Currently: Atlanta, GA

It's all kinds of awesome to hang out with a friend who knows all the in-jokes you want to make, who you can talk about one certain group of people with, and who you can talk about things honestly with. Which is to say that when people will ask me what I did in Atlanta, I'll mostly say "we watched movies and talked a lot." Because we did. I haven't seen my friend Kathe in seven years, and we had a lot to catch up on and are generally a low-key couple of people. But my general impression of Atlanta is a good one, though the traffic can die in a fire. I've lived in LA and driven in DC so it's definitely lower on the hierarchy of terrible traffic, but it's still no joke. Immediately after we left the airport we got stuck. And then we got the runaround from Waze and Morgan Freeman's voice trying to find the giant chicken.

The giant chicken is part of an old school KFC, and Morgan Freeman took us through nice houses, the woods, and finally through a trailer park before spitting us out onto a super busy road where it wanted us to turn left. We trusted you, Morgan Freeman. We hit another snarl on the hills trying to get up to it, but when we finally did, I saw it.

It's a giant chicken. Its beak moves, and apparently so does an eye. It's one of the more amazing things I've seen and it was absolutely with the hour-long adventure to get to it. (It was not an hour away.)

We drove through Marietta and Smyrna, which I always thought were farther away than they are, and for some reason every time we ended up around Smyrna I thought "Julia Roberts is from here!" and I hate myself a little for knowing that. We looked at the fancy houses in Buckhead. We ate at Meehan's Public House which has pumpkin bread french toast and mimosas and I highly recommend you try both. We also got to First Watch, which is a chain I recently discovered in Milwaukee and Indianapolis and is becoming a thing for me, because they have the best kale juice I've ever had. As for things we did... We went to Centennial Park? It's dedicated to the 1996 Olympics, and it's actually a really cute place. There's statues and fountains, including one in the shape of the Olympic rings that plays music. We saw a boy showing his little sister how to stand in the middle of the rings so they wouldn't get wet while they took selfies. There are markers with the names of the winning Olympians that year, which was kind of cool because I was obsessed with the summer Olympics that year and knew everyone's names on the Dream Team and can still pronounce the names of the Ukrainian gymnastics team and was able to proudly state my crush on Alexei Nemov.

There is also a giant Ferris Wheel, though for the life of me I can't figure out why. It seems to look at buildings you can see from the ground.

Nearby is the Coca Cola Experience, which I guess at Christmastime had ornaments you could sit in and take pictures on, but right now they had nothing. Aside from the poor bored information person who was under a giant bottlecap. We were also near the CNN building, where they give 55-minute tours for about $15, but we were about two hours early for that.

So, I didn't do a ton here, but I'm totally cool with that. When you have a limited time with someone, sometimes it's better to spend time with them instead of with things. Now that I know one of my favorite people is so much closer and I can find decent flights, this won't be my last trip.

Till next time, Atlanta! (PS your airport sucks.)

Ode to the airport

A lot of people hate the actual act of traveling. They want to go places, but don't like how they have to get there. While I completely understand why- it's early, it's crowded, security is a hassle, places are a hassle, carrying bags through the airport is a hassle, etc.- I actually kind of like it. It helps that I haven't had a lot of bad experiences at airports that weren't directly linked to airlines themselves sucking, and anytime I've screwed up by missing a flight or whatever people have always helped me. But I get in an airport and feel a little accomplished. Out of habit I have a system for how I do things, which means I'm in and out of security in no time, I know where I'm going and what I need to emergency-buy at Hudson News (today, extra strength aspirin), and that means I kind of breeze through everything. It's nice when you get to that point.

And one of my favorite things in the world is when you get to be in a nearly-empty airport. This especially happened a lot when I was taking red eye flights from LA to Chicago or the East coast. I'd get in at 5 am and the place would be deserted. The restaurants and stores don't even open till 5. Most people haven't arrived for their early flights yet, so it's quiet. You can walk along huge corridors and not see anyone except the janitors and staff who are setting up for the day. You can be the only one getting on your transportation to wherever you're going. It's something I don't think a lot of people see, because they come when it's busy and loud and everyone's stressed. Too early or too late and people are too tired for stress.

Once I got off a plane super early and hadn't taken my headphones off yet. I still had music going while I walked through the airport with not really that many people around me at all. You know how in movies you'll have the main character doing a slow-mo walk with some badass song playing before they get to the big fight or whatever? It was like that, only my big fight was catching a cab, and my badass song was Frou Frou. Hey, guys, remember Frou Frou? Anyway, I can't hate anyplace that lets me feel as awesome as I did right then.

Currently I'm about ten minutes away from boarding a plane to see one of my favorite people in the world. It's still quiet at my gate, except for two women getting things settled at the desk and the guy next to me whose music is too loud through his headphones but it's also good music so I'm not complaining. I'm facing the window, watching them do inspections on the plane and watching the sun come up and the moon go down. I have some time to settle in and appreciate where I am and where I get to go.

Also I got to coo at a K9 dog without petting him so even if the rest of this day sucked, I can still be happy.

On finding cheap flights

I have a few flights to book pretty soon. SDCC needs to be gotten, and I may have another thing in the works. The only reason I haven't bought them yet is because I am being careful. Here's how:

-Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest days to buy. That's the day prices go down, it's the day airlines send out their deal emails.

-Tuesday and Thursday are the cheapest days to fly. If you're able to do Thursday through Tuesday, you save yourself money and possibly vacation days.

-Weekends are more expensive for everything. Figures.

-Sign up for the airlines' rewards programs. You accumulate miles and also get emails about deals.

-Use credit cards that will earn you miles. I fly American most, so I got a credit card through them that will allow me to earn more points for what I spend, plus if I spend so much in a certain amount of time I get 50,000 miles free. But for the love of God, pay it off right away.

