh, these guys don't fly out of nearly as many airports. Wow doesn't fly out of a lot of airports. Yeah, but they're super cheap, as as low as you would you trust an airline that

it's called Wow. It's like, look at that planes in the air. Wow. Let's be honest. After United's recent track record, I trust Wow. I'm more than I mean. I don't want to get my nose bloody. Instead, you busted up and drug off the plane. Yeah, so yeah, so wow in Norwegian and uh and I will say this podcast by to you by United Airline. So consider a budget airline that that might be your best bet or a minimum.

The budget airlines are going to cause the prices to go down at airports where they fly out of competition is always good. Yeah. So I mentioned Boston, I mentioned New York. Those are two cities where while in Norwegian or flying up with flying and they're Yeah. So being flexible is a huge way to to to save why you're traveling and something else we've i mean we've touched on it, we've kind of talked around it, but traveling with friends is a huge way to cut down the

costs both domestically. So if you're kind of going on a vacation, say just going to the beach like we are, or even traveling abroad. We've done that with you guys. And you can split a rental car. You can get four people in the cars supposed to too. You can split in their B and B house so you can save money as opposed to get in two hotel rooms

separately on different trips. You know, you could do some more cooking at the house then too, so there's just a lot of ways that you can save money if you're traveling with friends as opposed to just one or

two people. Yeah, and it's not really like a huge thing, but safety, you know, like if you're just a single, like an individual, just kind of traveling on your own, like going to some different cities, like you know, you may not feel super comfortable and different neighborhoods and different cities. But if you've got two other friends with you, or there's you know, two couples you've got there's four of

you total, man, there's nothing to worry about. Sure you feel safe for walking around at night, You're less of a target, no doubt that being said, I mean, traveling with friends may not be for everybody. I mean you want to make sure you've got good communication and you like set clear expectations maybe as to what like you're gonna be doing and things like that. We've been on trips before with other friends, not with you. Maybe it

was with you. I'm not gonna say where. You know, there's a little bit attention because you're kind of like, well, we wanted to kind of do this, and you guys want to do this, and everyone's kind of like, uh, I feel like there's people I can tell. I can tell pretty quickly off the bat, like, you know what, they're my friend. I love hanging out with them. I don't think they'd be my best travel partner. I don't think that our family, my wife and I would travel

with them in the same way. And like we start at the beginning of the episode, we kind of we know how you like to travel, and our families like to travel in similar ways. We'd like different things, but we know we like to travel in a similar fashion. You know, we've got similar rhythms. And yeah, yeah, actually I was gonna say this early, but I forgot. It made me think of you're talking about architecture, you know, like walking around Cabbage Town before y'all stay dat night

or whatever. When Kate and I, I mean, that's one of the things we love doing too. When we're up in Portland, up in Maine for our anniversary trip, we put ourselves on like a self guided architectural tour in this one historic neighborhood where like all the early sort of settlers in in in Portland is like one of the first family neighborhoods, essentially kind of up on this bluff, And yeah, we just looked up the history of these

different homes. Someone had made a pdf. We just drove around look up the homes on Zello to know exactly which home it was. That's cool. And yeah, we just took ourselves on a on a on a self guided architectural tour and it was written by architects, so there is actual history and notes as to like the style and different things like that. You guys would have loved it. Yeah, that sounds awesome. It was super cool. I'm all about that.

I mean, I love doing that just in my own neighborhood, Like I never get tired of looking at the houses in our in our nineteen twenties neighborhood. Yes, So, what are some more practical, maybe more monetary stuff that we can keep in mind when you're traveling, especially when you're

traveling abroad. So once you've got your ticket booked or whatever, you get and want to do a couple of things beforehand, because everyone's going to have to use in all likelihood credit and debit cards or and also cell phone service, and so make sure you have a credit card that's got no foreign transaction fees. If you have a credit card with Capital One, you'll know automatically. They're the only credit card provider that I know of that doesn't charge

