I have had a lot of people ask me "how do you afford to travel so much?" And it's normal that the first thought that pops into someone's mind when they see photos of airplanes and mountains and far off lands is "money." That's what you needed to travel once - so much money. But from my personal experience, I know that this is changing. We live in a day and age where money does not have to be associated with travel, where freedom does not need to be associated with 'rich.' This misconception of money=freedom=travel stunts so many young people from experiencing the freedom they desire to have. I truly believe that when young people say "I want to make millions" they don't really mean that......they really just mean that they want to have the freedom that millionaires have. And I believe each person can have a taste of that through traveling. At only the age of 22, I've had the honor to travel the world and the country - making an income that would hardly be considered wealthy and still making it work. And if you would like to do something similar, before you do anything else, you must: Determine what your values are. To travel often as teenagers and now twenty somethings, Ryan and I have made choices that lead to the things we love. We don’t spend our money on things we feel don’t get us toward our permanent goal - which we have made travel. Now, if you truly value other things or even if certain circumstances (bills, school, job) do not allow you to travel, or you are just not in the season of travel due to life, children, etc....there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But we have decided that, as young adults, traveling is a huge value for us. We feel closer to our faith, to each other, and to others when we travel. So I skip out on things like cable, I shop at goodwill, we drove a beat up old car (darn those brakes), and I choose not to drive my car very often to save gas, I could have afforded a much bigger apartment and yet I choose to live in a smaller apartment. These are things that I am willing to compromise on in order to allow my larger goal to be travel and experiences. Put your money only where your values are. Here are some simple steps on how to put this in action: 1. Find out what places that you can go to that work around your schedule with job/school/commitments. Let's face it. Not all of us get to have a job that allows 3 months of backpacking in Europe. I get that. But there are a whole lot of places all around you that you could go on the weekend - hiking, backpacking, tenting, coffee shop exploring. Find some cheap places to stay and make an adventure weekend out of it. A cabin in North Carolina. A kayak trip down the Florida coast. Hiking and tenting in Georgia. A cute little B&B in the town over. Or, if you want a longer trip.... take a hard look at your calendar and find the two weeks you have off at spring break or the week you could take off from work during the summer. Then, determine where you want to go and start the financial planning process way in advance. 2. Don't let commitments become your excuse for not traveling. There's always time available for short getaways and for seeing something new within driving distance. You don't always need the big trips to find adventure. Be an adventurer in the little things - like weekend trips and nearby locations. But either way, if your heart values traveling, near or far, don't let anyone (not even yourself) talk you out of it. There will always be something more important and more responsible to do. 3. Find the things that you can cut out of your life that are less valuable than travel. Going to Starbucks everyday is not my dream. Really. It isn't. Sorry Starbucks. I love coffee, but I would much rather live out the dream of hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, exploring Galilee, and learning how to make wine in the country of Italy. So I take steps to cut out what I did not really want. Coffee more than once a week is cut out. I don't go to see movies in the theatre....I waited until they were on netflix or DVD. Chipotle runs are less important. Ways to save: Some simple figures Our apartment was $300 less a month than the average apartment in our city. That's $3600 a year. You’ve got a pretty good chunk of money there you can use for an international trip…and we used that to go to Spain. Cable is about $100 a month. That is $1200 for a year. That's another really great chunk of money that you could use for an in-country trip…and we used ours to go toward our Washington trip and hiking in the North Cascades. Let’s use your phone bill as another example. You can get unlimited talk and text on a cheap phone for $25 a month, while many are spending $60-$80 on their phone with data (and the iphone cost too, of course). Ryan chooses to have a cheap phone and we use my phone for data, so he saves about $600 a year on that…..which can be used for various weekend trips, camping trips, and other fun experiences. There are so many other awesome ways to save money….but you have to understand where your priorities are. What personally makes your life full? You can't have everything so you must pick a couple things you value or your money will be spread thin between too many things. 