Shereen Travels Cheap Turns 13

I'm a little behind this month, because so much has been going on, but I couldn't let my blog birthday go by (too much) without acknowledging it. My blog is, officially, a a teenager now! We're finally back to pre-pandemic levels, though this year has been almost 100% trips to California (Palm Springs, San Francisco, Los Angeles), but we're doing our fall trip to Vancouver, BC, and we'll see if there's another short trip before the end of the year. What else can you look forward to?

Photo by Deva Williamson on Unsplash

Our trip to Paris last year really got us back into big travel, but those road trips we did have given us back our love of packing up the car and going a bit closer to home. We road tripped to LA this year and will be doing the same to British Columbia. This saves us money on airfare and car rental. 

We had originally planned to go to Toronto this year, but flights were kind of too much after we spent so much going to Disney and Universal, and we also weren't sure Eric's renewed passport would arrive in time, considering the long wait times right now. I did arrive last week though, so we didn't have to go to our backup plan.

So, perhaps Toronto will be on for next year. We are also tentatively looking to go to The Big Island early in 2024, take at least one trip to Vegas to see family, a possible short trip to Chicago (since they moved the Travel Goods Show there), and maybe another trip TBD. Lots of up in the air stuff, which is usually something that gives me anxiety, but I'm looking at it as a fun, surprise year, because we have so many options. 

Coming up on the blog:

• How to travel light when you're afraid you're going to leave important things behind
• A tribute to Harry Potter, containing all the Potter-y things we've done this year (we'll just ignore that I was too busy to post a birthday post and do a back to Hogwarts one instead) with our non-profit's Wizarding Weekend, my annual Potter party, my visit to Hogsmeade, and other stuff
• Throwing an EPCOT staycation birthday party
• Mix and match packing lists for your fall travels
• Academy Award Museum in Los Angeles
• How to be safe and avoid being robbed on vacation
• Crowdsourcing your trip itinerary

And here are some of the most popular past posts that you may have missed:

• Essential Barcelona Travel Tips
• Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month Through Travel
• Travel to Learn LGBTQ+ History
• How to Plan + Budget for Big Trips
• How to Pack Your Road Trip Cooler

Thanks for following along on my travels and allowing me to give you my favorite travel tips and recommendations for what to do in travel destinations. I hope you will continue to tune in and learn how to travel more, for less, to exciting destinations! In the next couple months, I hope to be launching something new, so watch for that, too. 

Where are you hoping to travel over the next year?

Travel Advisory: Help Maui By Not Traveling There

By now, we've all heard about the horrible wildfires in Maui. The historic cities on the island are being evacuated and many people are facing homelessness, because they have nowhere to go. If you have plans to travel to Maui, change them, and if you were thinking about going to Maui, don't. So, what can you do? 

Photo by Logan Armstrong on Unsplash

Traveling enables us to see new places and help preserve them by putting our vacation dollars into those communities. While you can't see Maui right now, you can still help the communities effected by the wildfires and hopefully preserve the culture and history before it's completely destroyed, ensuring others are able to enjoy it in the future. 

If you want to help those in need, you can do so by donating to the following organizations:

• The Hawaii Community Foundation– Supports communities affected by the wildfires.
• Maui United Way– Provides immediate financial assistance through grants to nonprofits spearheading relief efforts, and to individuals who have been affected by the fires.
• American Red Cross– Disaster relief for those forced to flee their homes.
• Maui Food Bank– Accepting money, food, toiletries, and other household items for those in need.
• Maui Humane Society– Looking for volunteers to foster dogs displaced by the wildfires, as well as donations of pet food, litter, and pop-up kennels.
• Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement– This nonprofit organization that supports Native Hawaiians is raising support “for ‘ohana impacted by the devastating wildfires on Maui.”
• ‘Āina Momona– A Hawaiian nonprofit aimed at providing environmental sustainability, food security and resilience, and social justice to Hawaiians.
• Malama Maui– Here are other resources for helping Maui and Hawaiian families, including resources for residents and where you can donate supplies directly if you're on the island.

What you need to know right now is that all non-essential travel to the island is suspended and people are being asked to postpone or even cancel their trips amid the evacuating and disaster response. Visitors to the island are trying to figure out how to cope, with many staying in the airport and some sleeping in their rental cars and having to flee their hotels with the bare minimum. You don't want to add to that, especially with so many fires burning and spreading across the island. The historic city of Lahaina has been mostly decimated, and there are also wildfires burning on The Big Island, though not as severe.