foreign transaction fees on any of their cards. Yeah, so if if you've got that in the wallet, use that um and if if you don't, be sure to check the fine print on your credit card statement and uh and or call your credit card company and they will let you know. They have to let you know what the foreign transaction fee is. But those fees add up. I was gonna book our hotel for France and online, and you have to think about it even when you're

doing that. If I I was gonna pull out my normal credit card that I use every day, I don't use the Capital One card. It's the Internet. It feels like it's right here exactly. But then I've thought about it for a second and I wait a minute, Yep, they're gonna get me on that. It would have been an extra almost forty So make sure that you're using a credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees because that can end up costing you a lot over the

life of your trip. And if you don't know, like josaid, just give him a call because you want to give him a call anyways, to give them a heads up, to let them know you're going to be traveling abroad. Yeah, and so a lot of the times credit cards will put a freeze if they see some weird transactions abroad. They're like, well, that's not normal behavior and you'll get

your count shut down. You want to make sure you've talked to your credit card before your abroad, before your travel in a different country and your credit cards prosen totally, because that's a pain. Yeah, all right, And so you also want to think about your cell phone service. If you have T Mobile or Sprint, they've got some great international plans that are completely free. You don't have to sign up for anything on top of it. You just

need to let them know that you're going. And sometimes you need to make a change once you get there too, uh to how your phone works. But it'll be free. You'll get free texting, and you get free data, although it's really slow data, and then you'll pay twenty cents a minute for phone calls. So that worked out really well for me on my last trip um that my wife wasn't able to go on and I was able to stay in touch with her. Really well on my sprint plan with free texting and getting to to check

some things. Also on this you know, crummy like two G style data, but you know what, I was able to look things up when I needed to and it was really helpful to g. Yeah, it's like it's like the AOL dial up from back in the day. I just know. I wish it made the sound just for effect. But yeah, uh wait, was that the trip that you went on without your wife to where? Where did you go? Australia? Australia. That's right, Yeah, you went to Australia without your wife

with a relatively new baby over Thanksgiving. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, she's just now forgiving me for this mad don't bring it back up. You paid for that one for a little bit, did Hey? It was it was a work trip, right, So yeah, you're lucky enough if you get to go on these suite these envious work trips where you get to go to some very cool places like Paris come up, Paris coming up, But at that time it was Australia,

all right. So practical things to do once you get to your destination, things that will help you enjoy your trip more and also spend less money, schedule minimally, that's really important. I think people tend to overbook themselves. They completely wear out their feet, they get super tired, uh, and they end up just totally exhausted back at the hotel,

completely exhausted. This is something for me, not necessarily the overdoing it apart, but just the scheduling part, because I'm an efficiency utilitarian man, like everything I do needs, you know, my natural tendency is everything I do kind of needs to have a purpose, and so I sometimes I have a tendency to think that like if I'm not scheduled, and if we're not doing something productive or going towards

the destination, it's waste of time. But what I've learned through traveling and figuring out what what I really enjoy is that, yes, like having some general goals as far as like what you want to hit up today, it is good to have. But yeah, Matt ten years ago is like hour by hour, yes, and that just gets stressful. And I was stressing in Kate out and she wasn't

having fun. I've learned to slow down a little bit too, because yeah, I used to be like, well, if I don't see at all then I'm gonna feel like I didn't didn't do the trip right. And now I've kind of learned to back off and take it easy and I don't feel like you've got to go every single place. One of one of Kate's rules actually is anytime we're traveling and kind of on the move, that we have to stay somewhere to nights. Like that's just one of

her one of her rules. It's like just to make sure that you have enough time to kind of get settled in a place you know where you're that way, you're not just always constantly looking where to go next, you know, because like when you're just constantly moving forward and not, you know, it can wear on you. You're like, all right, where's my next hotel, where's the next restaurant, as opposed to if you have a place that you know you can go back to because you've been there

at least one night before. Man, that does so much for you just mentally to to not wear you out, and and plus it gives you time to get a feel for a place, right like picking up the vibes of the location of either your airbnb or the little town or neighborhood that you're staying in. Having that second night, you really get a feel for it. Yeah, And I think spending a lot of time walking in the very beginning helps you get a feel for the city, the town,

wherever you are. If you can and spend a lot of time walking around, seeing the site, seeing what's around your you in your neighborhood, it kind of helps you get an idea of where you want to go and where you want to spend your time. Um kind of like spatially place yourself, like wherever you are, you kind of figure the layout of the city. For me, that's huge. I like to like know where I am on a map. Yeah, hey, if i'm I know generally I'm walking towards this direction.

