Episode 3: Traveling Tastefully for Less

This episode is fun! Tune in as Chandra shares some great travel tips on how to travel comfortably for less, along with cultural things to keep in mind as you transition into life in your new country. (Spoiler alert! New and different holidays may "force" you to travel more. Bummer! Just Kidding!) Plus hear a heart-warming quote from one of America's past leading funny man.

• This episode's "Chan Select": Meininger Hotel
• Follow on Instagram @expatriotical

"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!

Transcript

    Expatriotical- Episode 3: Have Time, Will Travel OR Travelling Tastefully- Part One 

Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for almost 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, travelling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without loosing your own.

Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life every episode!

Welcome to Episode 3 everybody! This episode is titled Have Time, Will Travel OR Traveling Tastefully- Part One. (The part one bit is because I hope to do more of these!!) I feel like the first two episodes were foundational and maybe last week’s episode was a bit on the heavier side, so today I wanted to jump into something that I say in the intro of the podcast which is to talk about traveling tastefully. For a lot of us I think that’s one of the reasons that we get into this whole gig is the opportunity to see another part of the world, or other parts of the world, that we may not have had a chance to see otherwise.

And I was thinking about traveling tastefully, and there’s so much that I can share, but I titled this episode Have Time, Will Travel because an interesting thing about living in France, and I only really truly understood it, this fall when I was talking to our family eye doctor. When we were getting for the Toussaints vacation here, Toussants which means All Saints. In France they call holiday breaks vacance, so the Toussaints Vacance. And I was kind of lamenting to the doctor about how it’s a lot to have all the kids home or at home so often. And he also has children and was saying that yeah they have breaks a lot here in France… they go to school for six weeks and then they’re off for two weeks. And I said, “Really, it’s that often?” And he said “yes, especially for working parents in France, it can be quite a challenge to find a place for your child to go because not all companies just give you time off when your kids are off from school.”

Something you may not think about when you’re moving is adjusting to a different school schedule. Granted my kids go to an international school, so that guideline (of 6 weeks in, 2 weeks out) is not followed, strictly, and they have the flexibility to augment those holidays a little bit, for example, we don’t get the Entire Toussaint holiday break, but we get 10 days of it and then the extra three days are tacked on in November, so that we can have a Thanksgiving break. Since the school that my children go to was originally cofounded by an American woman.

That means you need to be creative during extra holiday breaks. I was just talking to my friend Mallory, who recently moved to Dubai from Paris (and who I met when we were both living in Italy) and she said that they are going to get used to is having a three week break during Ramadan.

So, in France, what they do is, the cities can offer special, I’m going to call them daycares, that’s not the actual word, and I’d have to look it up, that you can enroll your child in for minimal to no cost during these 2 week breaks. Also, during the summer, especially, which is an obvious break time, there are many summer camps offered, but for my family camps can be costly, and it just doesn’t make sense for us.

So during these two week long holidays a lot of times we spend time at home, I might try to plan a couple of daily outings, but then we also try to use this time to travel.

By the time this episode airs, it will have been a couple of weeks since my husband took a couple of days off of work and we did a road trip to Bordeaux, France for the February ski week break. Now you don’t really go skiing in Bordeaux, but we had looked that up a little bit too late, which honestly was two months ahead, I believe. And it was quite pricey, I’m thinking, because we didn’t book in December. So it’s in my calendar now. I’m booking it for September, if it’s a reasonable price.

As we have done with many, multiple locations, we actually used Bordeaux as a base. We started looking into taking the train down there, because we found really fantastic train prices for six people, and train travel is our absolute favorite. You don’t have to show up to the train station an hour and a half to two hours early like flying, there’s more legroom and space for our kids to move around, and usually we book an area where our kids share a table and can have games or coloring or the iPad out, and it just works out really really great. And I’m not gonna lie, but when a train has a small café, getting a glass of wine while you travel doesn’t hurt either!

But the problem was, once we factored in the travel cost for taking a train to the other towns, that we wanted to see, it just made it too expensive. Well, at least that’s what I think right now, because I still have to go back and balance the budget, if you will, to know if that’s fully true. 

