My personality has always been to obsess over something for a time. Once I obtain said obsession, whether it be some new shirt or home item, I move on to the next. I forget the last obsession and hone in a new one.  Like with items in my life, I tend to do the same with travel. I think I want to travel non-stop. I try it for a while by spending three months gallivanting around Europe. I find after three months, I am too tired and cranky to keep this up, having no real constant home. I read about another traveler, wandering from place to place solo. I go try it out in Ireland for a month and realize while solo travel is uplifting and creates a deep sense of self, I miss those travel moments with someone I know. Like with my latest material obsessions, I guess I tend to want certain travel styles, but in the end, I know my style. I’m the homebody traveler.

There might be snow, but it's home.

I enjoy nothing more than slipping into my own bed at night, waking up to know my Internet should work. The coffee will be hot. I am perfectly content on spending the day at home. I am a homebody in every degree. As a toddler I would be dumped off at my grandparents for I hated to shop with my mom. I would rather stay home.

To make this confession might turn off some travelers of the world. I should love the adventure of going from place to place. And while I do, there will always be a pull in me to return home for break, to lounge on the couch and soak up all of its comforts. Of course, I wouldn’t be writing here if I didn’t love to leave home every once in a while. I love so many things about travel, but not solely to make it all that my life is.

I read many other travel sites, articles and blogs, telling me of different travel styles: solo, couples, long term and nomadic. I hear each and every style’s benefits. I am constantly hit over the head with that obsession. Do I want this style or that one?

I'm leaving on a jetplane...

Be True To Your Travel Style

After 24 years, I have finally accepted my travel style, the homebody traveler. While I enjoy heading to a new place for a few weeks or even a month or two, I have to come back down to earth, come back home. I have to soak up a constant life before I head back out on to the road. I have to appreciate what I have and when I have it in order to find many aspects to travel endearing.

I travel pretty much every month of the year, but I also have an apartment I call home. I enjoy traveling throughout these two extremes, a home life and a travel life. Without the two, I would not be honest with my travel style. If there is one thing I have learned from trying other travelers’ styles it is that I fail miserably when I reject my travel style. Just because it isn’t the long-term style or the solo style doesn’t make it foreign. Every travel style should be different and no two are alike.

You Never Know Until You Try

Truth be told, I never would know that the homebody travel style is for me until I gave other travel styles a go. Getting up in Ireland, traveling to new places everyday or every other day, I grew exhausted. I knew this nomadic travel style wasn’t for me.

Sometimes we can be bombarded with other traveler’s styles of moving around the globe. In the end, you really don’t know what might be for you until you try it. I used to think I could never travel alone, and then I did. While I don’t think it is exactly my style, at least I gave it a go. While being a nomad isn’t my style either, at least I tried it.

Changing Travel Styles Is Not A Sin

You have announced to the world you are a nomad or that round the world adventure for a year comes to an end. What now? I often find these moments in transition interesting to experience and observe in others. I am guilty of worrying about changing what I have laid out. In the end, travel styles change with age, position and circumstance. Don’t be afraid to admit it’s not what you want anymore.

There is my confession. I’m a homebody who also loves to travel from time to time. I have been a nomad enough to know I’m not a nomad. I can be a solo traveler and I cannot be. I can travel long term and I can’t. I know my travel style now and I will embrace it from my cozy couch at home to the lumpy couch half way around the world.

How do you define your travel style? Have you tried traveling with other styles and found they didn’t work for you?

While I don’t normally write specific posts on contests, as there are so many, Enrout was nice enough to exchange good deeds and support this site as well. It must be the spirit of the season.

Enrout is a new search engine for alternative lodging. And as I don’t promote every contest on this site, I found Enrout to be beneficial for average Joes and Janes in terms of what types of accommodations they offer for reasonable rates. The goal of the site is to immerse the traveler into local lifestyles. I often say how I enjoy renting apartments when I travel as you do get a different sense of a place.

Long story short, Enrout is giving away $500 to one lucky traveler just in time for the holidays. To enter the contest, you really just have to like a few Facebook pages, tweet the contest and explain your favorite vacation rental on Enrout. The details can be found on the Enrout contest page.

I would rather have the winner be someone from this site so don’t let me down. In the meantime, I’m off to dream about what I would do with $500 in accommodations. Pillow mints will probably be involved.