4. Spend time searching for the cheapest options. Research: Let's say you decide where you want to go, you start cutting out things to save for the trip, but now you actually have to start buying the plane ticket and booking the hotel.....things get a lot tougher! The problem is that most people just accept that they have to pay a lot of money to go anywhere and they over pay on things...making it truly impossible to ever go anywhere. Most times, spending a few hours doing research (google, baby!) can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. I have found that tour companies and booking through fancy websites can often pack on the dollars, so research your own trip and do the planning yourself. It may be more work at the beginning, but it's always fun in the end. You don't have to stay in a $200 hotel in each place. Be creative. When my husband and I travel, we rent vacation homes by owners and try to keep it under $70 night. The result = a whole house that feels luxurious and authentic compared to a hotel room at a portion of the cost. Airbnb is our favorite website for finding affordable home (sometimes even yurts, treehouses, campers, and caves!) that are unique and fun! Other times when we want to go even cheaper, we stay with friends....and sometimes we just rough it and sleep in our car. Determine your values...again: When you begin to travel you should also determine what your main value is. You can't do everything - so what would make your trip the most full? For me, I love exploring coffee shops and going hiking in the outdoors. You may want a really great spa experience or time on the beach. Maybe you just want to experience the local food and feast the days away. Whatever it is, pick what will make your trip the most full for you and don't spend money on too many other things. 5. Find creative ways to travel There are so many ways to travel that don't always involve the normal methods. I once traveled out of the country with a tour company after I had won a video contest talking about why I loved to travel. Ha! Don't be afraid to apply to things like this. Submit videos. Get creative. Network with others who like to travel. Teach english in another country. Volunteer with an organization you believe in. Film a travel documentary and fund it using kickstarter or gofundme. Start a business that involves travel. There are so many unique things you can do....don't limit yourself by only thinking in the traditional mindset. 6. Understand that travel teaches you things that nothing else can. It's easy to think, 'I'll travel when I'm older,' but traveling truly taught me some of the most important lessons of my life. Though I got so much from my college education, nothing could have educated me more than sitting down to a sabbath dinner in the heart of a Jerusalem with newfound friends, hiking through old war bunkers on the border of Syria, learning how to make wine in the vineyards of Tuscany, listening to our Spanish neighbors sing and pray as we fell asleep on the rooftop overlooking the Alhambra, watching the sunset over Morocco, riding in a tap tap in Haiti, holding the hands of a child in an orphanage, laughing with new friends in Israel. Perspective is everything. And everyone has a different viewpoint and a unique story. Travel allows you to glimpse into another's life for just a moment and see their heart as if it was your own. And when you do this, you learn how to love them. You see them and you love them for their similarities and their differences and you grow more than you ever thought you could. *Some of my favorite online resources for traveling:
Airbnb Roadtrippers Bootsnall Priceline Urbanspoon Kinfolk City Guide Couch Surfing Gogobot
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Since so many of you asked how I curl my short hair, I made a tutorial to help show you the steps I take to make it curly! (and this was the first tutorial I got to film in my camper. Woot woot!) Make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel if you're interested in more tutorials. :)
Love you all! - Chelsie We are just about two weeks into our crazy adventure on the road and it has certainly been an interesting few weeks. Thank you to all of those that have been praying for us, thinking of us, and following our posts online. It means so much! Just to recap each of you a bit..... here are some of the highlights we've gotten to experience already! - We drove all the way through Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi. So beautiful to watch so much nature through my window! - We visited about 5 coffee shops in a few days time in Nashville - all in pursuit of internet and the best coffee. My vote? Crema and Thistle Stop Cafe. I am now a little crazy from all the caffeine. :) - We spoke to about 60 different people about Trades of Hope and how passionate we are about it! - We visited some our artisans over at Thistle Farms (such a cool experience!) - We saw snow!! (and almost froze with our Florida blood ;) - We spent 6 days without a toilet and tried (very humorously) to try and fix it ourselves. Not a pretty experience. - We figured out how fun (and tough) it can be to be in a new place every few days. The trip, for me especially, was an exciting new challenge. I firmly believe that unless you are doing something that terrifies you, you aren't growing. This is pretty much the mantra of our trip. Meeting new people almost every day and speaking publicly (my worst fear) is something that can be so scary for my self-proclaimed introvertness. (I'm now just saying that I fall under both categories. lol). The last couple of years, I have found that I'm not the best at being a balanced individual and I am the greatest at being an obsessed workaholic. They were also full of a lot of confusion about what to do next with my life. I was 22 years old and I already had an amazing job (that I will never give up, for sure!), a cool apartment, and so much control of what I thought I knew. And I felt like I had no room to grow. It began to be stifling. It began to feel monotonous. In the face of the darkness of this world, my heart was struggling with trusting Jesus and understanding his goodness and love for me. This road trip is exactly what I've needed. It's what Jesus has had planned for me since the very beginning. A job that has allowed me to travel and meet new people is the biggest blessing I could have ever asked for. More time with Ryan. And a requirement that I must stop being a control freak. I cannot control how fast we drive (a whopping 55 mph in a big fifth wheel), so I can't really control when I'm late to things, and I can't control when our bathroom decides to break, or if its 20 degrees out and if my cell service isn't there and my internet doesn't work. So much not-controlling for this girl.....and this not-controlling is helping me become the person I have always hoped to be. In this period of no control, I am finding a quietness. A deep joy that I thought I might have lost. An ability to live in the moment, which