So we decided to go ahead and drive since we do have a car. And let me tell you that really opened up the traveling a lot more. We were able to not only go to Arcachon, which is on the West Coast of France and it’s a beautiful beach area that’s also near a gigantic Sand dune, which we all had a blast at. And we were also able to go East to Saint-Emilion, which is a stunning, medieval city, and do a wine tasting, but then we went even further out to the Dordogne Valley.

Going there, in of itself was a 2-hour drive, but it was worth it because we got to explore an old medieval fort that was built on the side of a cliff, we saw Josephine Baker’s house. Well, it’s actually it’s a mansion or chateau in French, and we would’ve gone canoeing, but unfortunately that was not in season yet. 

I think to try to do those last two things, visit, Saint Emilion, and the Dordogne Valley in the same day, would’ve been really difficult by train. 

So my tip here is definitely research how practical it is to travel via train or airplane or car and let that practicality also weigh things out along with the price.

Another tip that I will offer, and this is probably more so for newbie Expats, is, well actually it’s two things. One, make sure that one of you, most likely, the employee spouse, but also the CIP, completely irreplaceable partner, reference to last week’s episode check out episode number two if you want to know more about that new phrase. But make sure one of you is signed up for a rewards account from your Hotel of choice. Because, for example, for us, when we stayed in a hotel for 10 weeks when we first moved to Milan, we were earning points that whole time, and that really helped us or has helped us to be able to travel to other places and stay for free.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that the stay that my mom and I had in Rome, again a reference to last week’s episode, was due to the points that we had accrued.

Another thing, and I heard a podcast that I actually really love, kind of talking against this by giving people a warning, which there are definitely warnings to be had in doing this, but that would be to stay at a VRBO property or an Airbnb or I love to use Booking.com as well.

Booking not only offers house or apartment options for larger families, which here in Europe is really hard to find at hotels, so we definitely tend to air on the side of using that, but it also does give you hotel options, and if you can use the app you can get a better deal or discount, and they even have a rewards program where you can earn discounts off your next stay. I should say earn money in a virtual wallet towards your next visit. 

As mentioned in the first episode, I am not getting paid to promote booking.com or VRBO or AirBNB. I’m currently not an affiliate with anyone during the recording of this, so this is just me giving you what I hope to be solid advice.

A very specific recommendation that I’m going to give will be in my “Chan Select” so make sure you keep listening because I will share a very great hotel that we have found and have stayed at now three times in three different cities and have really loved it for our family.

It is also important for me to say that you should always do your due diligence in trying to vet anyplace are staying at. Especially if you are using VRBO or AirBnB or the like. Make sure to read plenty of reviews and sometimes if the property is a private residence that is managed by a property management company, make sure to review that company outside of the site you are booking on. We have had many amazing experiences and stays using these sites, but we did have one bad experience and man, it was a doozy. So be careful out there!

I feel like I should put in a caveat and say that as mentioned in the intro of my podcast, it’s traveling tastefully for less. So if you don’t have a budget and the sky’s the limit, these recommendations may not serve you, but if you’re trying to see as much as possible, but still be comfortable, then these recommendations should be right up your alley.

Another thing that we try to do is book, a place where breakfast is included, or there’s possibly a kitchen. Yes, I know that a lot of people don’t want to cook on vacation, but I can tell you that if you can just eat one meal for free at your accommodation or prepare it yourself in your room, the savings can be exponential. What we usually do is have breakfast at the hotel, whether that means I’m making it, or we had it included in the room, and then we eat lunch out or do a picnic lunch, and then for dinner depending on what we did for lunch, we either pick up something ready-made from a local market, or we’ll go out to eat. A lot of times dinner is our big meal that we have out. But not always.

Another great area of savings (if you have kids, or an appetite like one like I do) is bringing snacks with you. Usually, I will pack some applesauce, pouches, granola bars, nut pouches, or easily peeled fruit, and of course, water bottles. Bringing our own reusable water bottles is a huge savings! And better for the environment- for those who care. But packing our own snacks really saves compared to having to stop when you get gas or buy something at the airport- where (as we all know) the prices are definitely hiked up.

Taking a few minutes to step into a local market or something like that when you’re on your way home, as well will also be a huge savings. 

