Renting a Car vs. Renting a Camper Van in New Zealand

When we decided to go to New Zealand, we knew we'd need a mode of transportation. Unlike Europe, New Zealand is spread out and more recently developed. Trains and public transportation are almost non existent, especially between different regions. We knew renting a car (and driving on the other side of the road!) was in our future, and we needed to decide which was best - the all inclusive camper van, or the standard full sized car.

Which did we choose? The full sized car. Here are 5 reasons why.

1. The False Promise of Freedom
We were intrigued by the camper van, thinking we could plan our entire trip very loosely, just parking anywhere on the side of the road. This, however, turns out not to be true; most of the country requires you to reserve a spot at a camp site rather than just park. There are a few areas on the south island, but not enough to allow a free roaming trip.

2. Saving Money
We thought renting a camper van would be an all inclusive - a place to sleep and means of transportation, killing two birds with one stone. While it can be both, there are still additional costs associated. Because #1 is true, and you still have to reserve camp spots, we weren't necessarily saving money on hotels. At an average of $40/night for camp spots (and nice hotels ranging from $80-$150/night), and the fact that camper vans cost more than twice as much than a car, the full sized won again.

3. Gas Money
Our little car got between 30-35 MPG, where the camper van would average 15MPG or LESS. Planning a 1400 mile road trip at half the gas price was instant savings.

4. Crazy Roads
While we didn't factor this in ahead of time, I am SO thankful we had a car instead of a van. The roads in New Zealand are crazy! We drove over dozens and dozens of ONE LANE BRIDGES. I don't mean one lane each direction, I mean one lane. With no stop light. Essentially "hope nobody is coming the other way" with a CAR. 

Also, unless you're in Auckland or Christchurch, you won't be on major interstates - more like state roads. One lane each way, and many are winding, cliff side, and terrifying. I am SO thankful we didn't have a top heavy camper van while we were driving on the side of a cliff with no guard rail. 

OH, not to mention on the other side of the road.

5. Leaving Your House At Home
While I found New Zealand to be an extremely safe country, I couldn't help but notice how many people were driving to every tourist attraction with a van full of their possessions. It was nice to have a place to do laundry, leave our valuables behind, and get out of the car for a while! 

Our little car! She was a keeper.

It's definitely nice to have options! I think the camper van might work best for some, but wasn't the right option for us. Perhaps consider it if you're staying in a few places for a longer period of time, rather than several places for 1-2 nights. Hopefully if you're doing some research, this helps you make a decision!

Have you ever rented a camper van?
xo

PS - We rented our car through Jucy Rentals and had a WONDERFUL experience! 

How to Budget Travel Into Your Lifestyle: Part I

If there's one question I've been asked over and over, it's "how do you travel so much?" quickly followed by things like "It's so expensive" and "I wish I could do that"

Well guess what - YOU CAN! All it takes is deciding what is more important: a new shirt for $50 - or knowing that's 1/4 of your flight to Seattle.

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Full disclosure on financials for this. I will give you an idea of my budget and how I made it work. It's about budgeting your essentials, and then deciding what's most important to you.

When I was 24 I was working at my first job, and after my raise, I was making $35,000/year. After taxes, this came to about $2700/month.

This is about what I was budgeting a month. Of course there's always the things you forget about, but I'm $100 under budget, and that's also what misc expenses are for. I also always budget extra into my 'gas' budget, for things like your registration, burnt out break lights, and oil changes.

My rent was rather low, but to make up for it, I was making double car payments ($300x2) so I could pay my car off early. Once that was done, I planned on taking that extra $300 a month to place towards student loans. Budgeting means taking care of responsibilities and debt first.

What you might notice is low is my "fun" budgets - $150 for eating out, for example. At approximately $15/meal with tax and tip, puts me at 10 outings a month (or 2 per week and a couple left over). This is more than enough to accommodate girls nights, coffee stops here and there, so-and-so's birthday, brunch on Saturdays with my roommate. There is absolutely no reason no eat out every night unless you don't have a kitchen. And even then, you can get a hot plate. It's one of the biggest money vacuums to a young budgeter - don't fall for the trap! Save your restaurant excursions for special occasions and being social. Skip the table for 1 or the close relationship with the local pizza delivery guy.

