When the worst happens

When we went to London in September, we decided to rent a car to drive it out to the countryside.  Little did we know that the automatic we signed up for would not be there. Unfortunately, only one of us knew how to drive a manual.  After we picked up the car, Jared was struggling to figure out how to use the stick shift with his opposite arm, and drive on the other side of the road.  (Notice I said "other" and not "wrong."  Because there is nothing inherently wrong about driving on the opposite side of the road.)  Not four minutes in, he sped up, and hit the back of a box truck: scraping the side of the car and knocking off the side-view mirror completely.

Since we were in the middle of traffic, there was no where to pull over and we panicked and kept going.  Seeing that the truck didn't even notice we had hit them, we thought it was OK.

Once we got to our countryside destination, I took some pictures of the damage and we went in to phone our credit card rental insurance company.  We denied the rental insurance at the car company, and opted to use our credit card's insurance.  (We have a Chase Sapphire card.)  As painful as it was to get reimbursed for the damages, I would have done this again.  We rented a car through Europcar and from what we had read, they refuse to cover anything with their insurance, basically.  They will use any excuse they can, such as "you were being negligent" to avoid having to pay.  So I'm glad we had a sort of advocate with our own rental insurance, who was able to reimburse us.

Lovely scratch and missing mirror

After we made the call to the company, they asked if there was a police report.  We had this overwhelming fear that we had made a mistake by not stopping.  That we didn't check with the other car.  We weren't sure what to do, but read online about "fleeing the scene of an accident" and were getting more panicky.  Then we realized that we had blown this entire thing out of proportion.  No one had died.  This wasn't a hit and run situation... the only thing that got hid was our car.

So we still decided to write a letter to the London police to tell them everything that happened, to avoid any liability we may have for not reporting it.  When we got home, weeks later, we received a follow-up letter that basically said, "Thanks for reporting.  There's nothing we can do.  This is the end of this."

We looked up if it was OK to drive with one side mirror and turns out, it's fine.  We drove the car the rest of the trip, turned it back in when we got to Scotland and came home.  When we got home, that's when the real work began.

We received a bill for $2,200 for the damages and it took three months of painful paperwork, hours of phone calls to Eclaims hotline and we finally received a check for (most of) the damages.

I decided to write about this because sometimes the worst happens in your travels.  This was not a good situation, a car accident in a foreign country with a vehicle that doesn't belong to you.  But hey, we have a great story to tell and we all lived through it and learned a few things to tell you about.

Here are some things I've learned from this experience:

1.  Insurance companies are horrible to work with.  I hated every second I had to deal with the endless emails, phone calls and paperwork it took to get a refund.  It was like Groundhog day for 10 months.  I'm glad we got reimbursed, but it was not a fun experience.

2.  Never rent a car in the middle of the middle of downtown London.  If we were to do this again, we would have taken a train or a taxi out to the middle of no where to pick up a car where we could learn on the dirt roads how to operate it.

3.  I would have demanded more from the company who didn't give me what I paid for.  I reserved and paid for an automatic car.  They gave me a manual.  They did take $30 off the entire bill.  Which... newsflash... is the equivalent to one meal for one person in London.   Basically they said, "we're sorry we can't provide you with what you paid for, but hopefully this picture of a kitten wearing a funny hat will make everything better."  

4.  You can't let these things ruin the vacation.  Yeah, it sucked.  Yeah, it was inconvenient.  Yeah, we had to spent some time dealing with this out of our vacation time.  But we still were able to deal with it, put it aside, and enjoy the rest of the trip.  It could have soiled the whole experience, but we didn't let it.

5.  Eventually, you will laugh about it.  You will go through all the stages of grief, but eventually you get to "it's kinda funny if you think about it..."

Things I've learned about Americans from my travels overseas

Today I was considering some of the things that I learned about myself, and my fellow Americans, while abroad.  It's fascinating to see the differences in cultures and people, and see how many different ways there are of doing things.   Obviously "the norm" will be different in every country you visit, but here were some surprising things I learned about myself as an American.

1.  We eat really early.  It seemed like every time I was hungry, so was every other American.  Every time we went to a restaurant in Europe around 5:30 or 6 when we were starving, no one would be in there.  Oh, except other American tourists.  At least you know where to find us.