-Take your time in choosing flights. I'm looking at one way flights, one to LA, one from San Diego. I've been watching the deals I'm sent via email and comparing it to what's showing on Priceline or the airline's websites. Right now a one way flight is about $240. According to the sales, it's consistently more like $167 one way. So I know what airline I want, and since their sales are currently booking through June, I've still got a couple weeks to wait if I want to buy at the best price. Do your research and compare.

-Look into other airports. If you're in a city with multiple airports, compare prices. When we went to New York we found it cheaper to fly into Newark and take the train into NYC. Definitely check into how to get to where you're staying from the airport, though. Some of the area airports can be up to an hour away.

-Not all airlines show up on third party sites. If you're looking through Expedia or Priceline, you won't see airlines like Jet Blue or Southwest, which could save you money. Check the airlines' sites.

-Factor in other costs. Some airlines charge for checked bags, some don't. For instance, if you're finding a flight on United that's $20 cheaper than American but they have a $25 baggage fee, American's the better deal. Also be aware that Spirit does this a lot. Their flights are a good deal cheaper, but they pack on a lot of fees that depending on the circumstances, you might be paying the same that you would on a "more expensive" flight.

Now, back to obsessively searching.

Flashback post: Palm Springs

When I started telling people I was moving, the conversation almost always led to my LA Bucket List, all the things I wanted to do before I moved. Every single time, the other person would ask what was on it... and then they'd add something to it. There were several trips that happened because of this.

In this particular instance, the conversation ended with, "What are you up to this weekend?"

It was a Thursday, and myself and my friends Lynn and Sarah Who Is Not the Sarah I've Reference Before had me come over on Saturday, where we went on a road trip to Palm Springs. I'd been there once, literally for a couple hours before having to go back, and hadn't really gotten to do it right. It's about an hour and a half to two hours between LA and Palm Springs, but takes longer because there are places to stop along the way. There are two outlet malls, for one, plus a place called Hadley's Fruit Orchards, where you can pick up snacks. Also definitely get a date shake, they are amazing. And then there's the Cabazon Dinosaurs.

There are giant dinosaurs just hanging out in the desert. It's awesome, but it's about $9 for adults and you can easily spend like twenty minutes hanging around and taking pictures. As a tip, when they're closed you can still get pictures with some stuff, and that's the way I like to go, personally.

Semi-impossible not to hum the Jurassic Park theme here.

Palm Springs itself is home to a giant wind farm that you drive past, which is more interesting than I would have thought. And then we got to our hotel, the Twin Palms Resort and I LOVE THIS PLACE SO MUCH. We walked in and immediately decided it reminded us of the Golden Girls. It's a great little condo, much bigger than your average hotel room, and has a pool, grill, and A BARBIE PINK KITCHEN STRAIGHT OUT THE 50'S. No, seriously, the kitchen had most of its original appliances from the 50's. Though, as we learned, don't try to cook a frozen pizza in it unless you want to spend an hour switching it from the oven to the broiler to make sure both sides of it actually cook.

Wasn't kidding.

A lot of people party in Palm Springs. We did not. We hung out and talked, hit up the local Ralph's to get food, and went for drinks at a tiki bar called Tonga Hut downtown. The drinks were good and it was quiet at the time, so we got to chat with the really great bartenders. And since Sarah talked about her love of tiki bars, we maybe got a glimpse of the place that most people don't get to see.

Sunday, however, I got to do the coolest thing I've ever done in my life (so far). The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway starts towards the bottom of the mountains, and depending on where you park you can take a bus up to where the tram loads. It's a car where everyone piles in and then you ride the cable up 10,000 feet. It rotates so you can see every view, and there are a few points where there can be quite a bit of swinging, so people who are afraid of heights might want to be aware. At the top is the San Jacinto Mountain, where you can climb some stairs and get views from super high up, and it's amazing. (And while you're in the desert, you're also in the mountains; it was 80 degrees when we left, and 40 degrees at the top of the mountain.) And it's also a state park, so you can walk around and take different trails to see even more. Be advised that you are at a higher altitude, and asthmatics like me might not have the easiest time, and there can be hills or stairs, but if you can handle that it's soooo worth it. Plus it's only $25.

On top of the world! Now let's pretend I didn't say that.

So that's my two days in Palm Springs. Next time I'll do other stuff. Except for the Tramway, which I will do every time.

Pre-tip rituals (aka this is all about packing)

I spent part of the weekend at my mom's apartment, which means that when I came home last night and unpacked from an overnight, I was able to start immediately packing for Atlanta. I used to be a last-minute packer, but as I started traveling more, the more I started doing early, or as I thought of it. So, here are some tips on getting all packed up with everything you're going to need.

-If you know what you want to wear, just put it in your suitcase or bag when it gets close. More than once I knew I wanted to wear my favorite shirt or whatever somewhere, then gone to pack the day before and realized I'd worn it already and it needed to be washed. So now when I do laundry before a trip I immediately put it in the bag so I have it when I need it.

Side note: I go shopping for one new item before every trip, even if it's just to drop $3 on a clearance shirt. Then when I wear it later, I associate it with memories of the trip. If I wear my blue striped henley I remember Times Square, or there's a yellow tank top that always reminds me of driving down to San Diego. I'm a dork, I know.

-Definitely check the weather wherever you're going, for the love of god. Also be aware that some places cool down considerably at night even if they're hot in the day, so if it's 84 where you're going and you think you're going to be able to get away with tank tops the whole time, at least bring a hoodie with you just in case. Planes get cold anyway.

-Don't overpack. When I'm packing I'll make piles: what I'm wearing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, etc. It's not set in stone, but I know I have the right amount of stuff for however many days I'll be gone. If you're not quite sure what you're going to be doing there, eg "do I need to dress up to go out somewhere?" then bring something that's either slightly dressier that you can still wear if you're just walking around a city, or something you can dress up with some accessories. You can be fluid with your clothing, don't stress out about it too much.

