How I Plan a Trip: Materials from my July Travel Salon

Thank you to everyone who made my July Travel Salon/Workshop a success yesterday! For those of you who could not make it, you should be able to watch a video of the livestream by clicking here. Fair warning: this is not edited so the recording is the full workshop. Also, this is not the most flattering angle for me, so please don't judge :P (I did this immediately following a long 12 hour work day).

As I mentioned at the end of the workshop, I am posting the content of the handout (2 pages) that I went over at this workshop here. I discussed my process for planning a trip and made this outline of things you might be interested in knowing about how I do things.

If you have any questions at all, do not hesitate to contact me! You can leave a comment here, on my Facebook Page, or feel free to email me at tippestravels@gmail.com.

My Favorite Free Travel Experiences

Free things are always the best! And over the years, being the frugal gal that I am, I have found quite a myriad of ways to have free and cheap things to do when traveling. Here is a list of some of my favorite FREE experiences I've had throughout my travels (aside from having fun wandering a city, of course). There are conditions to getting free things a lot of time though, so just be aware of that.

• The Louvre - The Louvre Museum is such an icon of both Paris and Europe! Representing the history of French government and royalty in it's location and the progression of art throughout the world, you can't go to Paris and not visit the Louvre. I almost didn't make it until, while on an amazing bike tour of the city, my awesome tour guide told us that on Friday nights after 6pm, the Louvre is absolutely free for anyone under 26 years old. In fact, this is exactly what their website says:
  
  
  On Friday evenings from 6 p.m. to 9:45 p.m., admission to the permanent collections
  is free for under-26s regardless of nationality (upon presentation of ID).
  There is also free entry on the first Sunday of each month, but the Free Friday Nights is a better deal if you qualify just because it is WAY less crowded this way.

• The Prado - The Prado Museum is one of my favorite museums of all time! They had a very cool exhibit featuring Picasso when I was there. Who knew I would love his early work? Anyway, there is a list of people who get in free at any time, which includes students 18-25 years old, anyone under 18, and journalists! It always pays to check if you qualify for something like this. 

• Chase Visa Lounge & A Chef Morimoto Dinner - When I was a spectator at the 2012 London Olympics, anyone with a Chase Visa card could enter a special VIP Lounge on Pall Mall. This lounge had a TON of free perks like free food, free drinks (European Fanta for me, but they also had alcoholic drinks for free), free calls to the US, free WiFi, free Olympic pins and gear, and best of all, if you signed up ahead of time there were free meet and greets with various American Olympians and free dinners cooked by Chef Morimoto. THE Iron Chef, Chef Morimoto! Free! BEST sushi and steak and everything else I have ever had! I even had a fun chat with him about Hawaii, where I am from, and how he has a restaurant there. This is probably my all-time favorite free experience so far :)
  
• Sundance Chase Sapphire Preferred Lounge - Chase is just an amazing bank, and if you ever find yourself at the Sundance Film Festival every January in Park City, Utah, you will be rewarded. The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is the official card of the festival, so if you happen to own one, you can gain access to their special dinner events and film parties, which usually have some sort of celebrity in attendance. Last year I went to a party for a James Franco film called I Am Michael. It was really neat.

• Sundance Cut-the-Line Pass - The best perk about having a Chase Sapphire Preferred card at Sundance is that when they sell a limited amount of tickets set aside for people who wait in line for day-of shows each morning, you get to cut the line. People like up for hours before the ticket office opens each morning, but with the card, you can show up a half hour or so before and still have decent access to whatever is available. I got to see my favorite actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in his HitRecord On TV premiere show this way! <3 I was literally 3 feet from him!

• Addis Ababa Layover Entry Visa and Hotel - One great tip that takes a little research is to see if an airline you are flying offers any layover perks. Usually you can find free perks when you are flying on an international airline where you have a layover in their home base. For instance, I was flying on Ethiopian Airlines between Rome and Bangkok transiting Addis Ababa for 23 hours on a United Airlines award ticket a couple of years ago. Because I was arrive and departing from Ethiopia on their national airline, they offered a program where if you have a layover over 8 hours long, the airline will pay for your Visa (about a $20 value), a hotel, and transportation to and from the hotel. I got a great nap and was able to do a small tour of Addis this way. All for free! Turkish Airways and some other airlines offer a similar program. It just takes a little research before you go, but it's totally worth it since most passengers don't take advantage of these programs due to a lack of information about them.

• Calgary Stampede Value Days - There are one or two days each year during the famed Calgary Stampede where they offer free admission under a variety of conditions. This year, I just so happened to decide to go to a FIFA World Cup game in Alberta at the same time, so I looked at their website under the discount section and saw that on the same weekend I was there, they offered free admission to anyone who entered before 9am. That's a $17 value! Because of this, I got to try a lobster corndog (yum!), ride a ride on the midway, and explored the grounds for a while. Definitely a bucket list item checked off for free! But now I want to go back :)

• Family Connections: Thailand Temples - One good way to get free stuff when you travel is to know if you can get discounts based on where you or your family is from. When I go to Thailand, because my mom is originally from there, I get free (or very cheap) entry to the major tourist sites throughout the country. A big one is the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It's usually around $20USD worth of Baht to enter, but as a Luk Krung (half child), I get in for free! Similarly, my roommate was born in Buenos Aires and in South America, she is considered to be South American even though she was raised in Utah. So when we visited Iguazu Falls, she got a VERY discounted entry fee. Again, with a little research, you could save a lot of money this way.

• National Parks - If you are a more outdoorsy person, you should also take advantage of the Free Entrance Days at the National Parks (which I wrote about in January here). There are 9 days a year on which the NPS offers free admission to everyone. Even though I bought a National Parks Pass this year, I ended up being at a major National Park on three of those days so far (Arches, Yellowstone, and Mount Rushmore). In the colder months, this is even better because there are hardly any crowds to deal with.

• Bargain! - Don't be afraid to bargain in certain situations. This can be a good way to get free things as well. When I visited Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands with a couple of friends, there was only one ferry each way per day to and from St. Thomas, and our ferry got there over 2 hours late because they turned around to pick up some late cruise ship passengers. This was very frustrating because we already had only a limited time on the island due to the fixed ferry schedule, so I talked to the ferry operator and they paid for our taxi ride to and from The Baths, one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited! This saved us roughly $40 in roundtrip transportation. But we definitely deserved it!

There are a handful of other free activities that I haven't done yet such as some of these listed in this Huffington Post article. There are also some free activities that can be pricey when you add in other factors such as parking (i.e. visiting State Parks like Niagara Falls or the Beach in California). It just takes a little research and you can find a lot of neat, hidden opportunities to save money.