Shereen Travels Cheap Turns 11

Yesterday marked this blog's foray into a second decade. Oddly this last year has not had much actual travel, but that doesn't mean travel is dead forever. In fact, it's far from it. Usually, I go back over my past accomplishments of the year, but I think I'd like to change it up again and talk about some of the things we've been doing that we will continue doing, even after the pandemic is over.

Even though we only took one road trip this year, we still did quite a bit. We explored more of the Portland area than we ever have and we took a ton of staycations, where we "visited" so many places we haven't been. We're coming up on September again, where I will have to decide if I want to celebrate Oktoberfest again. 

I've loved doing our Destination Date Nights and I'm sure even when we can travel freely again, we'll be continuing to do them, even if we cut back to once a month or so. Some of my favorites have been Amsterdam, Egypt, Venice, and Japan. We've found new destinations to add to our list as we were pushing off planned travel. 

We've discovered new favorite foods and restaurants. We've learned that even when forced to be together, we still enjoy each other's company. We've changed routines and haven't been sad about most of those changes. We've become more creative about what we do and stay in touch with others. We've found new podcasts and shows that we love.

Next month we'll head out on a road trip to Las Vegas, because we need to get out of the house. We've decided t hat we can only control ourselves and how we behave, so we feel like this is the most responsible travel that we can do: We'll be staying in our timeshare in Vegas, off The Strip, we'll be masking up everywhere, we'll be eating outside, and we'll be doing outside things like enjoying street art. The few things I have planned inside are things in places I know are doing the most for public health, require masks, and have rigorous cleaning routines. We'll be going first thing in the morning, to avoid as many people as possible, and know that everything has just been deep cleaned. Meow Wolf's OmegaMart will be one of those things, and the Museum of Dream Space is another. 

In Reno, a stroll along downtown's Riverwalk District is on the itinerary. It's lined with wall murals and sculptures. Outside of Las Vegas, Goldfield's International Car Forest and Pioneer Cemetery are on my list. Nearby's Rholite is a ghost town that is also a filming location, and Goldmine is a must with an open-air sculpture museum and an awesome bottle house (that's a house made from bottles). 

This might be the trip we visit the Clown Motel's cemetery, check out the Sierra Nevada Zoological Park and even the Nevada Museum of Art. Though we've been to Virginia City before, I'd love to go again. It's about a 30-minute drive from Reno, but up the mountain and totally worth the drive.  

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What's coming up after this road trip? 

If all goes well, in February I'll be back in Vegas for the Travel Goods Show, and this will hopefully see the return of our regular travel. A trip to Disneyland/Los Angeles could be on the docket, since our trip to Walt Disney World was postponed twice and then indefinitely now with the horror that is Covid in Florida. 

We are hoping to visit Chicago at some point, though I don't know if that will happen in 2022. I do know that we will be doing more Destination Date Nights to fill in the gaps between traveling. Destinations ahead so far are Reykjavik, Sydney (Australia), Edinburgh/Glasgow, Dublin, Toronto, New York City, India, and Turkey.

I hope you all are doing well. I'll continue to post travel things for you to plan those awesome trips for the future. I'll also be doing plenty of posts from my home entertainment and things around Portland on my Instagram. Stay safe, stay healthy, wear a mask, and be kind. These are the least we can do and hope for in these trying times. 

Are you starting to travel again? What postponed destinations are you most looking forward to?

Malta at Home

It's been a minute, but I've had a really busy month, and I'm finally getting back to my Destination Date Nights. Our last one was to Malta, because I knew that summer deserved some actual summer destinations. As you may know, Malta has been a destination on my wish list for quite some time, and we'll be heading there in the future, if we ever get out of this pandemic.

Things look to be doing better and then everything goes to hell again, so I don't expect regular leisure travel to really be back until probably mid-2022. What does that mean? More staycations for you and probably more time to plan a big, awesome trip when we finally come out of this. I'll still be doing some travel in the next year, though probably not as much as I hoped for, because it will have to be careful and safe and responsible. For now, let's look at how we traveled to Malta while staying at home.