Also don't overpack when it comes to bottoms. If you're gone for a week, you can get away with a pair or jeans or two, or jeans and a pair of shorts or whatever. No one will judge, I swear. Everyone else is probably doing the same thing.

-But bring an extra shirt and underwear just in case.

-Roll fold everything. It's a total space saver. Take your shirt or jeans or whatever, fold it in half, and then start rolling it up from the bottom so it looks like a little round pillow. I have no idea why this works and I don't care, but it makes everything so much more squishable and gives me more room in my bag.

-I know the "no liquids on planes" rule is annoying, but it's not as annoying as people make it out to be. It has to be in 3 ounce bottles, and a ton of companies have gotten smart about making sure their bottles and travel sizes are under that. Transferring stuff into those clear bottles isn't that time consuming or hard, and if you travel a lot, now you have a handy travel size you can keep in your bag for the next trip and you don't need to worry about it.

Definitely label those clear bottles, though. I have one that I still don't know what it is. It's either lotion or sunscreen and I know if I mix them up I'll regret it.

-I've seen some travel sites give lists of what you should pack. Just make your own. You know what you need better than they do. A few days before you go, make a list of what you use every day. (I highly recommend the app Clear, where you can make a list and then swipe to check them off.) Go through your morning routine and put down the stuff you'll need, like toothpaste, moisturizer, etc. Do it again when you're getting ready for bed. There, now you have a list of things to pack or shop for.

-Once, United sent my bag to Chicago several hours before I even got on a plane, and there was a lot of time spent at O'Hare thinking my bag was lost. So now I'm paranoid about that and prefer to do nonstop flights and try to limit myself to my carry-on. Paranoia doesn't hurt, though, so if you have another bag, make sure your carry-on has a change of clothes and anything you need in it, in case you get stranded overnight or they do lose your stuff. For me it's a toothbrush and my contacts/glasses, plus eyeliner and lipstick. Also my computer because I'm pretty sure I'd die without one.

-If you're going to another country, check the requirements for things that need to be plugged in, in case you need to get adapters. I think I learned this from Home Alone.

-If you forget something, don't stress. Most hotels have little shops where you can pick up toothpaste or aspirin, and you can find a drug store most places if you really need. I for one have spent many a time inside Targets because someone forgot sleep clothes, to be the point where it's kind of a tradition and not annoying.

Tah dah, hope this helps.

Planning post: The status of things

It's been busy, vacationwise here. One week from now I'm off to Atlanta, and then I move into a new apartment the weekend after that, so there's been a lot of scrambling. Normally I love planning trips. I live for it. But a week before a move, I'm glad there's not much to figure out. I'm staying with a friend, I know how I'm getting to and from the airport, and I've sort of scanned Trip Advisor to figure out things that might be cool to see or do if there's time. It's kind of nice to not have everything planned out, too. Every once in a while it's nice to have a trip where you have no idea what you're doing next.

And in a complete and total turnaround for that, last week, we booked our Disney hotel. After one friend canceled, my very own Disney Goddess is actually going to be joining the rest of us on the trip in October. So we got our dates locked down and put the deposit on the hotel, and now it's a matter of getting tickets and saving and obsessing over podcasts. I've started getting Disney gift cards so I have that money specifically blocked off for this trip, and when I get bored I tend to end up on the My Disney Experience app to see what all I'm able to link and checking over maps and generally just being a giant dork. I definitely drank the Disney Kool-Aid.

Next up, though, is San Diego Comic Con open registration. There are still preview night tickets to get, so on Saturday morning I'll be at the computer, feeling like I'm in the Hunger Games as I wait for my turn to get stuff. It's only slightly stressful, I swear.

So I now have 8 days till Atlanta, 50 days until Mt. Rushmore, 97 days until Pennsylvania, 148 days until Los Angeles, and 238 days until Disney World. I'm a pretty happy girl here.

Also as an FYI/shameless attempt to get you to follow me, I'm over on social media! You can follow me on Twitter at @gothereandback, or on Instagram at @thereandbackblog. I'm sure you'll get some of my SDCC open registration tweets, and I post pictures of my trips and stuff. Come say hi, and I'll say hi back.

Five things that happened at SDCC (and one thing that might have)

Open registration for San Diego Comic Con is this Saturday, February 20! If you want to go but don't have a member ID yet, well, you're out of luck this year. There's always next year. I was going to do a whole thing on what SDCC is really like, but frankly SDCC Unofficial Blog covers all this way better than I ever could, so I'm just going to link you as a reference. Instead, I'm going to talk about things that I've seen and done at SDCC.

1. My first year, someone got stabbed at a Harry Potter panel. I heard about it on the train back, when someone near me had been in the room. The story I heard was that someone had left to go to the bathroom, and someone else took their seat, and the first guy responded by stabbing him with a pencil. (After a few years of trying to get into Hall H I understand this better.)

2. My friends have done the Walking Dead Zombie Run a couple times, and once I went along as a spectator. They'd come running through the halls of Petco Park, while we were cordoned off to watch them as they ran by, and could watch below. While we were waiting, there were people acting as zombies wandering around and being menacing at us. I have a zombie phobia, which I think one guy dressed up as an army zombie got, and so every time I turned around he was reaching out to grab me.

It took maybe two minutes for everyone to actually run through the halls, dodging zombies, and as soon as they passed, the staff tried to make us head lower. Since we'd paid to watch the whole thing, we were determined to stay... until they moved the barriers keeping the zombies from us. I turned around and there was the military zombie literally right behind me.

And that was how I learned that in the zombie apocalypse I will be the person that yells "NO!" in a zombie's face and walks away quickly.

