Easy To Pack Halloween Costumes

When you travel over Halloween, you might also be doing holiday activities where you'll need a costume. We have often gone to a Disney park during Halloween season and have packed costumes, but still only took a carry-on. 

Here are 10 easy, but fun, costumes to bring with you, that will still enable you to pack light.

A game show contestant

You basically only need a plain colored shirt for this, and then a name tag and points card (or dollar guess), both of which are flat and easy to pack. 

Salt & Pepper (or other spices, if there's a group of you)

I love this. Everyone has a black or white t-shirt in their closet. You can do an iron-on S and P, or make large decals that you can stick on for your event and then remove when it's over. That way you can wear it during the whole trip, instead of just the one time.

An Olympic breakdancer

Can you breakdance? Don't worry. There's speculation that that one Australian Olympian couldn't either. While a bit more elaborate of an outfit, you could easily wear parts of this as loungewear on your trip.

Tennis or Pickleball player

You're probably already packing some of this outfit. You may just need to add a tennis skirt/short and a visor. Maybe you travel with your own pickleball racket, which would make this incredibly easy. 

Nepo Baby

I kind of love the simplicity of this one that's still creative. Pair some jeans with a plain tee that says Nepo Baby, get yourself a fake award to carry around, and prepare your acceptance speech. 

A milkshake (and soda jerk)

Perfect solo costume. Perfect couple's costumes. Perfect group costume. If these headbands are too big for you to travel with, consider doing a cardboard cutout version that you color and attach to a headband yourself or purchase these smaller versions. Here's an outfit for the soda jerk.

Pantone colors

Wear monochromatic outfits and attach a white Pantone label or border. Bonus points if you can find, and add, the exact color and number code.

Life handing out lemons

Looking for a funny costume that makes people think? Wear a yellow shirt or dress, put a nametag on that says Life and pick up some lemons from the local grocery store that you can carry around in a string bag and hand out to people, or at least let people see them. 

A Bachelor contestant

Wear whatever dress you bring with you and dress it up with some jewelry, make a chyron board with your stats and carry a rose. Boom! Go one step further and mess up your makeup and be a booted contestant from the show.

Witch

This is always an easy and classic costume. You just need a black outfit and a hat. It can be as simple as you want. Add some accessories that are easy to pack and brew up some magic.

Horror Movies Based Around Travel

I adore Halloween and almost everything that comes with it, except haunted houses and corn mazes. I will see a corn maze in the daytime. Each year I try to consume as much spooky media as possible, including horror movies and scary podcasts. If you also enjoy such things, then this post is for you. I've got a long list of great horror movies that revolve around travel, which you would think would scare me off from a lot of things, but actually haven't. 

I feel as if you can definitely learn a lot from these movies, even if it's just how not to get ripped off or how not to trust strangers. So, let's delve into some movies I have enjoyed and recommend for all horror lovers:

Cabin In The Woods (2012) - If I have to pick a favorite horror movie, it's a tough call to not immediately choose this one. I may have issues with Joss Whedon, but this movie is fairly perfect in my eyes, including the amazing twist you get halfway through and then an even twistier twist later on. In short, a group of college friends take their RV to one of their cousin's cabin in the woods to get away from it all. The cabin turns out to be much more than a cabin and the worst decision anyone's ever made, but there's a reason they're there and doing everything they do. It's amazing and if you haven't seen it, I urge you to rent it right now.  

Cabin Fever (2002) - A group of friends stay in a cabin in the woods. Before they've arrived, a virus has been released into the local water supply. It kills people slowly and painfully by causing them to decompose while they're still alive. After swimming in the lake, this group begins to show signs of infection. The cast is awesome and 20 years later I still have feelings about a particular scene that has stuck with me.

Psycho (1960) - While you can watch the remake, the original will always be it for me, plus it includes a lot of firsts in film that make it even more important. Marion Crane is given the day's deposit for the real estate company she works for, but instead of going to the bank, she absconds with the money in order to pay off her boyfriend's debts so they can get married. Trading in her car on the way, she finds herself pulling off into a roadside motel when the rain becomes too heavy to drive in. Cabin 1 is free...and, well, you know the rest.