A dreaded activity for many and a welcome problem for few, I have always enjoyed packing for trips. As I started to recall just what I deemed appropriate for the Ultimate Female Packing List for Italy on Her Packing List this week, I remembered some of my painful packing errors. While I had tried to push those incidents out of my memory, they are always there, tugging at me and reminding me there is no such thing as a travel packing pro. Packing is a something I think you don’t get down with one trip, or even two. It takes a great deal of time to master, and even when you have gone pro, you still have those items you never wear or the shoes that kill your feet.

Perhaps in hopes of releasing all of that bad packing karma from countless errors throughout my travels, I have assembled some of the moments when I have faltered in the packing department. I always go back to Ötzi, the Iceman found preserved along with his belongings in a glacier between Austria and Italy. His backpack along with the items he packed for his journey is now immortalized in a museum. What you carry does in fact carry you. If I tumbled into a glacier with my suitcase, I wouldn’t want anyone to see these packing mistakes in a museum.

If I can successfully lift a bag over my head, I can bring it.

Three Suitcases For 5 Months in Sicily

I might be most ashamed of this packing mistake. I was headed to Sicily for a semester in college, my first time abroad for an extended period of time. I could not pare down what I wanted to bring, so much so, I brought three suitcases. Arriving to that small airport in Catania, I looked mostly ridiculous as my ride laughed and mumbled in Sicilian dialect. While I had a wealth of options that semester for clothes, it made it next to impossible to move all three of those bags.

Lesson Learned: Even for long trips, don’t ever bring more bags than you have hands.

Look at all of those unnecessary bags!

The Shoes That Weren’t Made For Walking in England

My first few moments in Europe for the first time were not spent enjoying the beauty of London, but rather enjoying a London shoe store. At the last minute, at 8 years old mind you, I threw in a pair of shoes I desperately wanted to bring. Why? I don’t know, as they were gingham-printed shoes. I had never worn these killer shoes. They attacked my feet and didn’t make walking possible. I found myself in a London shoe store, buying the ugliest of shoes with my mom as we tried to figure out European sizes.

Lesson Learned: Never pack shoes you have never worn before.

Packing For The Season I Wanted

Just because you are in a place that you think of as warm year round, doesn’t mean it will be. When I studied in Florence for a semester, I thought the extent of their winter would be a little rain but bearable temperatures. Just like my other packing errors, this thinking did not work in my favor when I froze February through April in one of Florence’s closest winters.

Lesson Learned: Don’t pack for the season you are hoping for, but rather check the weather before you start loading up your bag with flip-flops and T-Shirts.

All of The High Heels I Have Ever Packed

I have finally learned that high heels and traveling simply don’t mix. However, for a time, I would always through in a pair or two. At the end of a trip, I would find high heels were always the items I promised myself I would never pack again. I never end up wearing them. Cobblestone or no cobblestone, high heels are not meant for walking in a new place.

Lesson Learned: If you are not a high heel person at home, you are not a high heel person when you travel.

The Cheap Tote Bag Problem

For a while in my traveling career, I would purchase a new tote bag to carry my computer, wallet and other important items. The night before I would try packing this tote bag and always have some sort of zipper fiasco. Whether it was not big enough to fit all of my important items or poor with weight distribution so much so I thought I would lose an arm lugging this monster around, cheap tote bags are never the way to go.

Lesson Learned: Just like shoes, try out your main bag you will be toting the majority of the time before you take off. It if it kills your arm at home or has a cheap zipper, it will break or cost you an arm.

What is your worst packing error? Have you ever repeated the same packing mistake twice?

Full Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. While my thoughts and opinions about the product are my own, your results might vary.

Photography is such a vital part of travel. If you can’t capture where you have been, it can be a challenge to keep up with those travel memories. I am a point and shoot camera totting traveler. I don’t have a fancy pants camera, just my trusted Canon. When I get home from an adventure, I try to make the best of what I have captured, usually with just a simple click of the “Enhance” button on iPhoto. Sometimes I kick myself for missing the moment or taking such a crooked shot of something so beautiful.

While iPhoto has yet to fail me completely, I was willing to give Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 a try to see if I could do even more with my travel photos. The software claims to help you make your photos look their complete best. Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 gives you a pretty powerful photo-editing tool that is also thought to be easy to use. The software also comes with an organize feature where you can tack on dates, captions and the like to make sure you keep track of where you have been and what you have seen.

I thought the best way to review this product for travelers looking to improve their travel photographs would be to edit a series of photographs I have taken on my travels, showing you the before and after.

This first shot is Milan’s Duomo. I thought it would be challenging to make this grand structure look even better. Using the quick selection tool along with the hue and saturation feature, I was able to turn the distracting yellow shirt of a man in the photograph to gray. I also cropped the photograph and I utilized the Enhance Menu to Auto Fix the colors and sharpness of the building.