3. My first year we were staying at the Embassy Suites, and there were fireworks coming from somewhere one night. We stepped onto the balcony to see them, and someone looked down. So, we might've seen some people getting it on in the hot tub way below us. We're not really sure but saying we did is a way more interesting story.

4. I'm a big fan of Rifftrax, and they were going to be showing their new riff of Sharknado 2 at a theater in Horton Plaza. When my friend and I got there, there were two guys in the middle of the aisle talking. We couldn't really see who they were, so it wasn't until the blond guy said they would be taking pictures in the lobby and headed out that they passed by and I realized it was Ian Ziering. I tried to get a picture as he walked, and my friend Kelsey said, "Just go take a picture with them!" and now I'm only two degrees away from my childhood hero Brenda Walsh.

5. In 2014 I was determined to camp out in the Hall H line to try to get into the Marvel panel, but my friends who were going to do it with me dropped out, and it's not really something I wanted to do alone. But there's a playback room at the Omni, where they play the popular panels from the day, minus the footage and clips and such. I went with one of the aforementioned friends, where we sat through several panels, and got to see the panel we really wanted!

Till they started showing footage of Age of Ultron and suddenly the screen went black! The whole room went full on Skywalker "NOOOOOOOO!" at once, and when they came back to the panel, moderator Chris Hardwick was literally like, "I never say stuff like this but HOLY SHIT THAT WAS THE GREATEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN!"

:/

6. In 2015 my friends and I (mostly them, though I tried) camped out to go to the Star Wars panel. Thanks to some amazing connections, we were certain to get in really easily, and the morning in line was kind of a party. Everyone was excited, if tired, and JJ Abrams sent over coffee and Dunkin Donuts to the line. (Sometimes stars and such will visit the lines overnight, too.)

It was a 5:00 panel, and we got into the room at 10, which meant we spent seven hours sitting in uncomfortable chairs with nothing but nachos and snacks we'd brought down from the hotel room to eat. We were headachey and tired, and before our panel we had decided to go out to dinner immediately following this. Then the panel happened, where they brought out the cast of The Force Awakens, and it was super exciting, and then Chris Hardwick (it is always Chris Hardwick) told us that to close out the panel, they were taking us to a concert. A line of stormtroopers came out onstage and then into the audience, leading all 6,000 of us in the room out of the convention center and down over to the outdoor symphony nearby, with workers at the convention center honking and waving at us as we passed. Once we got there we were given lightsabers for free, and got to watch the San Diego Symphony play the best-known music over clips of the movies. Once the fireworks started going off, you got to see and hear a few thousand grown adults lose their minds like kids, only with more astonished cursing.

And then we ate.

Flashback post: San Francisco, CA

Because Facebook kept trying to remind me of it last week, let's go back a year to February 2015, when I made my visit to San Francisco.

About six years ago my friends got me going to the Thrilling Adventure Hour at the Largo. It's a new style show/podcast in the style of old-time radio, and every month we'd see it live. I knew by now that I was going to be moving, and the live monthly show was ending, so when they went to Sketchfest in SF, it would be the last time I'd have a chance, probably. So a couple of my friends and I decided to head up there after work on a Friday for a Saturday show, and then we'd drive back on Sunday.

LA is about six hours south of San Francisco, so it's not as close as people tend to think it is. It's a long drive. The other thing people don't realize is that San Francisco gets weather. In northern California, it's closer to Portland than sunny LA. So we hit storms. Driving in the dark in torrential downpours isn't fun. And when we rolled up to the Aida Plaza Hotel, we drove around for about half an hour trying to find the parking lot... only to find out that it wasn't in fact free parking, and would cost us thirty dollars a night. But there weren't any other options, so we parked and went up to our room, where we'd also had a scare because we were told that we wouldn't have a private bathroom, and that they were dorm style. And while each floor had a shared bathroom, our room did in fact have our own, so we got lucky there. Aside from not being told some very important things like that, the hotel itself was pretty cute. It was all neon lights and old fixtures, with actual flowered carpeting on the elevator walls. If you're going for character (and aren't bringing a car), it's worth it.

As hotel room views go, this isn't bad.

Also it was down the street from my favorite restaurant in SF, Homeskillet. We ended up eating there for breakfast both days, where I had more than a few vegetarian options and they had some amazing coffees. Plus it's right near Union Square, where we could walk around and go into stores and just check out the downtown area. And it really is kind of great. We checked out as much of the Contemporary Jewish Museum as we could without paying (if we'd had more time I'd have been all over it) and if you're into architecture, this could be a good place for you to check out. Plus their gift shop is pretty fun. And our Saturday was pretty packed; we also met up with a friend who's from outside the city and walked around Chinatown, but it's one of my biggest regrets that we didn't actually stop for Chinese food while we were there. It was also right before Chinese New Year, so it was decorated with lanterns and looked really great.

And there were some landmarks we had to hit, of course. Ghiradelli Square was our final stop, with a quick trip around Fisherman's Wharf, where you can also see Alcatraz. To actually go to Alcatraz, you need to carve out a day, more or less. It's a boat ride out there, and there are tours, and then a boat ride back. Unfortunately we didn't have time for that. But we could stand out by the water and watch a boat head over, and with a good camera you can get some decent pictures.

What up, the Rock? (PS that was a movie before that was a wrestler.)

The show was at the Brava Theater Center, and to be honest I'm not sure what I expected of Sketchfest. I think I'd imagined it as more of a festival of sorts, when in reality it was a series of shows around the city at different times. But there are a lot of shows going on then, so if you're in town for it you should probably try to see a few. Get your Sketchfest on.

