By: Tarana Burke

1.26.14

 

Before this year, whenever I told people that I had never been on vacation they looked at me like I was crazy. Since I was a little girl I have traveled all over the U.S. for various road trips, family gatherings, extracurricular activities or conferences and had visited more than twenty states and Canada before I started college. In my twenties and early 30s I traveled around the world extensively for work and had been to places I never dreamed of visiting like Timbuktu and Tunis - but always work related. The fact is, at 39 I had never taken an actual no conferences-no speeches-no meetings-no trainings vacation EVER and I always had an excuse for why I couldn't - the main two being: Money and Motherhood. As an non-profit executive I made a decent living but I not a fabulous one and I thought that it precluded me from going on the kind of vacation that I had always dreamed about. I am also the mother of a teenaged daughter. In all of my travels my daughter was never able to travel with me. Year after year I left her for one and two weeks at a time while I jetted half way across the globe and I always felt incredibly guilty. Any dream vacation would not be complete without my babygirl, which meant more money. 

I carried that sentiment around for years and years until last year when something clicked in my brain. I was going through my account and started adding up all the money I had spent thus far (it was August) on clothes, dining out and local travel. The figure was astonishing. I then went online to see what a ticket would cost from New York to Italy and again, I was astonished. For what I had spent in eight months I could have purchased two full priced tickets from New York to Rome. I made up my mind in that moment that I was taking my dream vacation. I was a month away from my 39th birthday and I decided that my 40th birthday gift to myself would be this trip and that's all it took. A decision. 

 

Nine months later I left New York with my daughter (and my aunt) and took a three and a half week vacation to three countries in Europe. It was the trip of a lifetime. The experiences we shared and the places we visited will forever be etched in out hearts and minds.  I have the travel bug now! Well I always had it, but now I am clear that I will be traveling out of the country at least once a year. I'm not talking just to the Caribbean and Mexico, although those are great places to start, I want to see the WORLD! When I came back and shared my experience on social media I got a number of inquiries about how I was able to take this trip. People asked about everything from the financial aspect to the planning. I'm here to tell you that it is all-possible and share the steps I took to make it happen. 

 

1. Make the decision.

This is not as simple as it sounds. Don't toy with it in your mind anymore. I talked about Italy for years and years. I dreamed about shopping sprees and walking through Tuscany until it became a fairytale in my head. Make it real. Declare your intention. 

 

2. Research. 

I can't stress this enough. Once your mind is made up this is the next major step - if you want to do it this way. I owe a large part of my trip becoming a reality to the sister bloggers over at Brown Girls Fly. They have an awesome website and very interactive Facebook page. I found them while doing some general research on traveling and reached out to Chelle via email. At the time I was trying to decide if I should use a travel agent or just plan the trip myself. She sent me a detailed email and answered all of my questions and gave me magnificent tips (which I'll share) for planning the trip on my own. Her email was so thoughtful that it convinced me that I could plan this trip on my own. I am a very detailed person and I love planning so it just fell in to place for me. If you are not a detail oriented person, you may want to plan with someone or think about using an agent. However, there are so many tools available that I think even the most absent minded of you could pull it off. My research was broken into a few areas: 

 

• Airfare - I used a few sites to track the prices of flights that I was looking at. One of the biggest tips Chelle gave me was to look into flying into a less popular European country not too far from your actual destination because the flights may be cheaper and once you get to Europe getting around is really inexpensive. GREAT ADVICE. I ended up flying into Berlin, Germany and saving $600 per ticket to fly into Rome (check this out). In any event, once I chose where I was flying to I set up alerts: Skyscanner.com and Kayak.com were the two sites I used the most. There are many, but these two, in my opinion were easiest to navigate and had the cheapest prices reflected earlier than any other sites. Once you set up your alert the website will email you when the price fluctuates up or down. 

 

• Accommodations - This is where you have to be VERY careful and pay close attention to details. Chelle suggested I look into AirBnB.com, which is a site where you can find people renting out space in their homes or the entire home for a period of time. It is highly recommended, cost effective and safe. I was really excited about trying it out, but in the end wasn't able to do so only because of logistics. I definitely plan to use it this summer on my next trip. What I used instead was Hotels.com and this was a wonderful experience. They are a really user friendly site and they allow you to create your own list of prospective hotels and watch for the best possible prices. They allow you to compare hotels and services and they have a GREAT rewards program. I am a silver member (working on gold) but you get a free night's stay in a hotel (of equal or lesser value than the cost of your average hotel stays) after 10 nights. I used Hotels.com throughout the year for any kind of hotel I had to book and accumulated the points. By the time I went on the trip I had enough points for two free nights - which I used at our last stop in Rome. You have to be very careful when booking hotels though and read ALL of the fine print. Check in and check out times, extra fees (Europe has some taxes that the U.S. does not), costs for extra occupants, costs for children, proximity to public transportation, free shuttle to and from the airport and complimentary BREAKFAST (it will save you a ton of money!), English speaking staff, AIR CONDITIONING (don't assume it comes with the room), Wi-Fi (not always free or available) - there are just some of the things to look for. And, whether you are booking on AirBnB or Hotels.com - BE SURE TO READ THE REVIEWS. I can't stress that enough. People are thorough and honest and often give detailed reviews and tips for staying at a particular hotel. Some of those tips helped us tremendously on the trip. 