Because of where it's located, Malta is influenced by Greece and Italy and northern Africa. This is shown in the architecture and foods. Malta doesn't have much that seems uniquely Malta, but the combination of other countries makes it interesting and a clash of cultures makes for a feeling of being in many places at once. 

We made this a simple Destination Date Night. We had dinner, we listened to some Maltese music and we just enjoyed each other's company. I used the look and island vibes to set my table. Malta is a beautiful, breezy, fishing destination, so I used my striped tablecloth and added a fish vase with poppies (a flower is grown in the area), and topped it off with one of the Knights of Malta. 

Because Malta is such a niche country, there aren't any Maltese restaurants around here, so, like I did with Mongolia, I found a restaurant that had items that were close to what is popular in Malta and then filled in with other foods. I found that the place I wanted to order from actually charged LESS if you purchased a meal kit and assembled/finished the food at home, so I ordered and picked up a seafood stew and a beet salad. I felt that the stew was close enough to Aljotta, a Mediterranean fish soup. Cod is a native fish there, so I chose a stew that also included cod (and also shrimp and clams). 

Everyone has salad, and it was an easy thing to include and put together from the restaurant. I always like to have some sort of vegetables with dinner, and this was a perfect fit. It was beets, gorgonzola, and pistachio brittle with a champagne vinaigrette. Malta has a bread that is similar to focaccia - Ħobż - which I thought would go really well with both the salad and the stew, and I was right. 

While we did some sightseeing via our backdrop ("That lady down there is taking a photo of those people with an iPad!") and chatted about the food and what we would do in Malta, we listened to some Maltese pop music. Then we busted out the dessert.

I wasn't sure I would be able to find cannoli in our local bakeries (it's not really that popular), so I decided to fake a Maltese dessert called imqaret. They are sort of like fig newtons, but flaky, so I baked fig paste in croissant dough. Then I did find cannoli at the bakery down the street, so we had both. Cannoli is an Italian dessert, but it's frequently served in Malta as well. Both were delicious, so I guess I'd be into visiting some bakeries while in Malta. 

Malta is a very interesting and beautiful country that I can't wait to actually travel to. I admired the scenery while watching an annual World's Strongest Man competition and have been thinking about it ever since.  Here are some ways to recreate Malta at home:

•  A Malta backdrop
• Here's my seaside one
• And here's the colorful door I purchased as a second viewpoint
• A simple striped tablecloth or a fish motif
• A fish vase (also comes in clear and blue)
• Poppies for your vase
• A Knight of Malta
• Malta flag
• Find a good travel tour video or one on the Malta catacombs
• Get your kids to play some old Malta street games
• Cook your own food with a Maltese cookbook
• Watch a food tour or learn about Malta's culinary culture
• Plan a trip with the help of a local

There are plenty of other ways to make this a fantastic staycation and to immerse yourself in the culture as much as possible when still at home. Take a stroll through a museum, learn a new language, find out about famous Maltins and how they contributed to the world and Malta itself. 

Unfortunately, between being so busy and our heatwaves, it's been hard to plan another one, but I have a new one coming up. You'll be seeing us visit Chicago soon, and hopefully, also Reykjavik. We'll also be actually traveling to Reno and Vegas on a road trip soon-ish. You can see photos of all of these as they happen on my Instagram. Cheers to more staycations while we're waiting to safely get back out in the world.

Have you done any fun staycations over the last year and a half? Tell us about them in the comments!

Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links, and I may be compensated should you choose to make any purchases through them. This allows me to keep this blog running for you. Thanks in advance!

2023 Travel Resoutions

Somehow, 2022 has been both back to normal and not at all normal, but we were able to get out and travel more than the last two years combined, so I won't complain. We went to Arizona in January, Vegas in both February and July, and made it to Paris and Disneyland Paris in September. All in all, it was a pretty good year. 

We're sort of back to in-person brunches, though they are further between than they were pre-pandemic, because a lot of the restaurants that were are old stand-bys have closed or are no longer taking large reservations. Many other restaurants stopped doing breakfast altogether, so we have fewer options, but we're trying, and supplementing with other meet-ups, like going to art pop-ups and walking neighborhoods.