Milan’s Duomo Before

Milan's Duomo Unedited

Milan’s Duomo After

Milan's Duomo Edited

The next photograph I decided to change was a shot I love of Matera, Italy. Playing around with the Enhance menu, I auto corrected problems in the photograph, with the exception of the auto color. Then I used the gradient tool on a new layer coupled with the soft light filter. This gives Matera a warmer and richer effect, putting me right into the warmth of the Mediterranean.

Matera, Italy Before

Matera, Italy Unedited

Matera, Italy After

Matera, Italy Edited

This next photograph is of a beach in Sardinia, one of my favorite spots in the world. I didn’t think it was possible to make this beach look better. I zoomed in on the photograph to provide more attention and focus. I also straightened the photograph. I tried out the Clone Tool to remove rubbish on the beach, including a bright orange tent. I then used the gradient tool on a new layer with the soft light filter to make the beach look even warmer and the sea and sky cooler.

Sardinian Beach Before

Sardinia Beach Unedited

Sardinian Beach After

Sardinia Beach Edited

Finally, one of my favorite photographs to come out of trying Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 is a night shot of the Gracia Festival in Barcelona. I used the Enhance feature along with the Color Variation to make it darker. I didn’t like how grainy this photograph was before. In turn, I made the brighter areas redder. I then used the Motion Blur Filter in the Filter Menu. By using the Eraser Tool, I could make it appear as though only the foreground was in motion. For a night shot, the background doesn’t move. Here I have created a long exposure to show movement, when I never did so when I took the photograph.

Gracia Festival Before

Gracia Festival Unedited

Gracia Festival After

Gracia Festival Edited

What I Thought

I did find Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 to live up to its claim of making your photographs look their best. However, I will say it was not so simple to use. You have to have some knowledge of Photoshop or a long weekend to read up on how to use each feature. I also didn’t find the Organize element to be extremely useful, but that could be my laziness talking. From a travel perspective, if you have the time to organize your photographs in this feature, you could certainly save headaches of trying to figure out who and what you saw. Overall, if you are looking to improve your travel photographs with a somewhat simple and affordable tool, I recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. You don’t have to be the best photographer with this software.

Note: This product does not come with a teenager like my brother Charlie Guese to help you figure it out. Special thanks to Charlie for helping me use Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.

Have you tried Adobe Photoshop Elements 9? What do you use to edit your travel photographs?

Forgive me if I don’t enjoy looking like a disaster when I travel. I know I am supposed to not care about my appearance and throw on the same T-shirt over and over again. I am supposed to uphold the bare bones traveler look, one who is not focused on their mascara layers but rather the layers of their adventure.

This comes across as shallow to many who pack only one pair of underwear, but I don’t want to be a complete mess when I travel. I think places have a lot to do with the traveler. I enjoy looking my best when I travel for I feel better and I hope, just maybe, those American stereotypes of being bad at dressing and assimilating into foreign cultures are reversed. In case you too are of the same mantra, here are my beauty and fashion must-packs. While I wish I received these items for free, I didn’t. However, they uphold a budget conscious attitude, one the one-underwear packing people just might be able to appreciate.

A Classic Trench Coat

If you read this site often, you might wonder if I only wear one thing, a trench coat. I purchased a tan trench coat for my trip to Ireland. That purchase proved to be a great travel find. Almost every store has a classic trench coat. A trench coat is so versatile. You can wear it in any type of weather mostly. It can act as a big blanket on an airplane. If you are down to your worst outfits on a trip, you can just slip on that trench coat and no one knows what is underneath. A good classic trench coat allows you to look put together when you travel, even when you aren’t.

Night Cream

Travel can truly wear you down. It is stressful at times and not always like laying on a beach in Tahiti. However, I always pack a night cream to help with travel stress. The cream relaxes my skin, keeps it moisturized, and also helps relax me personally. While I wish the Olay people would sponsor me, I use Night of Olay Firming Cream when I travel. At under $7 a giant jar, this is easy to afford. Apart from having perhaps the best night cream name, the cream moisturizes my skin on long flights and provides that cooling feel on my face after an extensive day of touring. With the different climates you might be going through, your skin and stress levels can feel it, but a good night cream can remedy any travel fiasco.