Oh yeah, I know, we saw that before. That's over on this side of town or whatever. Well, and walking is free, you know, that's one of the things that you don't have to pay for it, but you get to see so much of what a city or a country has to offer is by literally walking the streets and being on the ground. So much of the culture that is true culture, you know, of of of a city is street level. I'm sure you saw that too

in in Thailand. I remember you talking about the different street food that you had and yeah, yeah, you get Yeah. So I think you get the layout of the city and the neighborhoods and stuff like that by walking. But you also, yes, you get this eye to eye, you get an idea for what life is actually like. We're gonna hanging out, your meeting people, you're looking at eye. You're kind of seeing the street food, seeing the vendors,

seeing the shops. And there's something about seeing your the city that you're visiting like that the first day or two, taking it all in Yeah, helps, I don't know, helps connect you to the place where you are. So, yeah, walk and riding bikes. Riding bikes is great too, It's just you're not You're not going to quite get that connection on a bike. Although it's better than it's still better than jumping in a cab, say even running a train or something like that. Man, I would would still

much rather bite. So on top of that, when it comes to cabs, I think to riding public transportation also gives you that instead of taking a cab, taking the bus or the train or whatever it is that everyone else takes this to the cheaper mode of transportation it's going to save you money and also kind of give you more of an idea of where you are and what other people are doing and what the vibe of

the city is. Just for instance, in New York City, if you land at the airport and you take the cab into town versus you know, taking the bus to the subway, Uh, you're going to spend a lot more money and you're not gonna get a vibe. There's like something super New York about riding the subway. Or when I was in Shanghai riding their subway, there's something like, you know what, I could have hopped in a taxi and probably gotten there a few minutes quicker, but I

would have missed a huge part of the experience. You get to see all the folks, You get to smell the smells of all the different people. Would be like pressed up again against the glass and it's like uper crowded. In Asia, man, they're just like literally shoving people on.

It's impressive. It really is a crossing the canal on the boat for like fifty cents or whatever it was in in Shanghai, it was amazing and you're you're like literally sandwiched in between all these people, but for fifty cents, man, there's no cheaper way to get across. And that's all part of the experience, the different modes of transportation. Actually, I mean that makes me think of New York as well.

Like Kate and I have arrived into New York City. Well, she's not two different ways, No, I've been it three different ways. The very first time I arrived in New York City, me and my buddy Kyle, we drove north of the city, and then we took the train down into the city, and then we arrived in Grand Central. So like literally the first experience of New York City was arriving in Times Square. Well first Grand Central station, but then taking that up to Times Square and having

arrived by train. Super cool, right, and then he went to Guy Fieri's restaurant, right yeah, uh, right, before we went to the eminem Store. Not really but but yeah, but then before that, you know, we'd flown in and arrived at playing But then this last time, Kitten, I went up, Kid and I, uh, we drove up. We stopped and visited uh some friends on the way, and we parked at Staten Island, and then we took the ferry across, which was another completely different way to take

in the city. You know, like literally we're you know, taking the ferry to Manhattan at sunset, like at dusk and man just talking like so much of the different experiences are involved transportation, involved sort of local transportation. So yeah, the transportation is not just the way to get you somewhere.

It is part of the experience, part of the culture, and treat it like that because you know how that is, like in your city, that's probably part of your culture too, and it is where we live to it's usually it's just an awful mode, which is sitting in traffic in a car, But in a lot of cities that's a huge part of of the culture and how you get around because that's a large part of a lot of people's days. So take that into account and try to

save money on how you get around. And also that's also going to be the way that most common folks get around, so you get kind of an idea of how the locals live. Another way to get an idea of how the locals live, there's a couple of apps now where you can kind of get guides from actual locals, and there's one that I would tell people to check out.