And of course on Sunday it rained. Like, super rained. We had a plan to go to Lombard Street, which we still decided to do despite the terrible weather. For some reason, my friends let me be in charge of figuring out how to get where in the city. Rather than dealing with figuring out the parking situation, we took public transportation or walked everywhere. PS if you're walking in this city be advised that the hills are ridiculous. Bring good shoes. San Francisco actually has good public transportation, and it was a goal to take all the different kinds we could (there are trolleys, buses, and adorable cable cars that look straight out of the 50's- at least I think so. We turned out to be confused at what they actually consider a trolley and what's a cable car). It's just that I am awful at it. The information I had told me to go where I had the day before and take the cable car to Lombard, and on the way when I noticed we were going the same way we had before, I looked it up and found out that two different lines go from that starting point, and we'd picked the wrong one. This one meant we got out at the bottom of the crookedest street in the world, in the rain, and so we took pictures at the bottom of it rather than walking down it like I'd wanted. Next time.

Overall, there are parts of San Francisco I really like. There's a ton to do, and I wish I'd spent more time in Chinatown and been able to do Alcatraz and spend more time in all the places we hit, really. Plus there are murals and street art everywhere and I like anything that gives me Instagram material. However, our downtown hotel near Union Square was not in the best area, and that area probably made it the dirtiest city I've ever been in. And unfortunately I'm not really in a rush to go back because frankly I got harassed the whole time. I've got a pretty thick skin about that kind of stuff, but I was getting guys interrupting my conversations with my friends while we were walking down the street to tell me what he wanted to do to me, or homeless guys on the bus trying to put their arms around me, or getting rude comments at the freaking CVS while getting a battery for my Fitbit. After getting that constantly all weekend, it really does mess with your head, and while I'd happily go if someone else wants to, I won't be the one suggesting it. Sorry, San Francisco.

Still. Homeskillet was really good.

Saving money the Natalie way

When I was first considering starting this blog, I spent some time psyching myself out by looking at other travel blogs and going "But I don't go anywhere like these people do (yet)!" But I also would check out their advice for how to travel cheaply. Unfortunately a lot of what I found was along the lines of "You can go anywhere if you're willing to stay in free hostels while working as an English teacher" with a side of "If you can't find a way to do it then travel isn't really a priority for you." And you know, I'm not knocking their advice. There's some great stuff out there, but it's mostly geared towards people who can afford to take time to work in another country, who aren't tied down with jobs and families and debt.

I know a lot of people who think if they don't have a lot of money, they can't ever go anywhere. And that's not true. You might not be able to backpack around Europe or whatever, and you might have to settle and sacrifice some, but those of us without money are frankly doing that anyway, lol siiiiiigh.

In the last year I started figuring out how to do things and go places within my means. I got a lot of comments about "How is she affording all of this?" but it really wasn't costing me much. So here are some tips on how I did it. Your case may be different, of course, but this is just guidelines to helping you figure it out.

-Prioritize. My dad drilled one major lesson into me: "If you spend money on one thing, you can't spend it on anything else." Simple, but helpful. If you're getting a new spring wardrobe, that's money you're not saving. Ask yourself if you really need to get this thing, or if a cheaper option is available, or if you can get less of it. Using the wardrobe example, rather than getting everything, limit yourself to a couple new pieces, and also shop at Target.

-Cut out what you don't need. Go through what you spend every month. Look at your bank account and consider everything. Do you stop at Starbucks every day when you have perfectly serviceable coffee at home/work? Stop that, or cut down to once a week. Do you not go to the gym but keep the membership in case you start? You can cancel it, no one will actually judge. Drink water with your lunch instead of buying a soda, make sure you actually use all of things like shampoo of foundation before opening a new one, stick to your grocery lists... You'll personalize your own ways to cut back once you know what you're spending.

Also, protip: if you call your cable company to cancel services, oftentimes they will give you a deal to keep you. Just remember to note when it changes so you're not surprised when it jumps up again.

-Actually save, GDI. Start a separate savings account. Set it up so as little as $25 a month automatically transfers from your checking. In a year that $25 is $300. Or better, all the money you saved in the above step? If it gets taken automatically out of your account, have that amount transfer every month. If you've been spending that every month, you literally won't miss that money.

Also, the savings jar trick works. Fill a jar with the spare change and dollars you end up with. If someone gives you money as a gift, put it straight in there, or in the savings account.

-Use credit cards to your advantage. I had a lot of credit card debt so this made me nervous, but fact was I needed to rebuild my credit. So since I tend to fly American the most, I got a card that would earn me airline miles. And if you spend $3,000 in the first three months, you get 50,000 miles free. So now I treat my credit card like my debit card, never spending what I don't have and can't pay off immediately. Butting my bills on the credit card and then never ever touching my checking account except to pay off the card, voila, free round trip flight.

-Coupons! I suck at couponing, I really do. If you can clip coupons and keep up on sales, great. But for those of us who do suck, certain places make it easier. Target had Cartwheel, and my old grocery chain had something like it too. I could attach coupons to my card or app, adding things I knew I'd need of things I regularly bought, and then when I bought from there, I'd show my app or card and save without actually realizing I was doing it. It's great when you're not good at keeping up on stuff.

-Look for deals. Groupon has some pretty sweet travel deals, some including airfare and hotel. Sign up for alerts on special offers from airlines. See if a travel agent can get you some savings. Or you can do a deep dive in research. I was able to go to Catalina by doing some Google-fu and funding out that you basically get to go free on your birthday. Put in some time to see what you can find either deal-wise, or in case you can find a better time to go.

Look for stuff in your area.. I used LAist a lot in LA to see what was going on around me, which led to fun trips like heading to an animal refuge in the desert. Nick found a thing in Chicago that got us a day trip to Racine to look at Frank Lloyd Wright buildings for free. You don't need to go far to find something awesome, in a lot of places.

Split the cost. The more people you can comfortably cram into a hotel room, the cheaper it is for everyone. Same goes if you take turns paying for gas or ordering bigger meals that you can share.