House of Wax (1953 & 2005) - I'll admit, I loved both of these movies. The first is a black and white Vincent Price film that was properly scary even 70 years later. Several people have mysteriously gone missing with their lookalikes found in the newly-opened wax museum. In the 2005 remake a group of friends heading to a football game end up needing a new fan belt for their truck and go to the nearby town to await the return of the mechanic after a funeral he's attending. While waiting, they go to the town's "famous" wax museum and find more than they bargained for. This one stars Jared Padelecki (before Supernatural took off), Paris Hilton, and Elisha Cuthbert.

The Shallows (2016) - One of Blake Lively's best movies, in my opinion. After her death, she heads to a secluded beach that her mother wrote about in her journal when she was pregnant with her. She gets dropped off by a local and eventually meets two guys who are also there to surf. They leave and she decides to catch one last wave. In doing so, she is pursued by a huge shark that seems intent on eating her no matter what. The rest of the movie is her story of surviving and trying to make it back to the beach alive, with only herself to count on.

Turistas (2006) - Three American tourists go on vacation and a bus tour where the bus breaks down. The three of them connect with some others from their bus and head down the cliff to the beach where a party is taking place. Drinking is involved and drugs and, long story short, a surgeon who sells organs on the Black Market.

Hostel (2005) - Probably one of the hardest movies to watch and the one that may have deterred a lot of people from hostels, train travel, and strangers. Americans travel to Slovenia and meet some new friends who they go drinking with. When they wake up, they learn they've been sold to a torture chamber for rich people. It's terrifying and disgusting and one of the few movies I had to watch certain scenes through my fingers.

Old (2021) - I know this movie got a lot of bad reviews, but I really feel like M. Night Shyamalan has started finding his voice again. Several families go on vacation to a luxury resort and are dropped off on a private beach and told they would be picked up later. None of them have any idea where they are and they don't appear to have any cell service, so they can't call for help when things start to go wrong. Everyone begins aging rapidly and there's only one way out that isn't dying quickly of old age.

Midsommar (2019) - Our main character goes on a trip to Sweden with her boyfriend and his friends after her sister kills herself and her parents, leaving her severely traumatized and causing her boyfriend to put off breaking up with her, even though their relationship was bad before the tragedy happened. They all get caught up in "traditional" Midsommar rituals that get weirder and weirder the longer they stay. The writer/director Ari Aster, who also did Hereditary, has a lot of interesting things to say about his movie, including that he doesn't view either of his movies horror, but he's probably the only one.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003) - 4 friends are roadtripping across the country in order to write a book about roadside attractions. When they stop for gas they meet a clown named Captain Spaulding who owns an attraction called The Museum of Monsters and Madmen which tells the legend of Dr. Satan. In order to research this local legend, they pick up a hitchhiker who claims she lives near the tree he was hanged from and they offer to take her home so she can show it to them. Shockingly, her family is a bunch of psychopaths and things end badly for these teens. Arguably, this is Rob Zombie's best film. In my opinion it has everything, including Rainn Wilson and Chris Hardwick being idiots, Karen Black being incredibly creepy, and whole lot of killer mutants. This was followed by The Devil's Rejects and 3 From Hell, neither of which had the same campy feel that I loved.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974 & 2003) - I understand the love a lot of people have for the original, I've watched it several times and pretty much always side with Leatherface. A group of friends are traveling to visit one of their father's graves and old farmhouse. Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker who seems to have quite a lot going on and none of it good. At the old farmhouse, several of them wander off and end up at the home next door and become murder victims. I prefer the 2003 remake with Jessica Biel, who actually tries to survive. The plot is different to update with the times, but the outcome is mostly the same.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) - This has a whole new cast and story, but the Final Girl returns and that's exciting. It's a direct sequel, even though it's got a new writer/director. A girl and her sister and friends go out to a ghost town in order to move there to revitalize it into a thriving town. Obviously, things don't go as planned and a chainsaw is heavily involved. It's one of the gorier movies in the series, but might actually be the best one beyond the original.