2.  We are always in a hurry.  I love that in Italy no one gets their coffee to go.  People stand there and drink it.  Or in Paris, they take their time drinking their coffee and having their morning meal before jetting off for the day.  I didn't see anyone on the metro with giant to-go cups or Frappachinos.  I also didn't see piles of cars lined up at a drive-through line impatiently waiting and honking to get their Sausage McMuffins.  I loved that they take their time in the morning.   I also love that in England people take afternoon breaks for tea, or in Spain, they have afternoon siestas.  It seems like in America, "THERE IS NO TIME FOR ANYTHING."  Just work, work, work.  Go, go, go.  I loved seeing how even taking an extra 15 minutes to drink coffee in the morning or stopping in the middle of my workday to ponder life over some tea can actually be a fantastic thing.

3.  We are loud.  This is an easy one, but people really keep quiet when they're in social settings.  You could hear a pin drop on the metro in England.  People aren't loudly laughing, or gabbing on their cell phones or announcing to everyone on the train about their hemorrhoids.  People had a healthy respect for the ears of those around them.  This was hard for me because I can be rather loud.  I have to learn to keep it quiet when I'm in a social setting.

4.  We are a tad on the lazy side.  People walk every where in Europe.  When I got home and did some research, I wasn't surprised to find out that once our cuisine (fast food) was introduced into a lot of European communities, people started getting bigger.  Not only do we eat twice as much junk, but we drive every where and walk very little.  This isn't true all across America, for example New Yorkers or Washington D.C. dwellers have an opportunity to get more exercise by walking... but it certainly is true in the Midwest.  If you're from the Midwest, I guarantee you can count on your hand the last few times you walked anywhere in the last month.  I mean like walked to the grocery store or to a park.. didn't you just drive?  You didn't even think about how far it was and if you could walk.  We just don't think much about that.  We just hop in our cars and zoom our ways to the next place.  (Of course while we're on our way we stop and pick up a couple chicken nuggets.)

5.  We have an overabundance of material things and just overall space.  Our houses are HUGE.   Some people in Europe live in a small apartment with their entire family.  We have enormous houses because we need a lot of space to store all of our stuff.  It's surprising how much stuff we have that we think we need and how much stuff we accumulate.  We feel like we need so much space, but we really don't.  People all over the world are living in much smaller spaces and you know what.. a lot of them aren't unhappy for it.

How about you?  What have you learned about Americans, and in turn about yourself from other cultures?

What not to do on an airplane

Jimmy Kimmel did a video recently with a list of annoying things that people do on airplanes.  Patrick Stewart acted out Expedia’s top five annoying people on the airplane, which included “Chatty Charlie,” who insists on talking to you and everyone else about nonsense for the entire flight.  Other annoying traits he acted out were someone who kicks the back of the seat, claps when the airplane lands and someone who eats stinky food.

I would like to add a few more annoyances I’ve found when flying, and I’m pretty sure most people can back me up on this.  I wanted to point these out not just to poke fun of people, but mostly to make others aware of the way their actions are perceived.  Plus, you don’t want to be this person.  These people are really just unaware of airplane etiquette.  Don’t let yourself be this person.  

Here are a few people with annoying airplane habits, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who would agree with me:

1. The person who leans their seat all the way, and then goes up, and then down, and up and down.  If you have your tray table down, then you can fully expect whatever you’re drinking to be on your lap.  You can also expect a nice bruising on top of your knees.
2. The person who talks on their cell phone until the very last second before take off.  Everyone else is sitting there quietly while this person is giving a play-by-play of what’s going on around them.  “Yeah, I’m sitting on an airplane.  I just boarded.  Yeah, everyone is sitting around me.  Yeah, we’re waiting.  Yeah, it took forever to board!”  I really think that riveting conversation could wait until later.
3. The person at the back of the plane, who jumps up the second the seat belt sign goes off, promptly walks all the way down the aisle so they can be the first ones off.  I think this person thinks they’re the only one who is getting off the aircraft, or they never went to kindergarten where you learn that you have to wait in line and wait your turn.
4. The person looking for a fight.  This person is already red in the face; ready to blow up the second someone tells them they have to check their bag or their flight is delayed.  You know this person.  Every around them tenses up wondering what the flight attendant will say and if they’ll get thrown off the aircraft.
5. The person who has never heard of the 3-1-1 rule, or never had to go through a metal detector.  “Do I have to take off my steel toed boots, too?”  “What do you mean I can’t bring my full size bottle of Jergens lotion!?”
6. The person who has “voice immodulation.”  If you haven’t seen this skit with Will Ferrell, then watch it.  But this is the person who talks in a shouting voice, like they thought they were in the bleachers at a football game.