Photo by Logan Armstrong on Unsplash

Unfortunately, like much of the country, Hawaii has faced a very dry season and high winds, so any sort of spark can use those two things to its advantage and cause a fire to rage out of control. This has happened on a larger scale than Hawaii is used to and the damage has been surprising and devastating. 

The wildfires aren't just affecting those on the islands, but there are many Hawaiians living on the mainland who don't know if their loved ones are safe or not, because they can't get in contact with them, and others who have the same issues with their family and friends traveling amid a disaster. 

If you still want to visit Hawaii, you can still go to the other islands and you can enter to win a trip for 2 to Kauai from Fodor's and Dollar Flight Club. And if you're looking for an alternative to Hawaii, check out these 8 destinations.

Have you ever been to Hawaii? We last went in 2013, but were looking to go in January next year.

Family-friendly Las Vegas Attractions

A friend of mine said she was taking her daughter for the first time to Las Vegas. She's under 21, so going to the casinos or bar is not a thing. I haven't been to Vegas this year, which means I didn't actually write any updated lists for cool things to do for all ages, because Vegas is a town that has something for everyone, if you know where to look. 

You can take an elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower

Usually, people only know about Circus Circus, which is not the best hotel to stay at, but it has circus acts throughout the day and in the back is the Adventuredome, an indoor theme park that feels like it's outside that is for big and little kids. Eric and I spent an afternoon there on one visit and we had a great time.

The Fremont Street Experience canopy show

Here are some other ideas for your trip with those that are under legal drinking age:

• Pinball Hall of Fame on S. Las Vegas Blvd moved a few years ago from their nondescript location on Tropicana. The new location is larger and very easy to find. You can learn a little bit more about it here.

• Springs Preserve, which is part living history, part zoo. They have hands-on exhibits, videos, walk-thru exhibits, animal talks, and a hiking area, or you can take the tram around. The restaurant is fantastic, too. Check out my whole post on it here.

• The Mob Museum downtown has a bunch of interactive exhibits that gives you the history of Las Vegas. I've been here several times and it's a perfect place to beat the heat and learning about where you're visiting, and it's literally one block from the excitement of Fremont Street. If you aren't traveling with kids, head downstairs to their speakeasy, where you can get some of the best drinks in the city based on prohibition times. Here's a link to my large post.

• The Neon Museum is great for seeing retired neon signs from hotels and The Strip in general. They have a night tour and a day tour. Both are great and are a bit different. Only about 5-6 signs are wired to light up at night, but the whole space has lighting, so you can still see all the others well, too. Here are links to my full nighttime tour and daytime tour.

• Ethel M’s Chocolate has a free little chocolate-making viewing and outside has a free cactus garden that’s really beautiful. We try to go see this every trip, because it's free and chocolate is awesome. Many nights you can visit the cactus garden all lit up. I have yet to make it there after dark though. Check out my post on that here.

• Mandalay Bay's Shark Reef has a ton of cool aquatic animals. You will have to walk all the way to the back of the hotel, which seems like a mile, but it's probably not. I do this every 5 years or so and it's always worth the price and you completely forget you're in Las Vegas.

• Downtown on Fremont there’s a vintage toy shop that is like a museum, but they sell everything there, called the Toy Shack. I spent a good hour here wandering around and marveling at everything. We bought a few things as well. The prices were really reasonable, even for vintage items. You can view my post with this included here.

• Fremont Street also has free concerts on certain days, with a lot of well-known artists, and it’s free. There's a bit of a more adult vibe here, but I still think it's worth the visit. If you aren't going there during the summer, you can still enjoy free concerts, and the canopy lights up every night with random dance parties, so I highly recommend it.

• I definitely always recommend people walk around downtown (Fremont St and then a couple blocks on both sides) to see all the street art and sculptures that came from Burning Man festivals over the years. It’s particularly great to go as the sun is going down and you can end at the Container Park to see the mantis spit fire every 15 mins or so. He dances to music. You can see my post on the downtown arts district here.

• Everything at Area 15 is awesome, but absolutely Omega Mart. It’s an interactive museum experience with a mystery you can solve. We were there for 5 hours and only left because we were hungry. There is a lot of crawling and climbing steps, if you want to do that, so wearing comfy clothes and shoes is important - You can also just go to Area 15, but you need to have a free ticket that you can reserve online. There’s a little art park out front with amazing stuff. See my post about Omega Mart and BTS (behind the store) of Omega Mart.

• The Park between the MGM and New York New York has some really fun places to eat, including a Hello Kitty Café, and you can see some wonderful art pieces here as well as see musicians play live music in the evenings. Here's a little piece I wrote on it in my post on freebies, which might give you other ideas for your kids.