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?

Planning Your Trip to Malta

So, we have recently "returned" from Malta and enjoyed the scenery and food and music. I, honestly, can't wait to go in real life and do and see and taste everything the island has to offer. If you're interested in learning more about Malta, here's an infographic on doing it on a budget:

If you want to really start planning a trip to Malta, like I am doing, you can check out my Malta Wish List board.

Eventually, we're all going to start packing and getting some stamps in our passports again, but until that time, we can plan and staycation to get a taste of travel. It's one of my favorite things to do when I can't actually travel, and I would never have thought about it if Covid didn't come along. So, there are some bright spots about staying home and safe, even if it's just a way to curb your wanderlust and get creative with date nights. 

What are some of the bright spots of this pandemic for you? What has kept you sane or you've discovered you need more of even after life gets back to some semblance of normal?

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!

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