was so hard for me before. As I live in the moment, I find the believe in the goodness of God creeping back into my heart. As I live in this moment, I see people for the beautiful beings they are. I care deeper. I love deeper. I empathize better. I love Jesus more. I understand grace fully. I see the sweetness of the world clearer. It's still hard and it will continue to be. Wherever you go, there you are and no matter how big of a roadtrip you go on, your unhealthy habits still remain unless you take the hard steps to end them. I am working through this. I am identifying where I need to let rest permeate. It is tough. We are in the growing pains period. But my heart is settling, and I am hoping by the end of this amazing Trades of Hope Tour that I am so blessed to be on, that I will have understood better how wide, and deep, and long, and high the love of Jesus is for me in a way that shakes me and quiets my heart and makes me trust and laugh more and understand this whole heartbreaking and beautiful world a little better. Pray that with me? Here are some photos so far. I hope you enjoy journeying this trip with us. I feel your love and cannot thank you enough for being a part of my life. maybe Jesus wasn’t the guy sitting quietly in the pews next to us as kids, whispering solemn prayers under his breath and looking a little too serious. maybe Jesus is the kid next to you, poking you and whispering too loud and asking if maybe, just maybe you want to escape the boxed in hell-hole version of God we’ve all created out of a culture that wasn’t okay with a poor man getting a rich man’s wage. maybe he is the little boy next to you asking you if you’d rather go outside and run fast with him, and laugh a little louder than you’ve been told is allowed, and choose to see the gray of the world a little deeper without immediately calling “black” or “white” or “wrong” “right”. we wanted too many don’ts and Jesus fiercely whispers ‘do’ in a voice that rumbles with laughter and perhaps so much glee that it could be found disrespectful in the red-rimmed, tired eyes of the all too serious do-gooder adults that want to smack the light out of the childrens’ hands because they have forgotten what it is like to play.
Jesus is in the gay man’s joy and the little child’s belches and the running and running and the sun that seeps through the clouds while you lay on a picnic blanket letting its warmth touch your eyes in a way that screams more, more, more and we all know it but no one wants to say it. Jesus is not the reserved and refined man we thought he was, but he is the man that eats with drunkards and gamblers and all those the religious snidely deem ‘off limits.’ and he does not just sit in a corner and ‘associate’ with them…. like the church does with their token gay friend, secretly judging from behind protective religious cages…. but Jesus chooses them first. he engulfs himself in them, throwing himself into their experiences, feeling their joy, eating their food, perhaps laughing too much and filling with affection at every turn. he sees the shock on his friend’s faces when they understand that their long awaited messiah chose to define himself not as an unemotional, disconnected man who loved rules and black and whites and ‘that’s enough’ and ‘try harders’ and ‘stop doing this’, but defined himself instead by loving fiercely in the gray, by saying ‘it’s enough’ ‘you can have more joy. more good. more love. more than this,’ by stirring up trouble where he knew trouble was needed, by holding the hand of the dying in the dirt filled corner, holding their filth and weeping into their shoulder as he saw the affects of poverty, of prejudice, of suicide, of brokenness, of rule bent religion, the affects of the hatred that had seeped into a world that had forgotten how to love and protect one another. and gosh darn it. i don’t want to follow the man in the corner of the church, so intent on wrongs and rights that he does not see the people beside him. i tried that man and his edges were not able to cover all of the pain that stretches just too far, his shallowness not able to reach the deepness of heartbreak that runs just too deep. i want to follow the man in the bar, roaring with laughter with his arm thrown around his brother, speaking radical grace, radiating love and light and joy and full of so much abundant life that covers our deep pain with his tenderness. and do my thoughts go too far? a lot of people will probably think so. but i think Jesus went too far for us and i’m done believing in the culture-created Jesus that never goes far enough to actually cover the darkness and evil and filth and pulsing hatred and sadness and outright sobs of the world. I am learning that he does go far enough, and I will go farther with him too, far enough to cover this darkness with his glorious, unabashed, wound healing, hate destroying laughter of love. Hey friends! Chelsie here. As some of you may know, Ryan and I will be traveling the US in a fifth wheel from February 2015-September 2015. We will be speaking for Trades of Hope and photographing along the way. As exciting as it will be, finding a new home (never mind a mobile home) was a daunting task. I especially was looking for something that had lots of sunny colors and that fit our style. This was way too hard to find and so.... we had to create it! The last few months we have been hammering and drilling and cutting and sewing and painting and wallpapering, all to create our dream home within a fifth wheel that was in our budget. We picked a used fifth wheel that was budget friendly (under $15,000) and our total renovations/decor rang up under $2500. (The paint and floor came out to be much cheaper, so replacing those in a fifth wheel is budget friendly. Decor is where some of the added expense can come in). Remember that this is our permanent home now and we moved out of our apartment totally, so we made sure we put some extra love into making this home our own. Check out our before & after photos below, along with some fun detail shots below! Living Room |
Hey, friend! I'm Chelsie!
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