A Pumice Stone

The last thing you might consider to pack is a pumice stone. It usually falls on those lists of “I wish I brought one, but I didn’t”. Last summer in Italy, I felt the burn of not packing a pumice stone. When you are traveling, you are most likely walking a lot. Especially in summer, your feet can take a beating in sandals. For some reason, pumice stones are hard to find in foreign countries, at least they have been for me. I always pack a pumice stone now and my feet thank me.

Travel Eye Care Kit

The first time I saw this little kit, I laughed. Who would need a little case with a mirror, tiny bottle for contact solution and a contact case? Can’t you just make one on your own?  However, that little eye care case has come in use more times than I can count on the road. While I do think travel brings out a beauty you can’t buy, it is hard to feel beautiful and absorb such beauty you are seeing if a fuzz-ball decides to attack your eye. Red eyes that look tired probably are, but eye drops can eliminate this all together. Taking care of your eyes while you travel might be the best beauty tip. You did come all this way to see something.

Powerful Mini Hair Dryer

I have read so many packing lists that tell you to leave the hair dryer at home. There is always one at the hotel, right? Wrong. Then I have read complaints that many mini-hair dryers don’t have the power to dry your hair quickly on the road. You can either go with the hotel’s untrustworthy dryer, usually one you have to hold a button down the whole time to keep going or take an hour to blow dry your hair with a travel sized dryer. I have found my trusted travel hairdryer. While once again, I wish I received this little gem for free, I didn’t. I use the Mighty Mini Styler by Conair. It has the strength of your hair dryer back home that is far too big to pack. It fits easily in those strange and awkward spaces I find in my suitcase.

Dresses

I hope my male readers don’t use this beauty tip, but dresses are the best way to pack light and look presentable while traveling. Sure, in some climates this won’t work. If you are planning a trip to the Arctic Circle, you might not use dresses. At the same time, I save room in my suitcase by not having to pack addition tops and bottoms. When you just want to get out the door and explore a city, a dress is the easiest and quickest way to do so. I especially find shirt dresses comfortable, easy to pack and classic in almost any part of the world.

What are your budget beauty and fashion travel must-packs?

Before I left for Ireland, I knew there would be benefits to traveling solo. These benefits I likened to a new-found independence, ease in social situations and confidence. While I didn’t assume these positives would come out of solo travel, they were aspects to traveling I suspected I would gain.

In the end, I did find a new sense of confidence. I also discovered just how much more independent I could be. Talking with strangers became much easier for me after a month of solo travel. However, there were a few surprises in the solo travel department. Perhaps you have traveled solo and found these benefits, ones you never expected to find.

Odd One Person-Spots on Tours

On almost every tour, there is that odd one-person ticket that never gets filled. In Ireland, I encountered this numerous times at museum visits and site showings. I arrived at Newgrange, a prehistoric tomb, expecting to wait hours as my guidebook had cautioned. A group in front of me of three people received their bad news that they would be on a tour 2 hours later. I pretty much accepted my fate. I too would be waiting in a visitor’s center for hours on end. I walked up to the ticket agent and said “just one”. She gave me a sticker for my time slot in 10 minutes to see Newgrange. They had one spot left on a tour that would no doubt go to waste. Solo travelers can save a great deal of time just by filling up these odd spots. You can usually fill these wasted one spots when no one else can because they are with friends.

Newgrange

Weird and Wacky Conversations

While I know people who travel with others can have their share of weird conversations, solo travel for some reason brings this about almost with every day. Perhaps people don’t mind shocking you for you are alone. I found people approached me, perhaps not always to my liking, with some strange exchanges. From a musician at the Giant’s Causeway who started talking to me by insulting my shoes, to a B& B owner who told me her “journey of life”, leaving in all of the gory details, I have had some strange encounters. I suspect these weird and wacky conversations are lessened when you travel with someone as people are less inclined to approach you if a group surrounds you.

Friendlier Service

This could just be Ireland, but every restaurant I ate at, for the most part, treated me like the queen. Waiters and waitresses, café owners and the like, would always start lengthy conversations with me. I actually never felt like I was dining alone as it seemed the Irish were looking out for me. Perhaps they were worried I was alone and somewhat sad, but I will take the friendlier service. When you travel with someone, these people don’t think you need extra conversation or attention because you have someone on the other side of the table.

Shopping for food at the Cork Market

Better Decision-Making Skills

When I travel with someone, there is a compromise of what I want to see and what they want to see. I tend to take a backseat to trip planning. I don’t enjoy searching for hotels for hours on end. I figure we can just wing it when we get there. However, traveling solo forced me to make up my own itineraries. Making decisions is not something I think I struggle with, but solo travel allowed me to be more aggressive in travel planning. If I didn’t map out my day, no one else would. Solo travel surprised me in that I had to make decisions and select where I wanted to go without someone helping me. Suddenly, the solo traveler is more forceful and knows what they want out of travel.