A small experiment - let's say every dinner costs $15 with tip. Every "quick, cheap" lunch costs $6, and every coffee you stop for is $3. If you do each of these things 3 days a week (very easy to do if you aren't paying attention!) you're looking at an average cost of $72 per week, or just under $300 per month. Check your eating out habits, and start saving to eat out when you're in Chicago instead.

Another thing that's low is my "others" category: mani/pedi's, movies, buying clothes. I would limit myself to 1 movies a month in the theater, and 1 mani/pedi every 2 months. A bottle of nail polish costs $8, and $35 saved is a 1/5 of a plane ticket.

Now clothes. Ohhhhh clothes. I'm a girl. I love them. But there are more important things in life! This doesn't mean I never buy any - it just means I play it right. I wait for sales, scope out TJ Maxx, and save my $50 budget from this month, so next month I have $100 to play with :) It's much more satisfying, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

Giving myself this budget allows me to fly 8-10 times a year, visiting friends and places all over the US. I'd also like to add that I took a few babysitting jobs a month - between 1-3 per months - and put that cash directly into a box labeled TRAVEL FUND. This is how I managed to visit Europe three years in a row. $50-100 per babysitting job, I was pulling in about $2k per year of unexpected cash. This could easily be done with a 1 day a week night job at a coffee shop, or doing retail floor sets. If you work one, 5 hours shift a week at $8/hr, you'll earn $2000 before taxes. Now where did you want to go again?

If you find yourself thinking you have no room in your budget, I'd challenge you to do this. Take your debit/credit card statement from last month and get a few colors of highlighters. Highlight anything like in spending (i.e., all coffee, or all take out/eat in food, all clothes shopping). You'll be shocked what you're spending! I did this with my coffee habit fresh out of college, and realized I was buying 1-2 coffees every single day - putting my bill at almost $200 a month! For that, I could have purchased a fancy espresso machine. I put myself on a budget of 2x a week, for more like $25 per month, and enjoyed my new extra $175 to buy myself a plane ticket.

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Budgeting travel is all about taking all of your "extras" and deciding if they're worth it. Let's say you want to take a trip to New York with your girlfriends.
Flight: $200
3 days of meals: $150
Drinks+Coffee: $75
Broadway Show: $100
Hotel split 4 ways: $225pp
Weekend Metro Card: $25
Misc Spending: $50
Trip total: $800

Luxuries You Want:
iPhone 5s came out (you still have a 4s) = $200
Monthly Mani/Pedi $600/year (at $50 per session, including tip)
Never Packing Yourself a Lunch $1560/year (at $6/day, 5 days a week for 52 weeks)

Deciding if they're worth it?: 
Stick with your 4s for another 6 months, and your flight is paid for. $200 saved
Take cut your spa days to every 2 months instead, and pay for your hotel & drinks/coffee $300 saved
Decided to pack your lunch MWF every week, with leftovers, or batch cooked meals (very affordable) - even if you spend $50 extra on groceries a month, you'll have enough money to pay for your drinks, food, coffee, souvenirs, metro card, broadway show, and still have $275 extra to put towards your next trip. $650 saved

It's a matter of priorities. If new technology is on the top of your list, then go for the iPhone. If seeing old friends and new places ranks higher, stick with the ghetto phone as long as you can (I got an iPhone when the 4s came out - and I still have it), and enjoy texting slightly lesser quality photos to your friends stuck at home.

Do you have any budget tips or tricks? Where would you like to save up to go?
xo

2013: A Year in Travel

I find I'm at my best when I have a trip coming up. It's something i've been addicted to a long time, and have always been happiest spending my money on plane tickets! Here's a review of where I went in 2013

January

Fort Myers, FL/Sanibel Island, FL/Orlando, FL - visiting my family and seeing friends... always a good time. Not to mention - Matt's first trip to Disney (since he was 8... and he doesn't remember at all).

With my Prince Charming (cheesy... I knoooow)

Sky bar with Alicia!

Bunch Beach

Sanibel Lovers

Ford's Garage, Ft Myers, FL

March

Ogden, UT/Antelope Island, UT - I've never been to Utah, but I can safely say it's one of the most beautiful and unique places in the US. If given the chance, GO FOR IT!

view from our cabin - unreal, I know.

on location, Antelope Island. Filling in for the makeup artist :)

In and Out - haven't been here since high school! Luckily the milkshakes don't have meat :)

Chattanooga, TN - for a beautiful wedding of our friends Danielle and Josh! They were married at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Gardens with a reception on the 34th floor of a hotel.