Jeepers Creepers (2001) - The original follows a pair of siblings going home from college on Spring Break. They are followed by a truck driven by a person who has seen them witness him carrying dead bodies to an old abandoned church. The rest of the movie is them trying to survive. The monster is loosely based on the Jersey Devil, even though it takes place in Florida. Barely a travel movie, Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) is also great. This movie follows a high school basketball team on the bus to an away game when a tire blows and strands them on the roadside of the same town, just 3 days after the events of the first movie. Chaos ensues and a scarecrow in a cornfield is involved. 

Us (2019) - If you haven't seen this Jordan Peele movie about a family on a vacation with some friends that they don't seem to enjoy, you might be missing out. While this has socio-political undertones, the horror aspect is amazing. The story is that every person has a double underground that is forced to live in secret and live their life like their above-ground counterpart. They have figured out how to break free and are out to seek revenge on their other selves.

The Green Inferno (2013) - This Eli Roth movie can be difficult to watch if torture porn is not your thing. A group of activists go on a trip to the Amazon when their plane goes down and they are captured by a group of cannibals. You know what happens next. It's very graphic. I would have been much more disturbed by this movie, but Roth shot on location with an actual native tribe who had never actually seen movies or TV. He explained what he wanted and showed them the most disturbing movie he had, Cannibal Holocaust, which is a movie that inspired his horror career and includes a movie within a movie called The Green Inferno. The tribe thought this movie was hilarious and, while filming, asked to be covered in more and more fake blood.

Final Destination (2000) - An oldie, but a goodie. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. A group of high schoolers are on a school trip and have just gotten on the plane when one gets a vision of the plane going down and everyone dying. A handful of them get off when he raises concerns, only to watch his vision come true as the plane has just taken off, killing everyone on board. The rest of the movie is them trying to evade Death as it comes back for them.

Brokedown Palace (1999) - While not really a horror movie, I included this because it's about a thing I always think about: getting arrested in a foreign country. While I never do anything that would probably land me in jail/prison, I think it's not that an uncommon fear. In this movie, Claire Danes and her friend go on a trip and her friend trusts a guy she just met and ends up carrying drugs for him, and they get caught and both end up in prison with a sentence of 33 years.

Barbarian (2022) - This movie centers around a woman who books a vacation rental and then finds out there is already someone staying there. He suggests she take the bedroom and he will sleep on the couch. She wakes up in the middle of the night to her door open and the man still asleep on the couch. As if that weren't creepy enough, she goes to her job interview the next day and returns, only to be chased inside by a homeless man. She accidentally locks herself in the basement and then finds a hidden corridor and even scarier things ensue.

So, what I've learned from horror movies is to be very wary of who I trust, don't go off alone, always tell people where you'll be, don't let someone have access to your bags, don't take drinks from strangers, don't pick up hitchhikers, always have roadside assistance when going on road trips, and never split up when things are going badly.

Share with me some of your favorite horror movies. They don't have to be travel-related.  

Affordable Art & History in Nashville

We've just returned from Nashville and though we didn't do a ton of stuff, we did almost all the things on our list of must-dos. As always, I'm here to give you the tips on how to do places for less and make the most of your time and money. 

If you're short on time and/or on a tight budget while visiting Nashville, there are two places that I feel are an easy way to indulge in culture for not a ton of money. If you have a rental car, for $40 (and free parking!), you can visit 4 great places that will make you feel like a more well-rounded tourist of Music City:

The Tennessee State Museum

This free museum tells you the history of Tennessee through dioramas, videos, textiles, and artifacts. You can spend as much time as you want and there's free parking nearby. You can read more about it in my last post here.

Bicentennial Park

Directly across the street from the museum is one of the best parks in the city. It isn't overwhelming in space and sometimes there are festivals happening there. There is a wall that encircles the whole thing that spans a billion years of history with fun facts to learn about. Inside the park are memorials to veterans, civil rights activists, and slavery.