We are also back to doing small gatherings for celebrations, like our annual Harry Potter party and birthdays, and our non-profit has, officially, kicked off our return to big fundraisers, which is fantastic, because we're doing good, getting to see people again, and we're doing our best to be safe about it. 

This coming year is going to be interesting and busier than the last three. We don't have a ton planned, but I know more is coming to our calendar:

• January sees us in Palm Springs for a week.
• March may have us heading to Los Angeles for a few days.
• If my mom goes back to Tennessee this year, I may tag along and make her do some Nashville sightseeing before coming back home.
• Las Vegas is a tentative for July.
• Late September/early October will have us heading to Toronto and Niagara Falls. I'll keep working on my French for this, in case it comes in handy.
• I will try to do more Destination Date Nights, like I wanted to do this year, but ended up with too full of a calendar to do very many. 
• We may try to get back to doing Destination Potlucks, too, since we only did the one and then the world shut down. We'll see how interested my friends are in reviving these and we might intersperse these with Date Nights.

The Travel Goods Show has made a permanent move to Chicago and I'm not sure I'm able to get over there this year, which is disappointing, but not unexpected. I've wanted to visit the Travelon headquarters for years. I guess I'll have to see it in 2024.

In 2024, we're also talking about going to The Island of Hawaii in January and Eric also mentioned perhaps going to Peru, so he could brush up on his Spanish, and probably see cool stuff like Machu Picchu. 

All in all, 2023 is shaping up to be a great year. I can't wait to visit new places, make new friends, eat great food, and plan some awesome parties. 

What are you looking forward to for this next year?

5 Tips for An Awesome Summer Staycation

After all we've been through the last couple of years, travel is still unattainable for many, because gas prices are stupid high and so is airfare. Plane routes are being cut still, as Covid cases are still prevalent in many industries, and there just aren't enough pilots, flight attendants, aircraft crew to ramp up flights even a little. If you are looking at another summer at home, a staycation might be the best answer right now.

Yes, we've been staycationing for 2+ years now, but there are plenty of ways to still make it special. Here are 5 of my favorite creative ways to do it:

 

1. Create a spread (or get takeaway from your favorite food truck(s) if you’re feeling lazy)

Take a blanket from home, and picnic in your favorite park…or one you’ve never visited before. This is a great way to get outside to enjoy the fresh air and sun. You can see people safely, from a distance. After you eat, you can lounge or take a stroll. Maybe bring a game or two and make it a fun outing.

 

2. Have a romantic travel date

Just because you can’t travel, doesn’t mean you can’t travel. Huh? We have done theme date nights. One week we ordered a whole afternoon tea spread and set it all up in the living room and ate it while we watched a West End play on YouTube. You can now pay to watch Broadway Shows and also productions from The Globe.

 

You can decorate in your theme, you can use Window Swap or Earth Cam for live atmosphere, you can get a backdrop for cheap and set it up to “be” at your destination. Cook food from your chosen travel destination or order delivery. Make it special. (I have lots of examples. Just search Destination Date Night on the right and you'll find a whole list.)

 

3. Go on a scavenger hunt

This is a perfect activity for social distancing. You and your significant other or group of friends sign up for a city scavenger hunt (you can be in more than one team if you want). You solve clues to get to different interesting things in your city and learn things along the way. You never have to go inside anywhere and it helps you work together. Try Stray Boots or Urban Adventure Quest.

 

4. See free art

Just because museums aren’t open doesn’t mean you don’t have access to awesome art in your city. Many downtown, and even suburban, areas have a city art project that works with local artists to create amazing sculptures and murals. Look up info on where to start, map out a course, then go take pictures, talk about the pieces, find street artists on Instagram. It’s a fantastic way to see your city, enjoy art from your community, and celebrate how great it is that art is so accessible. Post pictures with artist links on your social media pages and help other people discover it, too!

