Fancy But Frugal

New Zealand: a beautiful, distant, perfect country that most people only dream of visiting. #travelgoals. This trip was interesting because I broke one of my all-time travel rules: no group tours . They are usually expensive, offer less freedom, and leave you stuck with weird people for many days. No thanks .  Jon and I had taken several road trips prior to this, and we really enjoy renting a car, making our own plans, and going at our own pace. Our trip to the South Island of New Zealand was planned for October 2015. Unfortunately, this was a very hectic time of our lives. We were living in Singapore, and the few months before this were full of getting engaged, going to Uganda, Myanmar, and Thailand, wedding planning, having engagement parties, and packing up my fiancé to move back to the US (I stayed in Singapore a few more months to wrap up some work and research and *traveling*). It's safe to say our NZ trip snu...

Hi fellow travelers! You are probably wondering who I am, why I am starting this, and why you should read it! So here goes nothin': Who)  I'm Katie R., a southern girl who decided to take a chance and see what else life had to offer. Raised in Mississippi/Louisiana, I first got the taste of culture and overseas travel in 2009 when I went on a mission trip to Haiti, and I caught the travel bug. In 2012, I took a job and  moved to  Singapore . I didn't know a soul, had 3 nights booked in a hotel and no plans after that, and was living on a prayer (all this is a story for another time). There, I learned to enjoy everyone and everything around me, and now I travel as much as humanly possible. Luckily, I met a man who also has wanderlust and hasn't slowed me down one bit! Aren't we cute? Why)  When I moved to Singapore in 2012, my best friend told me to start a blog. I was so scared of failing (with the blog and the move) that I didn't write it, and it's ...