Fancy But Frugal

Thailand is one of my all-time favorite countries. I've been around 11 times to various parts, but with Bangkok being a 2.5 hour flight from Singapore and around $150 usd, it was the perfect weekend getaway. I went atleast 5 times between 2013-2015. The first time I went with friends, and we did all the first-time touristy stuff: the Grand Palace, Wat Po, Floating Market, and Khoa San Road. I'm not going to spend much time on these because there are a million other blogs and guides that tell you. BUT I will share some pictures and share that these are a MUST DO if it's your first time to Bangkok! The Grand Palace is beautiful, with more gold than you can imagine. It's down by the river near Wat Po and many other temples and popular sites. Spend an afternoon walking around this area - It's so culturally interesting! Check out a few pics from the Grand Palace: So elaborately decorated The Floating Market was really cool. I recall it being more e...

 This week, I thought I'd offer tips on sneaking in one last cheap ski trip before winter ends. Over President’s Day weekend, we took a very affordable, fun, and refreshing trip to Colorado. This trip had a few goals: ￮  Teach me how to ski (I’d never been before) ￮  Spend time with our good friends that we hadn’t seen in months ￮  Celebrate my hubby’s 30 th birthday 👨 ￮  Don’t break a bone or die while skiing We had started planning this trip last summer with one of our best “couple” friends – you know, that couple you double date with, go to concerts with, and drink good (and bad) wine with. We had recently moved to NYC and needed time with our people.Both starting new jobs, we had to book flights last minute (after clearing it with our new bosses). Needless to say, the tickets had skyrocketed to over $600 each. So what does one do? We used points , obviously (see my last post about how to get started saving points! Link here ). With this co...

I get asked various questions about travel and planning, so I thought I'd answer a few of them here, grouped into categories. I've also included tons of handy-dandy links to make it even easier for you! I tested out some of these tips on friends the last couple months and have gotten good feedback, so hopefully they'll help you too! Flights: There are a ton of resources out there to find affordable flights. I generally use sites like Orbitz ( link ) or just plain Google flights to get a feel for prices and the best dates, and then I’ll go through the actual airline... whatever's cheaper! We recently used Kayak ( link ) which did something really cool. They have a system where they search different airlines and allow you to book with different currencies. Depending on the exchange rate, this can save you alot (we saved about $100)! I was also recently told about secretflying.com (link here  - thanks Adam & MK!). This website exposes airlines mistakes...

This week on my Facebook page, pictures/memories popped up from a very special trip we took exactly two years ago. It was our first vacation as a couple and we went to…(drum roll please)… Maldives . Talk about setting the bar high! Panaroma. All pictures copyrighted and mine. Disclaimer: This is not going to seem “budget” to most of you, but trust me, it is. A family could easily spend $20k+ on a vacation there, but that's not feasible for us, so we did the trip our way. **Also, leaving from Singapore (where we were living at the time) cut out one major expense: flights. That alone saved us a couple thousand dollars.  💲💲💲 As I mentioned, this was our first real vacation as a couple, 6 months into our relationship. It was Chinese New Year weekend, so we knew most of our local friends would be busy with family gatherings and most local shops would be closed. We decided it was time to leave for the holiday! We went for 4 (but ...

Hey guys! We were out of town this weekend skiing in Colorado with friends, so I thought I'd change it up and take a poll this week. Where should we go for vacation this winter? Where would you want to read about? If you have other suggestions, put them in the comments section below! We cant wait to see what you guys have to say! Where should we go for vacation in fall/winter 2017? Argentina Australia road trip South Africa Other (enter in comments below!) surveymaker

This week while brainstorming what to write about, I found pictures on an old phone from our trip to MYANMAR in August 2015! It's truly one of the most unique and untouched countries I've ever seen! Many people haven't even heard of the country, let alone want to travel there, so I hope this post will bring awareness to how awesome Myanmar (used to be called Burma) is! A little background : Myanmar is next door to Thailand on the left, but it is described as being 40 years behind Thailand (in terms of development). Ever since I moved to Asia in 2012, I dreamt of going to there, but it was closed to tourists and a visa was nearly impossible to get (which made it even more intriguing!). ☹ In 2014, they opened their borders (woohooooooo!), and I knew I had to make a trip ASAP. The visa process also became available online, even better! I'm not sure about now, but when I applied I had to have a Burmese travel agency sponsor/sign off for me. I think this was their ...

For Christmas 2016, we decided we needed a warm , relaxing, and affordable vacation, so we chose Cancun. This trip surprised me in many ways. I was totally off my game that week and we forgot our GoPro, so we don’t have many pictures. 🙁 I like to think we were just living in the moment and enjoying ourselves. I don't come empty-handed though; I have a ton of tips about cheap accommodation, tours, and food! The first decision to make was “ Should we stay at an all-inclusive ”? All-inclusives are tricky. I know people who swear by them and stay at them for every vacation. I think there’s a time and place for all-inclusives, and you just have to decide what kind of trip you want. If you want to veg out with friends or you are on your honeymoon and don’t plan to leave the resort at all, then yes by all means, an all-inclusive is the way to go. Food, drinks, and bed all in one place. No judgment here. BUT , me and my husband usually aren’t that type of vacatio...