Don't stay IN the city you're visiting. It's always more expensive. If you have a car available, try going about half an hour out to reduce costs.

Don't dismiss cheaper hotels. if it's at least two stars and doesn't have the word "bedbugs" anywhere in the reviews (for the love of God, read the reviews), it's probably good enough for a night if you're me. Note: I've gotten some truly awful hotels with this thinking, but also some great stories.

Hopefully that's enough to get you started!

A personal history with San Diego Comic Con

Flights go down in price on Tuesday and Wednesday, so every Tuesday and Wednesday I've been scouring all my apps and airline websites to see what it's looking like. Because while I've so far been talking about Disney here, my other all-encompassing vacation is San Diego Comic Con.

While I'm an unabashed geek, I'm not really a convention person. Friends took me to a couple and it's not really my thing. But while I was living in LA, a whole two hours north of San Diego, I had friends from Illinois and DC going, and I hadn't seen them in a long time. So on a random day in February 2010, I looked at the website and saw that there were still a couple Sunday tickets available, so I bought one. Then in July I took the train down on a Saturday, met up with my friends at the hotel, and spent Sunday mostly walking the floor and taking pictures of cosplayers (to this day, my favorite thing to do there). That day one of my roommates dragged me to buy tickets for next year onsite. At the time I was a little upset that I missed hanging out with another friend for a while, but it was a damn good thing I bought my ticket then, because it was the last time I'd ever be able to do that.

The very next year, a convention that had started getting bigger and bigger started getting massive. The Twilight fans ruined it for everyone by lining up days in advance, making the 6000-seat Hal H extremely difficult to get into for high-profile panels. Registration now meant going into the website to buy tickets in two waves: presale for returning con-goers, and open registration for newbies or for people who didn't get everything they wanted in the first go. There is no guarantee you'll get anything anymore. Everything is bigger, the crowds are awful, comics get outshined by big Hollywood movies...

And I love it.

I have two groups I go with now. I room with the friends I originally started going to see, and spend a lot of time meeting up with others. I've also met people there who fall into the "my life is better for knowing them" category. If I didn't have all of them, maybe I wouldn't go. But maybe I would.

SDCC is not for the faint of heart. Recently I mentioned to a friend that I train for SDCC and she was stunned. But dude, it's a lot of walking, a lot of time either sitting or standing in one place, it's a lot of stress and trying to make a schedule and you spend more days than not waking up at 4 am after going to sleep at midnight. So yeah, I train. I'll spend a solid hour on the treadmill in the weeks leading up to the con, I'll slowly cut back on sleep so it's not as much of a shock when I get there. I'll also drink every bit of orange juice I can get my hands on because I try really hard to avoid con crud (the clinical name for the cold you get after sharing smallish spaces with 13,000 other people for five days). It's a lot of stress, and I try to make it as easy on myself as possible. I'm sure there are people who can have a low-key con, but they have to be people who don't mind if they miss things and don't get overwhelmed easily.

The weird thing is that I have to do it differently this year. In the past Sarah would come visit a week before, and then we'd either take the train to San Diego. The last couple years I sent Sarah on ahead and would leave my car at a friend's house, then stay there a couple days to save money, then drive back up alone while Sarah flew gack home. This year I don't live in LA. I'm planning on flying out there Saturday before and spend a few days catching up with people in the area before either taking the train or bumming a ride from a friend headed down there. I'll stay in the hotel the whole time, and then fly back home from there. After six years of doing this, it's going to be so messed up for me.

You'll hear a lot more about this over the next few months. The general sale and dreaded Hotelpocalypse is coming up, and there comes a point where it takes over my brain. Good thing I have a public outlet now!

A lesson in staying flexible

Our Disney World plan had been for three adults and one child to go in October. Last night as the Super Bowl party I was at was just starting, I found out that it's probably just going to be two adults.

I expected that this was a possibility, and there had been a couple "What if she doesn't go?" conversations, so I can't even be mad. I'm disappointed that she probably won't be there because that should have been fun, but it's also freed things up a little planningwise.

But this does pose a major problem, in that this vacation is now going to be twice as expensive for the remaining two of us. Again, I'd been mentally prepping for that, but I have several vacations coming up and am about to move and there's eight months to save, and ouch. It's still doable, though, as long as I'm careful. So now the plan is to meet up and discuss how we're actually going to do this. We might have to go for a lower-end hotel than we were planning, though the choices there still seem pretty decent. We might have to skip going to Universal and stay at the parks for another day because that's cheaper. We'll probably have to skip on things like Memory Maker, and maybe see if there's another person who can come with us on semi-short notice. And then we have to keep things flexible enough that if our third can go (I would bet against it) then we can easily include her.

I feel like this is both a good lesson in issues with travel buddies and in preparation and flexibility. But hell if I'm not still going on this vacation and having fun. [princess emoji]

Travel buddies

Real talk: I have very little experience in traveling alone. Part of the "problem" is that I have friends in a lot of different states, so "I'm coming to your area, want to get together" ends in them either inviting me to stay, or us going "Do you want to do this thing and that thing and also this other thing together?" and then I can't say I did it alone. Maybe one of these days I'll say I'm doing research for my blog and pick somewhere random and cheap to go alone, just for the experience.

Also real talk: I haven't flown with anyone since I flew from LA to Chicago with my mom in 1999. I'll go on trips with people, but it's usually involved me meeting them there. I have a System, and when I have to fly with someone later this year I have no idea how I will handle it. Which is part of the reason for this post.