Traveling planning all alone

What are some of the unexpected benefits to solo travel you have found on the road?

Before I left for Ireland, I detailed how I was budgeting for a month in the country. I received tips and insight from others who had traveled throughout Ireland. I thought I knew what to expect money-wise. However, you really don’t know until you travel what will be a surprise expense and what won’t be. To help others planning a trip to Ireland, here are a few surprises I found about the country.

Food prices are astronomical

As a solo traveler, I figured I wouldn’t be spending that much on food as in Italy, I could always find a pizza for 5 euros or a plate of pasta for 7 euros. I had budgeted $25 per day for 28 days. That comes out to $700 in total. For some, $25 per day either sounds like too much or too little. I stayed in bed and breakfasts and hotels. In case you don’t know, Irish breakfasts are huge. I would eat a giant breakfast everyday, as it was included in my room rate. Those breakfasts were more like two meals for me, so I reasoned I would have more than enough money budgeted for dinner. While Ireland may have the cheapest hotel rates in Europe right now, food prices do not match the struggling economy. Irish news commentary programs also had the same concerns I did.

It was almost impossible to find pubs and restaurants with main dishes under 15 euros. Pints would run from 4 euros to 6 euros. Even in the small towns I stayed in, the food prices were not cheap. Occasionally I would go to the grocery store to pick up food I could just put together, sandwiches, etc. Even buying food at the grocery store proved expensive. Bread, cheese, sandwich meat, chocolate and a drink would usually amount to 15 euros. If you are planning on visiting Ireland, expect food prices to be high. Even just eating out once a day broke my budget. If I didn’t book accommodations with breakfast, I probably would have gone well over my budget for the entire 28 days. Ireland, get your act together. Fish and chips shouldn’t be 20 euros.

Sightseeing adds up in Ireland

A few euros here, a few pounds there, sightseeing really adds up in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Some attractions were not worth the steep 6 euro entrance fee and I would only find this out after paying for it. I originally budgeted $10 per day for sights, figuring some days I would be saving those euros. While I came in under budget on sightseeing expenses, I realized I could have saved even more. If you are planning on doing loads of sightseeing in Ireland, it is worth it to pick up heritage and national trust cards. The Heritage Card in Ireland guarantees free admission to all fee-paying State managed OPW Heritage Sites located throughout the country for one year. This costs 21 euros for an adult. If you want to look up what landmarks and attractions are covered, Heritage Ireland has a list on their website.

Accommodations are pricey for solo travelers

Trying to step outside my comfort zone, I would look up hostel prices for a single person. If I wanted a private room, the rates were often the same as bed and breakfasts and hotels. I know the couchsurfers will jump in here and tell me I could have saved so much by couchsurfing. That is just not for me so I tried to make the accommodations as cheap as possible. As I was traveling in the low season, prices were half what they normally are. Also, due to the recession in Ireland, 4 star hotels were often running specials where their rates were cheaper than bed and breakfasts. A bed and breakfast for a single person averaged 40 euros per night.

With that said, accommodations are still costly in Ireland, especially if you are traveling solo. If you travel in spring and summer, the rates will be double. However, I reasoned I was also paying for a meal with my room rate, and thus cutting back on food expenses. Another way to save on accommodations in Ireland, especially in the low season, is to not book in advance. Many hotels and bed and breakfasts run last minute specials just to try and fill rooms. I noticed some bed and breakfasts I booked a month or so in advance would have been 10 euros cheaper if I booked two or three nights before I was set to arrive.

Ireland has Internet down

Every single place I stayed offered WiFi and for free. With the exception of a few places with spotty WiFi, I never had to pay for Internet. Now, this is an area that is not always important to some people. However, I needed Internet for work. Originally I bought an Internet stick in Ireland, setting me back $60. When I realized all of my accommodations offered Internet, I returned the Internet card and saved the cash. Compared to some parts of the world, especially in Italy, I was really surprised how in touch Ireland was with keeping travelers connected and for free. Even the smallest of B&Bs offered free WiFi. This is an area that saved me money. If you are hesitant to put down 40 euros at a bed and breakfast in Ireland, consider that you are getting a bed, meal and free Internet out of the deal.

Have you traveled throughout Ireland? What surprised you about your travel budget in the country?