Thinking of Traveling?

Think Road Trip!

If you notice, there is a huge gap from June to November with no posts. This is because I went on a wonderful road trip with my wonderful boyfriend. If you have not taken a road trip for a vacation yet, I highly recommend it. 

 

Our Road Trip Breakdown:  

1. The Distance: I live in Edmonton, AB, Canada. The furthest point we drove too was San Diego California.

2. The Stops:

Seattle

 This was our fist major stop. Both Jordon and I fell completely in love with this city. There was so much to see and do without breaking the bank (which as students, is what we were looking for.) This picture was my favorite view in the entire city. I believe we were at this particular spot for 45 minutes. We had an awesome hotel right on the water front as well. Jordon really liked the public library, it had... 10 floors I think. We also did an underground tour of the city which cost us 10$ as students.

Oregon

 Our main stop in Oregon was Newport. The ocean was simply beautiful along the coast. Taking the 101 Highway is much slower than the I-5 but definitely worth the time. We camped in Newport which saved us some extra cash, so we found it helpful to bring camping equipment as well.

San Francisco

 Next was San Francisco. We stayed in a beautiful hotel downtown. It was a 4 star a believe so pretty pricey, but you pay for the location. The only downfall of the hotel we were at was because it was so fancy,  you had to pay for everything else. I think parking alone cost us 60 dollars for two nights. We spent almost the entire day in Golden Gate Park. It took us about 3 hours to walk the entire park all the way to the ocean. We were also in San Fran on July 4th! So we went back and took a nap so we could survive Fishermans Wharf that evening. We had delicious clam chowder in bread bowls which was really inexpensive for the amount you get. Now if you haven't been to the States on July 4th, they go all out. The fireworks were incredible and completely blew Canada Day out of the water. 

Anaheim

Now I have been to Disneyland about 5 times now. Jordon had never even thought of going. We stopped for one day and surprisingly got everything done. We went on a Friday and just made sure we were there first thing in the morning. We stayed at the Super 8 that was pretty much across the road from the entrance. You DO NOT need a nice hotel if you're going on rides all day. The Super 8 was great. It was clean and even provided a little breakfast in the morning. This was by far our funnest day. It was great to be little kids again without having to stand in line with little kids. If you are debating on doing any sort of theme park as a young adult because you think it's for child, I highly recommend going BEFORE you have kids. Once you have kids, you are going to have to stand in line for 45 minutes to meet their favorite princess. As 20 year olds, you can surpass all that and just ride all day!

Las Vegas

After Anaheim we did go to San Diego but we were so tired it was a beach/pool day. After that, since I had just turned 21, we headed to FABULOUS Las Vegas.... though when it is 42 degrees out, its a lot less fabulous. Jordon and I aren't really into gambling, so Vegas was kind of a flop for us. We also aren't big shoppers. We did however go to the Wax Museum which was pretty sweet. We also went and saw the Blue Man Group which was another highlight of the trip. Jordon's a drummer so it was right up his ally and it was absolutely hilarious. Treasure Island was a great hotel and super cheap. The only thing we had a hard time finding was good food at a good price. The first night we had delicious tapas but the bill came to 90$, the second night only costed us 25$ but it was an average buffet. Then we headed back to E-Town!

3. Cost: As I said before, we did this road trip before starting school again in September, so we were looking for savings EVERYWHERE!

Food can be super expensive if you're eating out three meals a day. Since we had a car, we brought plastics dishes, a cooler, and tons of non perishable items (crackers, juice, nuts.) I don't think we bought one lunch on our 2 week trip. We always stopped at grocery stores to get stuff to make sandwiches and bought a lot of cereal for the mornings (just make sure to have ice in your cooler to keep the milk cold.)

Almost all our hotels were booked on hotwire.com a day before we drove into the city. We did not have one bad experience with it. The site tells you the area in the city where the hotel would be so you can still see what you are close too. It also tells you the hotels amenities so you know if you would be getting wifi or breakfast. Another thing to look for too is the location. When we booked our hotels, we made sure they were all close to public transport or walking distance so we did not have to move our car while staying in a city. This also saved us money on gas.

One nice aspect of doing a trip like this is you do not need much extra spending money. I think we each bought a hoodie and a picture from Vegas. I know this probably sounds cheesy, but with the awesome experiences, you do not feel the need to buy materialistic items.

Tours and Admissions are usually cheaper for students so DO NOT forget your Student ID card. One nice thing about traveling in the States is that they are unaware of the Universities up here. Even if you do not go to school (I had my Grant MacEwan ID even though I was not in school that semester) bring it along.

Well this took me way longer than I expected and Jordon will be home from his meeting soon. I have some supper to make and lesson plans to create.

Have an adventure,

-Vanessa xo