I've yet to have a bad experience going on a trip with someone, which is part luck, and part me having awesome people around. I've heard horror stories from others. They'd go on a trip with someone and the other person would be in such a bad mood that it ruined the trip, or everything went wrong and they couldn't bounce back from it, things like that. And hey, things can and will go wrong. Holy hell will you hear about things going wrong when I get to talking about my most recent move, and when I tell people about it they assume it was a terrible trip. It wasn't, and a lot of that is because I made the trip with Nick. He and I have a solid system, and a lifetime of knowing each other means we know when the other one is getting too stressed and they should just leave something alone, and we can almost always laugh the bad things off in time. It's the bonus to having a sibling you can get along with for extended amounts of time. My Chicago to LA trip was stressful sometimes, because I was moving and it was sad and stressful and there were times when we all weren't jiving right, but I also can't say it's a bad trip.

You can't always guarantee that you have a good travel buddy. It's like any other relationship you choose to be in, really: you need someone you can get along with, that you can handle problems with. For the time you're on the trip, it's you guys together, and the problems that pop up are things you're going to have to deal with together. If you're going with a friend who can annoy you, it might not suck to make sure it's a shorter trip, or to build in something where you can get a break from each other if you need it. "I need to get coffee, want anything?" and then fake that there was a long line at the hotel Starbucks or whatever if you need to. I've got a friend that I love like crazy, but she and I are just similar enough that when one of us gets annoyed we set each other off and then we're both annoyed, so we take time off from each other or try to hang out in larger groups. You don't need to do everything together. In fact, feeling like you can change your plan and/or aren't shoehorned into doing everything together or everything the other person wants to do can help a lot. It's a bit harder if you're trapped in a small space like a car together for a long time, but then you might want to bring some icebreakers along: books on tape, comedy podcasts, a playlist of songs you can dance it out to or play too loudly to talk over.

Compromise is key. If you can get along the whole time and you have all the same interests, that's great. But just in case, be prepared to give up on something here and there. If one person really wants to do something that the other doesn't, see if it can be less than a whole day thing. Alternately, if say you get to listen to something the other person hates for a while, let them choose the next thing you play. Try to make it as much of a 50/50 split as you can (or 33.3%, or 1/4, or however many of you there are), so no one's taking over and no one's slinking into the background. Let me put it simply: everyone should just try not to be a douchebag. Remember that trips can be stressful, and everyone can get tired and annoyed (and annoying), and if you're feeling it, your travel buddies probably can too. And hey, if you have a terrible time and you know you can't travel with someone, there's no shame in not going with them again. Or in suggesting that you bring other people along to make it easier on yourself.

And you know what's awesome? When you get surprised. I had a friend visit me in LA and I was a little nervous at how we'd get along for days alone together, because of that group she's probably the one I knew the least. And as it turns out, we have very similar interests and think the same way when it comes to this stuff, so we're both easygoing but can still come to a decision on what to do. So now when I think of a trip she's one of the people I want to convince to go with me, because I know we can handle it.

Come to think of it I think a goal in life might be to amass a whole group of people I can travel with always. As goals go, I think it's a great one. I am going to get right on that.

Why I am the way I am

I come by this travel thing naturally. I don't think it was so much that the travel bug bit me so much as it was congenital. It's also entirely possible that I should blame the Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. Every few books they were going on a ski trip or on a cruise or a bunch of parents were sending their 13-year-olds off to New York or California on their own. So even though my family didn't really go anywhere, I had an idea of what was out there. My mom would talk about places she'd always wanted to go, and my dad would tell me stories about a random job he had in some other city that sounded really cool because it was somewhere else. By the time high school rolled around I was massively disappointed when I couldn't spend a year abroad in Australia, or when I couldn't go on the senior trip to Cancun that maybe three rich girls got to go on. At one point I was doing little road trips over the Midwest to visit friends, or I had a group in high school where we'd get in the car and get on the highway and see what was there whenever we felt like stopping. (Which by the way was amazing and I need to tell y'all about that.) Plus when I was eight I got it in my head that I was going to move to California and live on the beach. After I graduated, I did just that.

In my head, I was going to live in LA for a while, then spend a year in New York, then London, then Sydney, and then settle back in LA for good. I was dumb and did not know how things worked! I didn't know, for instance, how expensive New York really is or that Australia really does not want you moving there. Not that it mattered, since things didn't quite work out that way. I could go back and forth between Chicago and LA, and maybe drive down to San Diego or to Vegas, but that was all I was doing. I was limited by money and opportunity, since I thought I could only go on trips with people and I didn't have anyone for that, and while I wanted to be doing all these amazing things, it wasn't happening.

My brother's a huge reason that changed. He did crazy road trips with his friends. They once drove from Chicago to Mt. Rushmore the long way, meaning they stopped in LA for lunch one day and then drove through ghost towns and got all these amazing stories. They went to Pennsylvania with a stopover in New York, where they walked the length of Manhattan and then got back in the car. I have no idea how it happened, but one year we decided that we'd both meet in DC and spend a few days there and have sibling time. From there we decided to go to Philadelphia. And we almost stopped in New Jersey just because but we missed the exit. So the next year we hit New Jersey on a five-day road trip through New England, and we started talking about the next road trip we'd do through a section of the country. And as I began to see that it wasn't as expensive as I feared, I began actually taking the opportunities I could. I appreciate the smaller, closer trips more now, too. Just because I'm going someplace close doesn't mean that it's not fun or that it doesn't have its own charm. I can get a story out of every city or town I stay in, and that's what's important.

And oh, I'm a pusher. I look for trips I can go on with people. I try to find cheaper ways to do things so they can go. My four bags of brochures from the Adventure and Travel Show are at my mom's right now, ostensibly because I need a place to stash them before I move, but I want her to look through them. She's said a couple times that she'll never get a chance to go here or there, and while realistically none of us are going to get to go everywhere we want, I don't want her to feel stuck at all. Nick and I take her on our trips sometimes, and teach her our ways. And really, I don't want anyone to feel stuck. I hated feeling like I was trapped somewhere, and I don't like knowing that other people feel that way. So I encourage people to get out a little, even if it's a day trip a couple hours away or whatever. It's a big world out there, and everyone should see as much of it as they can.