It's called a cool cousin. So check that out app out And there's people that in cities all over the world now on that app that live in that city and love that city and kind of tell you what their favorite things are to do in that city. So check that one out and be friendly. Get to know people, and know a little bit about the history of the place you're visiting. And if it's uh a foreign country, know a few of the words um, just so you can at least try at least trying to reach out

in their tongue. Um. Just knowing a few words, a few phrases gives the person you're talking to a sense that you're trying and that you care and that you came there too, not just be a tourist, but to understand their culture. And that goes a long long way, and you're gonna have a much better experience if the people you're dealing with no that you care a little bit. So yet again, I have had all my beer and you're still swirling ears over there. I like to uh,

I'm patient. I'm a patient sipper. Hey, I like to save your mind as well. But you didn't have any water for me to drink. Sorry, my throat sounds all all gunky. I'm a crappy host and everyone knows it now. No, I like recording over here. Normally we record over at my place, but coming over here, I got to get on the bike and right over in the nice music, cool evening wakes me back up. Lovely, lovely night tonight.

We always record at night, in case you folks were wondering, Well, so I feel like we all as would be Alky's if we were doing this at nine am, I think so. I thought about that. It's ten am here on Wednesday morning. We're cracking open a beer. But the hop slam. It's fantastic, just as good as ever. Yeah, I'm kind of I was kind of worried going back to it because we've had such wonderful I p A since then, especially some I pas that were different style. But man, it still

stands up. It's kind of refreshing to have something in that old school I p A style too, that we don't really do very often. Yeah, it doesn't feel it doesn't even though it's kind of it has that malt backbone to it. It doesn't taste as heavy as some of the some of the new New England style. I p a s that are a little more juicy hazy. Yeah yeah, so but like it. I like it too. Bell's hop Slam. Will U have a picture for you

in the link to the untapped profile um on our website. Alright, jel, So let's do a little quick recap then for folks, because we've kind of talked a lot about practical stuff, but then we also talked more of like the philosophical stuff early on in the podcast, and I want to make sure we tied up a nice little bow. First off, before you start planning your next trip, think about how

you want to explore a city. Think about how you like to travel, and just make sure you take that into account when you're booking your travel, when you're considering where you want to go, and think about what you actually enjoy doing as well. If you're scheduled to do a bunch of things that you don't ever normally do when you're at home, well you may not enjoy doing all those things just because they're in a different city

or a different country. Yeah, travel the way you want to travel, and don't let the guide books and the fancy blog posts about certain towns sway you and exactly how you need to attack that attack that visit. Uh, go at it a your pace and the way you like to travel. Also, consider staying in the United States.

There's so much to explore here in our own country, and a lot of people don't consider traveling around the United States where you can get a cheap plane ticket or hop in your car and drive eight hours and explore a completely different terrain. They don't think that that's really travel and they decided to book a trip to Europe instead. And Europe's awesome, But consider saving a bunch of money. You can want more trips. They have a

ton of money, and you can. You can see completely different cultures and completely different terrains by traveling in our country while relatively still staying in your own backyard and get to know that first. Maybe before you might need a translating device if you go to New Orleans still, but uh, yeah, it's it's awesome. I love traveling this country. Yeah, and sort of going along with that. One of the biggest things is being flexible, whether that means being flexible

with your dates or being flexible with like your location. Right, you wanna see where the deals are, and if there's a deal saying in a city you've never heard of but it sounds kind of interesting, consider it. Man, that might be one of the one of the best vacations you've ever taken. And obviously, if you have flexibility when it comes to dates, you can find a really good deal. Yes, thanks so much for listening everyone. Our home on the web is how to money dot com. Be sure to

check it out. We'll have our show notes up there for you, and don't forget to hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this show. Until next time, Buddy, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.