That’s about it for today, at least for traveling tastefully for less part of this episodes title. The other half of the title was Have Time, Will Travel. And I was trying to find the origin of the Have, fill in the blank, Will Travel phrase. And it is loosely accredited to Bob Hope, whose 1954 memoir was titled Have Tux, Will Travel.

I knew that Bob Hope had done a lot of traveling, especially for the USO, rallying and performing for the United States armed forces when they were overseas. But when I looked him up a little bit, I found out that he was actually, or at least you could say his parents were, Expats. Bob Hope was born in Eltham, I hope I’m saying that right… maybe it’s pronounced “Eltan”, a southeast district of London. And moved to the United States with his parents when he was about five-years-old.

Now some people wouldn’t call that being an expat, because he did spend to my knowledge, the rest of his life, which was another 95 years, amazingly, living in America. But I think, since he was quite the traveler, and that is the focus of this episode he gets to count as an expat.

Bob Hope was known for his great comedy, but also for his big heart and philanthropy. And my quote of the day comes from that part of his character. He said:

“If you haven’t got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.”

Amen to that Bob. 

OK, now it’s time for this episode’s “Chan Select”!

So again, I want to reiterate that this is not a paid endorsement, and the link that will be in the show notes is not an affiliate link, at least at the time of this recording. This is just a hotel that we have stayed at three different times throughout the last 2 1/2 years, and it’s just really worked well for our family.

And that hotel chain is called Meininger. 

The concept, for their hotel is central, affordable, and modern. Some people might say they’re set up, kind of like a hostel, and I could see that, but they are extremely family friendly and we honestly see multiple families there every time we stay. 

They have 36 hotels in 26 different European cities, located in 10 different European countries. 

We love it because we can get a room for 6 where our four kids are staying in bunk beds and my husband and I share a queen-size bed, but we also have an ensuite bathroom. They offer breakfast for about €12 per adult and children, eight years old and under are free. And children, up to about the age of 16 or 18, sorry I’m not sure the exact age of that, are half-price.

They usually have a bar area, a small café, washing machines and dryers (If you need them) games and a child play area, and a guest kitchen, which is a shared space, but for the first time I used this area in Bordeaux, and it was awesome! It was kept clean, easy to use, And was so convenient for my family after a long day of sightseeing, where we were tired and didn’t feel like sitting with the kids at another restaurant.

We first stayed at a Meininger hotel on our first visit to Paris in November of 2021, before we knew we were moving here actually, and it was one of the few hotels that offered the availability for all of us to be in the same room. It saved us a fortune, not having to buy three separate rooms, as that was what we experienced when we were staying in a hotel during our relocation just 7 months later, and let me tell you, that cost Chris’ employer a pretty penny. 

We also stayed in a Meininger in Switzerland last summer with one of Chris’s sisters, her husband, and their four kiddos, and having pizza there, after getting off of a train at the end of the evening was fantastic!

Our stay this time in Bordeaux for three nights cost us, all-in, only $369 (plus a small city tax added later). It felt like an absolute steal! And because Meininger Hotels are located in the city, they are usually well connected to public transportation. This time we were right by the city train station and multiple tram and bus stops.

So that’s it for this episode, I hope that you have gained some insight or at least a tiny helpful bit for your future travels! And now I would love to do something different. If you have any fun, travel bits to share, will you DM me on Instagram? I would love to get a collection of them and share them in a future episode, and give you a shout out when I share yours!!

While you’re there, if you haven’t followed me on Instagram, that would be amazing. And since you’re here in your podcast app, if you haven’t followed me here, that would be even greater, and I would really really appreciate it if you could take a moment to give me a rating and or a kind review.

My understanding is that the more reviews I have, and the higher rating I have then Expatriotical gets boosted in the algorithm and other people can find us here more easily, and that would just be great so that we can, I can, help lots more people!

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for letting me join you today on your journey. I don’t take this for granted that you are spending a good 20 minutes or so of your precious and valuable time to me and hopefully gaining wisdom and insight and hope and I really appreciate it! I’ll meet you here next week with another new episode. But until then, this is Chandra Alley reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know with Expatriotical.”