 

5. Take a walking tour

I love my city of Portland, Oregon. It’s beautiful. There’s something new around every corner. I haven’t seen it all yet! If you want to see more of your own city – highly recommended – then look for free self-guided walking tours, or just get out there and wander. There’s no wrong way to do it. Bring your phone to take pictures. Wear a fun outfit. Pretend you’re a tourist. Need somewhere to start? Try GPS My City.

I hope you've found a new idea for your summer, because we're all disappointed in a lot of things right now. What is your favorite thing to do on a staycation?

Visiting Oktoberfest from Home

I've got another destination date night for you! It's September, which means it's official Oktoberfest time. Well, we all know all the actual celebrations are cancelled due to the pandemic, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out. We sure didn't. We had a wonderful date night over the weekend that featured a quaint German street, a Biergarten, and a rowdy crowd of Oktoberfest-goers. 

We did this all without leaving our house, literally, because the air outside is toxic. The whole west coast is on fire right now. We tried to have our date night on Friday, and were willing to brave the bad air, but then I was outside for 2 minutes and changed my mind. 

I set up Germany in the living room instead, then the restaurant I had my heart set on was closed due to smoke getting into their HVAC, so we picked up cheeseburgers on pretzel buns and bacon fries. 

On Saturday, we moved some furniture to create a little dining area, and I set up the table and my YouTube playlist while Eric picked up food I ordered earlier. Aside from creating my romantic table, using a card table, I set up a beer tasting flight for myself, because you can't have Oktoberfest without some drinks - regardless of what kind. 

I picked up 3 interesting bottles of beer from the store, making sure one was a German-style dark beer. The first beer is a stout from Seattle brewery Elysian. This was a pumpkin coffee ale called Punkaccino. The second was a Bavarian dark from Ayinger (also from Seattle) called Altbairisch Dunkel. I actually really loved this one and drank the whole bottle. The third beer was just for fun variety. A third Seattle beer. This one was called Lindemans Framboise and was a raspberry lambic beer in Belgian style. It smelled like raspberry jam, and was much more sweet tasting than that. It might be a great dessert beer, but it was not for me.

As with any German dining experience, we started with a great fondue with bread dippers. I realized I had these adorable little fondue forks, which worked perfectly, since we weren't reaching across the table to get to it. You could totally do fondue with a giant pretzel (or pretzel bites) or even bratwurst. If you have a fondue set, make your own!

As you know, I love food, so I like to try as many things as possible. I usually order two entrees so we can split them. I chose the chicken jaeger schnitzel, one of our favorites. It's pounded flat chicken, breaded, fried, and then served with a mushroom cream sauce. This one came with spaetzel. It's not my favorite, but Eric enjoys it. 

The second entree I chose was a special. It was boar bratwurst that came with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. I enjoy an interesting exotic meat and boar is one of those that I find particularly tasty. This one had fruits mixed into it, so it was slightly sweet, and came with a dark spicy mustard. We had this much on our plates and still had leftovers. 

After all that food, we took a few minutes to enjoy some people watching at Oktoberfest.

This was a perfect time to hang out in the "Biergarten" (beer garden). We saw an oompah band and tried to pick out which festival-goers we thought were Americans. Outside the festival building was a carnival that played mostly American music and served up huge helpings of delicious fair foods in between carnival rides that look like they might be a bad idea after drinking and eating a bunch. 

No vacation is complete without dessert out, so we also ended our meal with a traditional apple strudel. Usually, I avoid these like the plague because they claim to have raisins and I always think they're going to be whole raisins. I was wrong though, because this was delicious. A perfect end to a great evening.

Germany and Oktoberfest was pretty easy to plan and put together. The food is readily available in most places and has something that can appeal to everyone if you are doing this with your family.