April

St Louis to visit my friend Kim. A short 36 hour trip, but i'd never been before! We saw the arch, ate yummy food, and went on our 2nd Budweiser brewery tour... and also became Brewmasters.

BREWMASTER OLSON

Kentucky - Road trips. It's only like 45 minutes away... so why not take a trip up for some diner food?

May

Seattle: My first time. You can read more about it on Wednesday!

Bauhaus Books and Coffee

Hiking Poo Poo Point

June

Chattanooga for my niece, Avery, turning 1!

Also - Kitty's first road trip! He was a trooper... basically slept on my lap the whole time.

My sister and her adorable family

July 

NYC #1 - Gotta love a good excuse for a trip to NYC. My old Sanibel posse was there, including my friend Libby (who moved back to London less than a month later)... so I joined.

'ello new york.

CUP in Greenpoint - the sweetest staff in NYC

Buttermilk Channel in Brooklyn Heights with Casey!

King Noodle in Bushwick - it's off the beaten path, but it is incredible.

brunching with the Sanibel crew!

August

Tulsa, OK - also my first time here.... lots of time with my girls to help Jess G get hitched!

 Chicago, IL - for maybe the 100th time.... but it never gets old. I love visiting Ash! ALSO this time was maybe the best time, because we got to see Jimmy Eat World!

At Bongo Room - one of my favorites!

JIMMY!

September

Atlanta, GA - I've been through atlanta millions of times, but this was the first time i stopped to appreciate it

Kylie's gorgeous wedding!

Matt's first stop at Ikea

Photo booth at West Egg Cafe - check out that first pic. We look good.

NYC #2: Thanks to our credit card miles for this entire trip... and for the sweet digs at the Conrad New York. Such a nice hotel! Our main purpose of visiting was the Lord Huron & Alt+J show in Central Park - which was awesome!

Conrad

Hotel Bar

Touristing

Matt's contemplating this as a tattoo

Sup, Jersey.

Got to hang with my cousin, NYC's newest resident.

A good crew at Sweet Chick BK

BK Heights has the best view of the city!

Lord Huron - and Alt+J was amazing!

Yes... we are still in September. It was a crazy month! And this last trip went into October

Orlando + Caribbean: We road tripped down with two other couples to Epcot Food and Wine Festival... and then ventured on our 7 day cruise (and met up with 2 other couples, for 5 couples total!) Our ports were: Cozumel, Belize City, Roatan, and Costa Maya.

Epcot Food and Wine Festival! This was actually the first day of the event.

Cultured.

CRUISIN!

Peace out, America!

Self-imposed 80's night. 

Roatan. The best.

November

Atlanta #2 - We liked it much more than we thought! So we took a lovers getaway here for a day and a half to do some eating, drinking, and Ikea-ing (to fill up our almost renovated house!)

He's fun :)

i LOVE the quote on the wall!

 Capella Ixtapa - aka, heaven on earth. This is where we spent Thanksgiving and celebrated our anniversary (it's also where we went our our honeymoon, so it's sentimental for me!) Read more about Capella here and here.

December
LA... for a few hours - We had an 18 hour layover leaving Mexico - so we got to see some wonderful friends!

Bozeman/Big Sky, Montana - it's a winter wonderland for sure. It was also a bit of an arctic tundra this time... with nothing ABOVE -20 degrees the entire week we were there. Brrrrrrrrr. At least it's pretty. We usually snowboard but I only mustered up the courage to go into the cold ONCE. :)

the Bozeman airport is the CUTEST

Layer 1 of 25

Matt's eyes + Flash = nonexistent 

Bismarck/Fargo, ND - after Big Sky, we road tripped back to North Dakota with Matt's family. I also got to see my long lost roommate, Ashlee!!!

It was a crazy/amazing/wonderful/adventurous year. I wouldn't do it any different.

We have a few things penciled in for 2014, but not a whole lot set in stone.... except the trip I'm going on Friday - stay tuned for details of that in Wednesday's post! :) I haven't been to Europe in about three years... and i'm itching to go back! I'd also like to explore some new cities in the US - DC, Portland, Maine (anywhere in Maine, really), Asheville.... my list always goes on and on.

Where are you going in 2014? What's your goal? Domestic, international... tell me tell me!

xo