I know that flying can be a challenging time.  Especially since it challenges all of us on levels that we as humans, by nature, are not equipped to deal with. 

I know people are tired, and frustrated and out of their comfort zones, so I do have sympathy.    Notice I didn’t mention screaming babies or someone whose sick.  I’m sorry, but those are things that you can’t help.  You can’t get mad at a baby for crying or someone for having a cough.  I find that complaining about those things is just plain rude.

The things I mentioned here are clearly things that could be avoided if you just thought about others instead of yourself.  I hope that your next flight is enjoyable, and I hope that these things might help you make the flight more enjoyable for the people around you.

25 Random Travel Necessities You May Not Think to Pack

Whether you're traveling for 6 days or 6 months, every item that you pack should serve a specific purpose.  Take a look at these 25 random travel necessities and find out if they make sense for your next trip. 

Read the full list here on Travel Fashion Girl!

Money-saving hacks I've been trying recently

I talk a lot about money-saving on here because it seems that is still the number one reason why people can't travel.  It's not that they don't want to, or don't have the time, it's just that they don't have the funds. Recently, I posted about ways you can cut down on your actual travel budget.  I wanted to share with you ways that I've cut down on my every day spending. 

Savings can be used for anything, but we often like to spend our savings on travel. My husband and I have our ups and downs when it comes to getting serious about saving money.  Some weeks we do real well, and other weeks we through caution to the wind and go straight to the mall and out to eat wherever we feel like.

Recently, we've been finding ways to save a little here and there and it's been going a long way.

1.  Not buying more groceries until we eat everything we had.  That sounds like a no brainer, but we often will go buy more food if we're craving something, instead of just eating whatever we have until it's gone.  There was a whole two weeks where we decided we wouldn't buy anything, we would just eat what we had.  You'd be surprised how much food is actually in your cabinets that just sits there. We made a crock pot of soup and put all the canned veggies and beans we could find.  We used up every bag and box of rice and noodles that we'd been storing.  We made muffins from a mix we had, we had oatmeal for breakfast... we ate everything.  I challenge you to try this and let your creative side come out and see what you can make with what you have.  This is fun even if you're not trying to save money.

2.  Pack your lunch or go home for lunch.  I have the ability to go home for lunch, so I always do.  My husband is a little further away and used to buy lunch at least 2-3 times a week.  Mostly because it was easier.  Now, we opt to pack the majority of the time.  This also saves money because you end up eating ALL the leftovers.  

3.  Ordering cheaper and smaller drinks at Starbucks.  I love lattes and the new Flat Whites.  However, I don't love to spend $5 on a drink.  I've been getting Americanos, or just regular coffee in small sizes and for as often as I buy Starbucks, it ends up saving some $$$.  I have also decided to stop going as often as I have, and make coffee on my lunch break.  I recently got an espresso maker so I can even make my own at home before I go back to work, which should save me even more money.

4.  Going to the thrift store first before buying something brand new.  I have always been a thrifter, because I love vintage things.  But if I need something like a picture frame, a kitchen utensil or a household item, you can often find quality items for really inexpensive.  A lot of my favorite kitchen pieces, like a crystal creamer, I bought from a thrift store for less than $2.  I have found brand new pots and pans and hand towels at the thrift store too.  I also got a small table for our living room that had already been repainted for $10.  Always go there to see if you can find something before dropping $50-$100 at the store for the same thing.

5.  Acquiring hand-me-downs.  I've recently hosted a clothing exchange party and a home goods exchange.  In a nut shell, people bring things they don't need or use anymore and everyone looks through the items brought and takes what they would like.  At the clothing party, I got a great jacket I could use for travel and at the home goods party I got a great a great set of new pans.  A lot of us have things that we don't use lying around that we can give away and if we need something, maybe someone else has that and then you don't have to go buy it.