 

• Transportation - Depending on where you are going this may or may not be relevant. We traveled from Berlin to Prague to Venice to Milan to Lago de Gardna to Verona to Florence to Pisa, to Tuscany to Rome in three weeks. There were A LOT of details involving transportation. We traveled mostly by train (except from Prague to Venice) and it was relatively simple. For European travel I would recommend Rail Europe. Countries like Italy and France have excellent rail systems as well with easily navigated websites many are even connected to Rail Europe. You have to always look for the translate button (usually at the top of the page) and the site will be translated to English. I also downloaded an app called Tripit. There are several trip organizing apps and websites, but I loved the interaction of Tripit. You input your information and it will create one big itinerary complete with local weather and directions for you. It was my survival guide for the length of the trip. 

 

• Recreation - Once you get the hard logistics down you will want to start exploring your options for fun and recreation! This is the best part. There is literally a website or blog or community thread for EVERYTHING! Seriously, it was amazing some of the things I found from the comfort of my home (like the local bus schedule in Verona, Italy) with the click of a button. However, everything is not in English. I am an avid fan of Google; so I can only speak to what they have, but I used Google translate (which you can add as a button on bookmark toolbar) to translate pages from German, Czech and Italian to English. It’s not a perfect science, but its clear enough for you to handle business. Here's another great tip that saved us a ton of money - I joined Groupon Italia. Again, if you use Gmail it will automatically translate emails to English for you, or you can download a translate app (the one I used is literally called 'translate' with a blue icon) and cut and paste the emails in to the app and it will translate for you. I used groupons for us to go to fancy restaurants for dinner, for a spa day and to get my very first tattoo! It also added to the adventure of the trip because it was another layer of exploration to get to the some of the groupon destinations, and it gave us an opportunity to see life outside of strictly tourist destinations, In places like Rome that are heavily tourist populated it was helpful to order tickets to places like the Coliseum in advance and be able to skip ahead on the line. You can even find discount passes to more than one site and save yourself the hassle of waiting - and you will wait - believe that. 

 

3. Save and Pre-Pay:

Your research will give you a very clear idea of what you will spend on your vacation and that is the biggest reason to take your time to do it well. You should begin to save from the moment you make the decision. You know it will cost something so there is no need to wait. Just start stacking your coins knowing that they are going toward this trip. The largest cost is of course the plane tickets. I took on some extra work and used a bit of that money to just buy my plane tickets in one shot. Everyone can't do that, but if you know you are getting a little extra somewhere (a bonus, your income tax, back child support [lol]) pull off the band aid and get your plane ticket out of the way. After that, I paid for the trip like it was on lay-a-way. Every pay period I bought something else. Either I paid for a hotel room or bought a train ticket or scheduled a recreational activity - something. And that was in addition to putting away money for the trip itself. It may also take some sacrifice. After Christmas of 2012 I halted shopping for four months. That's January, February, March, AND April. We didn't even get new Easter outfits. That’s a big deal roun' here. But I was focused. My trip was mostly pre-paid by May and the money I had saved was for food and recreation and incidentals. 

 

4. Relax and Enjoy: 

My aunt, who is more like my older sister, came with us for part of the trip. She has the same adventurous spirit that I do and was down to go as soon as she heard. I was so grateful that she went for a bunch of reasons, but the main one is that I can be completely myself around her. I wasn't in any way inhibited on this trip. We shopped, ate, explored, got tatted, and ate some more and laughed, and laughed and laughed on the whole trip. In fact, my daughter and I were so sad when we had to part ways it took us a day or two to recover. But my point is, travel with someone who you can relax and enjoy yourself with. My daughter is my road dog, so I knew she would be fun too even as a teenager. On my next trip I'm going with girlfriends who I've know for twenty years - same thing. I know that I will allow myself to relax and enjoy everything about my trip because I will give myself permission to and I will travel with people who will do the same. Everything will not go according to plan and that's okay - don't sweat the small stuff - just relax and enjoy. 

 

My last tidbit of advice: 

•    PACK LIGHT! I thought I needed a ton of clothes for three weeks and ended up dragging a huge suitcase all around Europe. I will never do that again. Again, it depends on where you go, but for most places it will be warm in summer months you won't need much, 

•    Start a Pinterest Board (or two). Use one for dreaming and one for logistical stuff or make one for every area. Visuals are really helpful and fun. 

•    Don't overwhelm yourself. It's really easy to get carried away behind a keyboard. Planning this trip felt like planning a wedding sometimes and if you have ever done that you know how easy it is to get caught up in details. You cannot do everything you want in every place, try and be as realistic as possible when planning activities. 

•    Be flexible. Like I said, things will not always go according to plans. To me that's apart of the fun. Allow yourself space to get lost or try something unexpected - you'll be pleasantly surprised! 

 

My next trip is to Turkey and Greece! Stay tuned for details.