Here are a few things you can use to make an amazing trip wherever you want to set up your destination:

• Bavarian village backdrop
• Hedge backdrop
• Oktoberfest pennants
• Bavarian hats (2)
• Oktoberfest cookbook
• Oktoberfest banner + tablecloth
• Beer steins
• Beer tasting glasses
• YouTube videos of Oktoberfest. This was my favorite.
• This one has great music
• This one follows some vloggers who take you through the traditional dress and fair foods
• Fondue pot
• Here's a small one for a couple
• Here's a larger one for a group
• Pretzel & mustard party pack
• Sweet Bavarian mustard
• Photo backdrop stand (since I use this every single time and have not recommended yet. It's super simple to set up and take down.)
• Check out Airbnb online experiences

What do I like most about these "trips"? Aside from being on them, planning them is fun and the unpacking is much easier and not at all stressful. Depending on how elaborate you want to go with your destination staycation, it can be a quick set up, too. This was, by far, our most expensive date night. I spent around $110, but we've been saving so much by not going out to eat, and getting takeout only two days a week, so it gives us a way to mix things up. 

Don't forget to "stamp" your passport

Get your family in on destination nights. Give everyone a part of the trip to plan: food, destination, activities, etc. This is a great time to learn more about different cultures and plan a future trip. Just know that our next trips may not be happening until we get a vaccine, so we're looking at late next year, because we also have to wait for Covid cases to drop drastically and for other countries to reopen their borders to us. 

If you want to follow along or see more pics/vids of my "trips", follow me on Instagram.

Are you trying to jazz up your quarantine time? What are you doing to keep sane?

Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links, and I may be compensated should you choose to make any purchases through them. This allows me to keep this blog running for you. 

How To Take a Japan Staycation

We are on a steady every-other-weekend schedule for our destination date nights. I was excited to visit Japan, and while planning, I couldn't decide between Mt. Fuji and Tokyo, so I we will be doing a second Japan staycation focusing on Tokyo. Since we aren't traveling at all right now, this is a fun way to take a mini vacay without leaving home. 

This last weekend I focused on Mt. Fuji and Japanese culture, as we are looking forward to a future trip and I'll be interested to learn a little more about my heritage (my paternal grandmother was Japanese) and indulge in a ton of delicious food and super cool architecture.

You can't have a Japanese table setting without a cool lantern. I had this great lantern hanging around, so I busted out my Cricut and Japan-ed it up with some fun words. In this case, it says Shushi Date, because that's what we were doing. 

This gave us a great excuse to try a new Japanese restaurant that is a bit more upscale than our usual sushi-go-rounds. I was excited to find this place that also served butterfish, because it's extremely difficult to find around here. If you haven't had it before, make sure to order it if you ever come across it on a menu. It's delicious and melts in your mouth, which might be why it's called butterfish. 

Look how gorgeous this spread is! I also went to the local Asian market and picked up a trio of Ramune soda flavors and a bottle of sake. As always, our sushi spread was phenomenal, and I made sure to get some veggies in, including a pickled radish roll. 

If you haven't had Ramune before - this was our first time - it's a soda that comes in a ton of different flavors in glass bottles. The top doesn't have a cap, but instead has a plastic cover that you pull off, take apart, and then use it to jab into the top of the bottle to push a glass sphere into the bottle (it has a special compartment). That's actually the best part of the soda, in my opinion. I picked melon, because I thought it would be the most interesting, but it didn't have a flavor at all really. Next I picked watermelon. It was pink, but was also not that big on flavor. Last, I picked peach, because I figured you couldn't go wrong with that one. This one had the best flavor and I would actually go out of my way to drink it again. These are pretty much just fizzy sugar water though, so if you aren't a regular soda drinker (we only drink diet), you might feel like it's a bit much.

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Trying new foods is fun, but so is trying new DRINKS. 99% of Ramune drinks is opening it. The peach was the best. I found the Aladdin sake tasted a lot like rum, so I recommend it, especially for the cool bottle and the shimmer effect.. 🍶 🍶 🍶 #japanesesake #ramunesoda #japanesedrinks #japanstaycation #destinationdate #destinationdatenight #datenight #staycation2020 #responsibletravelers #covidstaycation #armchairtravel #mtfuji #mtfujijapan #mountfujijapan

A post shared by Shereen Travels Cheap (@srayle) on Oct 7, 2020 at 5:47pm PDT

Here you see the fun bottle of Aladdin sake. It's shimmery and really pretty. I don't speak or read Japanese, so I 100% bought this based on the bottle, knowing it would also be something I would use after I drank it. I liked it. It's very rum-like. I'd be into trying their other flavors. This was the Aizu Homare Nigori sake.