Do you have ways you can cut down on your spending? 

Ways I've cut down my travel expense budget

If you've been following any of my travel tips, you know that starting out with a travel budget is essential before you even start saving for the trip itself.  You need to know how much to save, so that requires a lot of research and coming up with an estimated budget to work from.

Once you have that estimated budget, and you've looked at your general finances, you may notice it's going take you some time to save for that trip.  Let's say you have $150 a month to commit to saving for a trip and you see that your dream trip is going to cost $3,500.  That means it is going to take two years to save for the trip.  If you don't want to wait that long and/or you're willing to change a few things around, you could go on that trip sooner.

A few ways that I've managed to cut down on my trip expenses have included anything from choosing another airport to cutting off a day or two from the itinerary.

Here are a few ways you could possibly cut down your travel expense budget:

1.  Picking a different departure airport.  Are there other airports besides your home-base airport you could fly out of?  Since we're in Central Ohio, Columbus is the best airport for us.  However, I've considered driving to Washington, D.C. which is only 6 hours from us.  I found flights to South America that were $450 cheaper a person leaving from there.  Even with a $60 hotel, $100 for parking and $80 for gas, we'd still save $660 on airfare, which is a great deal.  Another option if you're in the midwest is driving and staying with a friend or family member who lives near a larger airport.  Staying with Aunt Sally in New York might save you some $$$.  

2.  Picking a different arrival airport.  If your dream is to go to Paris but tickets to London are a lot cheaper, maybe consider flying to London and taking the chunnel over.  You want to do your homework because adding in additional transportation from the place you fly to to the place you're going could add up.  But if the cost savings is significant enough, this could work for you.  

3.  Rearranging your itinerary.  If you're dead set on which destination you've picked, then this won't work, but if you have wiggle room, you could change some things around.  I have lists of different places I want to see all the time.  If airfare to one place is outrageous, I may consider waiting on that trip and going on a less expensive one.  For example, airfare to South America is very expensive from where I am.  If I have a trip planned in the Spring for South America, but ticket prices are too expensive, I will choose a less expensive destination that I equally want to go to.  Like I said, it may not be available to rearrange your itinerary.  But if you're flying into one country and leaving another, you can obviously choose to start in the country with the least expensive airfare.

4.  Finding cheaper hotel accommodations.  I can not say enough good things about Airbnb.  What a great way to save some money on accommodations!  B&B's are also great ways to save money.  Forgo staying at an expensive boutique hotel, and find a great hotel with character that can potentially be half the cost.  Even if you think you've found a perfect place to stay, keep looking until you find something less expensive that will work for you.  

5.  Planning a trip with friends to split costs.  I don't plan trips with other people so I can save some money, but if you have friends who want to go on a trip with you, you can save some money this way.  Ways you can split the costs with other people include: taxi fare, car rentals, Airbnb condo or apartment rentals or the possibility of getting group-rated prices at sightseeing locations.  And if you drink, you can split the cost of a bottle of wine and share it together.  

6.  Forgoing restaurants for cheaper grocery store options.  One trip, I mapped out every place we went and marked the closest grocery stores to our hotel or B&B.  I wanted to make sure we could walk to the grocery store to get food to make sandwiches, snacks and breakfast foods.  This can save a ton on a trip where you're mostly eating at restaurants which have inflated prices.  (This goes double if you're staying in a huge city like Rome, Paris or New York.  Prices are very high.)  Rick Steves talks about staying somewhere that serves breakfast and packing up some meat and a croissant for later as a snack.  He figures you're paying to stay there, you might as well get some more mileage out of the food.

7.  Finding ways to do it yourself.  We had a tour scheduled with a company that was going to cost $150 a person.  Instead, we found a good guide online, downloaded some maps and free audio guides and did the tour ourselves.  All we had to pay for was an entrance fee, but we ended up saving about $250 total.  Tours can be great, but if they're too expensive, find other ways to do it. 

8.  Cutting the trip length down.  Yes, I would love to go to Europe and stay for two months.  However, I know that with two people, for every day we stay, we will spend $150-$200 per day.  By just shaving off two days, we could save $300-400 dollars on the entire trip itself.

How about you?  Do you have any ways you've managed to trim your travel expenses?