The organ that runs the carillon bells

At one end is an amphitheater and the other is the Carillon, a set of 50 bells that are played by an organ-like instrument. Within the park, you can also sit and enjoy some good weather, watch people walk their dogs, see pieces of the old Capitol building columns, or go across the street and get food from one of the international vendors at the Nashville Farmer's Market.

The Parthenon

For just $10 per person, you can gain entry to the only full-scale replication of the Greek Parthenon. This was built for the Centennial of Tennessee in 1897, where they held a huge Exhibition to celebrate their state. Since Nashville was often referred to as "the Athens of the South", they decided to make it official.

Inside the Parthenon, you'll find photos and items from the Centennial, along with plaques explaining everything, on this first level, there's also an art gallery, with a permanent exhibit hall and then a rotating one in the main room. In the back hallway, there are hands-on exhibits that explain the importance of replicas that will prepare you for what you'll see on the second floor.

The main floor was always meant to be a gallery, giving accessible art to everyone. There's a fun variety of paintings, and each one has a pretty good bio of the piece and artist, which I love.

I wasn't prepared for the second floor at all, because I'd only read about the roof construction and the columns. Upstairs are some of the largest doors you've ever seen (two sets done in bronze), but also, a 40' tall statue of Athena, complete with gold dress, a giant shield, and holding a 6'4" statue of Nike, the Angel of Victory. It's quite something to go up the stairs and turn the corner to see her on the other side of the many columns. Because of this, I don't want to spoil it for you.

In the room behind her are replicas of the replicas that sit outside on the top of the building, and the griffons that are also on the roof.

The Parthenon sits in the middle of Centennial Park. One of the largest parks, it has a lake, sunken gardens, a storybook trail, sculptures, and even a Taylor Swift bench. It was pouring on the day of our visit, so we made a quick trip across the bridge to see the gardens and lake, and then we got back in the car.

Cheekwood Estate

If you have time, the means to get there, and can spare 3-4 hours, I highly recommend Cheekwood Estate and Gardens. I heard about it through City Cast Nashville, and wanted to visit for the Harvest Festival. They do have live music and food trucks there on Thursday evenings and some weekends, but not while we were there.

What they did have was a fun scarecrow walk, pumpkins everywhere, Fall photo ops, and you could buy a variety of pumpkins and plants to take home.

You may not be visiting during this time, so I'll tell you what there is year-round: a Japanese garden, a sculpture garden, a color garden, a water garden, a ton of sitting areas, a children's garden, model trains (if it's not raining), an herb garden, and a great big house.

The house was the home of the Cheek family and was furnished with items that were brought over from Europe. They wanted an old world feel to it and they definitely got that. The first and second floor are set up as much as possible as the family would have had it, and you can learn more about it, and them, through an audio tour, or by talking to the docents and reading plaques in each room. We did a mix of those, because talking to knowledgeable people is always fun.

The third floor, where the bedrooms and studies would have been, is entirely art (except one study that has been left to view). All of the art is by American artists, but you'll find landscapes, impressionist, portraits, porcelain, statues, and glass pieces. These are all their permanent collection and almost better than some actual art museums I've visited.

You can make a whole day of visiting Cheekwood. We stopped into the café for a bite and were pretty happy with the food and espresso drinks we had. You can also bring your own food and dine on the property at one of the many shady spots with picnic tables. Now, you don't have to visit the house, but I highly recommend it.

An all-inclusive ticket will run you $30 per person, but I felt like we got our money's worth between the house tour, the art, the history, and the garden strolls. It's a little bit on the outskirts of Nashville to the south, but it's a lovely drive. We went on a Saturday morning and there weren't too many people there, but keep in mind it was drizzly weather, so if it's nicer out, you might want to visit on a weekday or go as soon as they open on the weekend.

This is certainly not the only museums or places to gain some affordable culture, but they are my picks for a budget-friendly visit. You can also walk around different neighborhoods to look at building art and murals. I've written about some of those in this post.

Tell me about your favorite affordable ways to see art and history when you travel.