My second backdrop was this lovely Japanese village. 

I like having a second side that really sells the setting and makes me feel more into the destination.  

As usual, we brought the laptop out and took a tour from home. We did two Mt. Fuji tours - one was a drone tour and the other gave some fun tips - and then 3 different geisha performances while we were eating dinner.

I also got these lovely little sushi plates, with accompanying soy sauce dishes, that really showcased each piece we ate.

None of the our local sushi or Japanese places really have traditional desserts, besides mochi, so I picked up a box of Thai tea mochi from Trader Joe's. They also have more Americanized flavors, like chocolate and strawberry, and if you like an earthy flavor, they also have matcha. 

I always want to try all the cool candy I see at our local Uwajimaya store, so while I was picking up Ramune and sake, I also snagged some fun Pocky flavors and this mystery candy that turned out to be like little jawbreakers that are grape and wine flavored. There's also a third flavor in the middle, but I didn't make it to that and I really don't recommend these unless you're a fan of sour candies. Eric really enjoyed them. 

This was a spendy "night out", compared to our others, but I knew it would be. I want to say that it ran us around $160 with food and decor. Clearly, you can do this more affordably. Because of this date, we have talked about possibly taking an online sushi class. If you already make your own sushi, this can be a great activity to take you into your Japan adventure.

Here are some things that can help you make your Japan staycation awesome:

• Mt. Fuji backdrop
• Japan village backdrop
• Red tablecloth
• Japanese lanterns or bonsai tree
• Tea set
• Sake set
• Sushi plates <----these are the ones I have
• here are some that I also had on my list
• Sushi kit
• Sushi serving board
• Cherry blossoms 
• Japan playlist on YouTube - this is mine
• Travel guides for your eventual trip. Here are two I have on my wish list:
• A comic's guide called Cool Japan Guide
• A budget travel guide called Super Cheap Japan
• A fun board game, like Machi Koro

As always, make this as easy or as involved as you want. Tailor it to how you like to travel and do date night. Maybe get into a documentary (there's one on my playlist that we enjoyed) or learn some cultural traditions or learn to recreate a tea ceremony or learn a Buddhist prayer chant. There's so much you can do with each destination without actually having to be there. Go to your local Asian market and get all the weird foods, plan your dream trip, and start figuring out what you will pack on said trip. 

Have you ever been to Asia? If so, what was your favorite thing? If not, what do you look forward to the most?

Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links, and I may be compensated should you choose to make any purchases through them. This allows me to keep this blog running for you. Thanks in advance!

Happy New Year 2023

Happy New Year! 2022 felt both super long and super short for some reason, but we made it. This time of the year I choose to spend traveling and reconnecting with my husband, so you'll get a new full post on Saturday.

I don't generally make resolutions, but I do try to make some goals for myself in order to make my life feel more full. Here are goals I I've made for 2023:

• Be Kind (this is a constant goal, because I feel like the world can use more kindness)
• Go somewhere new - I already have two new places on the calendar, but I'm also making a point to do things in Portland again. 
• Try new things - It's been difficult trying to do things that are outside of my normal routine, because we don't really go that many places, but we're going to start getting out again and exploring our city and surrounding areas again.
• Keep masking in crowded areas - Yes, maybe you're all sick of masking, but with so many sicknesses going around right now, I just think it makes sense, plus it's just a simple thing to do to prevent ourselves from getting ill.
• Encourage people to go to new places - I want people to realize that they can travel further and to different destinations than they normally do, but probably on the same budget.
• Revive Destination Potlucks - This is where I invite a group of friends over for a potluck themed for a destination. Everyone brings one or two dishes that are specific to that city/country/region, and we all eat new foods and learn about the destination. It's like Destination Date Nights, but food is homemade and more people get to participate.

I hope you're all having a great start to the year and the rest is just as good. Hit me with your own resolutions or goals - travel or otherwise - in the comments.