See, pusher.

Flashback post: LA -> Chicago -> Indianapolis

While driving back from Iowa, I kept wanting to fall asleep. It's been a while since I've done a road trip when it gets dark earlier, so the three hours of not seeing anything but the occasional set of headlights will just make a girl drowsy. Shoutout to the gas station just over the Illinois boarder with with their horchata cappucinos. You are the true heroes.

So let's take a little detour back to 2009, when my friends John and Rachael got married. I had learned a great trick, which was taking redeyes back to Chicago so I wouldn't have to miss any work. The plan was that I'd sleep on the plane, Nick would get me, we'd drive to Indiapolis for the 10 am wedding, so we'd probably leave by 8 pm at the latest.

The reality was sliiiightly different.

After working a full day, I went home, showered, then grabbed my stuff and took a shuttle to LAX, where I took an overnight flight to Chicago. Unfortunately, this was when I apparently stopped being able to sleep on planes, so what I did get was sporadic. I landed around 5:30 am at O'Hare, where Nick picked me up. We had time to get breakfast and to change at his apartment, and then started on the road trip to Indianapolis. It's a three-hour drive, and to be honest one of the most boring drives I've been on. Most of the time in the Midwest, you'll at least get corn and farms and billboards for local stuff. You only get that so far on this drive, and then you get nothing. It's all fireworks billboards and cows, and then nothing. I had a purse full of Five Hour Energy and I was taking full advantage of that. After all, you can take two in a 24 hour period, right? That's plenty of time.

Don't take this as a sponsorship but I did keep saying it unofficially sponsored this trip.

We got in before 10, and the wedding was low-key but awesome, and it was a great chance to hang out with friends I hadn't seen in like six years. We had so much fun, in fact, that we didn't leave until TWO IN THE GOD DAMN MORNING.

The good thing is that parts of Indiana don't care about things like DST, so we got an hour back. But by that time I'd had ten hours' worth of Five Hour Energy, couldn't take anymore especially if I wanted to sleep at all, but I was too wired to sleep in the car. And thank god Nick was driving because I really did start hallucinating from tired. It was pitch black and rained occasionally, and I could swear I'd see things in the road and freak out while Nick was left going "Just go to sleep already." I was probably not helpful.

We got back to Chicago at about 4:30, and I had an 8:00 flight, meaning I was able to get an hour's worth of sleep before I had to get back to the airport, which was the worst thing I could have done. I do it to myself a lot, too. Personally, if I can only get an hour, I might as well just stay up because otherwise I can't shake off the exhaustion. Nick dropped me off at the airport on one hour of sleep in 36 hours... and United screwed up my flight. They overbooked several seats, and refused to leave until they got people to go on standby, which worked for me since I was literally the last person on the plane, freaking out that they'd leave me behind when I was so tired. But I made it, and I got in the seat, put my belt on, and immediately passed out until we landed.

And you know what, I consider it all an accomplishment. An accomplishment that I will never freaking do again.

Planning post: Disney, part 1

Planning for Disney World is an experience in itself.

I'm going with some friends in October, and it can be overwhelming. When you say you're going to Disney, people are all too happy to dish out advice and tips and point you towards websites and podcasts that will help. It's actually really cool: even if they're not going, people tend to be excited that you're going. The fun thing is that of my friend group here, all five of my besties and I are going within a year. My roommate just came back, another friend is going in April, I'm going with another in October, and the last is going over Thanksgiving. This means we can give each other tips and share what we find out between ourselves. I'm not what you'd call a Disney person. I have movies I like, and I've been to Disneyland a bunch of times, but I haven't been to Disney World since I was seven and I wasn't really in a rush to do so. And then everyone else started going, and they had so much fun talking about it that I started wanting to have fun too.

And so I'm going to pass on some of what I've learned so far to you.

Resources:
MouseSavers is a great site that gives tips on how to save money at the park, and before you get to the park. It's updated super frequently, so you get good current information.
WDW Info is good for more general info, or if you're looking to try the cruise or Disneyland.
Mad Chatters is a podcast that's basically a couple guys who talk about Disney all the time. I haven't listened to a ton of it yet, but the ones I have listened to are actually really helpful.
WDW Radio is a more of a deep dive podcast, with reviews of places and background info.

And one thing I'm doing to save money is something people keep telling me is a great idea and I feel like someone would have said by now if it was stupid: There are Disney gift cards. Not the Disney Store, but Disney gift cards, which can be used at the parks and hotels. I've had this issue with having emergencies spring up and sucking away money I'd been saving, so to bypass that, once a month I'm getting a gift card. Even if it's only a denomination of $25, that's still $250 by October that will be used specifically for Disney. You can consolidate them online, so that by the end you're only using one instead of juggling a bunch of cards. You can even get discounts at places like Sam's Club and Costco, supposedly. I've read about Costco, but there aren't any at mine. They are at Sam's Club, but by me it's only three-packs. Be aware.

We're waiting on someone to confirm dates and other stuff, but we've narrowed it down to three hotels (Port Orleans, Caribbean Beach Resort, and Art of Animation if we need to go cheaper) and know our dates, and there are a couple of us who absolutely know the sorts of things we want to do AND OUR THIRD NEEDS TO GET BACK TO US ALREADY. We're having debates about whether Memory Maker is worth it and if we really want to do the dining plans, and I'm sending at least a couple emails per week to my own personal Disney Goddess who seems to know everything. It's really easy to get sucked into all of it.

Literally as I type this, my roommate just told me she taped a few shows off the Travel Channel about Disney for me. See what I mean?

If you have tips and tricks of your own, or references you'd like to share, go ahead and drop them in the comments! Every little bit helps, right?