Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Making Travel a Financial Priority with Guest Danielle Desir

Episode Date: September 13, 2020

Do you make travel a financial priority? My guest today takes this idea so seriously that she treats saving for travel like paying a bill. A portion of every paycheck automatically gets put into a special savings account exclusively for travel. Danielle Desir is the author of several travel books, including Affording Travel and Traveling with a Full-Time Job, and she hosts the Thought Card, a podcast and blog about affordable travel and personal finance. Danielle’s incredibly financially savvy and managed to pay off $63,000 of student loan debt in just four years while still managing to travel. We recorded this this a few months ago and are still living in the pandemic of 2020. People are taking smaller trips, if they’re traveling at all. There’s uncertainty about jobs and the economy. What I especially like about my interview with Danielle is that she gives really sound financial tips that got her through the Great Recession without being extreme and robbing her of all the pleasures in life. We can make smart financial decisions and still invest in experiences, like travel, that give our lives meaning.I mentioned that Danielle gives some great financial tips, but I will note that we are obviously not financial advisors, so talk with one of them if you want to seriously plan your money :)postcardacademy.cosarahmikutel.com🎤🎤🎤Create an irresistible, brand-building podcast of your ownWith more than 1 million shows in Apple Podcasts, it’s easy to feel like there’s no room left for you at the mic. But after we work together, you’ll cut through the noise with a standout show that lights you up, attracts your dream clients, and transforms your business. Find out more.Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Do you make travel a financial priority? My guest today takes this idea so seriously that she treats saving for travel like paying a bill. So a portion of every paycheck automatically gets put into a special savings account exclusively for travel. And I love this idea. Danielle DeZere is the author of several travel books, including affording travel and traveling with a full-time job. And she hosts the Thought Card, which is a podcast and a blog about affordable travel and personal travel. finance. Danielle is incredibly financially savvy and she managed to pay off $63,000 of student loan debt in just four years while still managing to travel and she doesn't have this like insane Wall Street job. She is just a normal person who is good with money and she's going to share some of her advice with us today. We recorded this a few months ago and we are still living in the pandemic of 2020 and people are taking smaller trips nearby like their home if they're traveling at all. There's uncertainty about jobs and the economy. But what I really

like about my discussion with Danielle is that she gives us really sound financial tips that got her through the Great Recession without being extreme and robbing her of all of life's pleasures. So we can make smart financial decisions and still invest in experiences like travel that give our lives meaning. I mentioned that Danielle gives some great financial tips in this episode, but I We'll note that we are obviously not financial advisors, so talk to one of them if you want to seriously plan your money. Okay, on with the show. Welcome to the Postcard Academy, a show about travel, living abroad, and location independence

for people seeking a more meaningful freedom-fueled life. I'm your host, Sarah Micahettel, an American who first moved abroad on her own at age 18, and who has been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. I am so glad you're here. My guests and I will share with you how we made our travel living abroad and location independent dreams come true and how you can too because you will never have this day again. Make it matter. Well, Danielle, thank you for joining me on the Postcard Academy. Thank you for having me, Sarah. So you are a fellow travel podcaster.

Tell me about the thought card and what inspired this show. Sure. So the thought card is an affordable travel and personal finance blog and podcast. And I started the blog five years ago. And it started off as like a lifestyle, just random thoughts and musings. But over time, it started to develop into travel and personal finance. And I love that because those are my two distinct passions. I love talking about money.

I love managing money, growing, building my wealth. and I also love travel and exploration. And five years ago, it was actually pretty difficult to attract an audience who understood because travel bloggers were travel bloggers, personal finance bloggers or personal finance bloggers. So it's very, very separate. But over time, I've been able to share because I've paid off debt, because I've done certain things financially, how I'm able to craft a lifestyle, and it has taken off.

And I think people are more tuned to why your finances are so important to leading the life that you want. And I started the podcast about two years ago to be an offshoot of my blog. I wanted to communicate with my audience a little bit more faster, also share unique stories from other financially savvy travelers as well. So the podcast was the perfect medium to actually make that happen. And it's nice to hear your voice as well. I think podcasts just take, you know, the written word is nice. but I feel like podcasting takes it to the next level when we can actually hear from you week to week. Yeah, it's such an intimate experience.

You could, even with your audio, you could know when someone's smiling or you hear their laugh and giggles and you get to know them more personally. So I love that it's an added bonus to my brand. So you have done so many impressive things, including getting rid of a ton of student debt. I would love to hear how you did that. Yes. So I paid off $63,000 of student loan debt in four years. And about 20,000 came from undergrad and 43,000 came from graduate school. And I did my best, as much as possible.

I tried really not to accumulate debt. So my first two years of university, I got scholarships and, most of my ride was paid for. However, this was during the Great Recession. So we were, you know, losing our home at the time. And also the economy was kind of crumbling. So my financial aid package started to dwindle. And that's when the debt started to tack on. And I feel like it's kind of like a faucet. Once you start, once you take out one loan, you're like, okay, let's just continue on. I mean, you're also like a junior in college. So you can be like, L.O.L. Like, stop going to school now because I have to take out debt. At least that's what I thought. So the faucet was on

and I was just taking taking out money. And I think for me the biggest moment where I realized like, wow, this is real was when I just graduated graduate school and I opened up my student loan bill and it said 63. I was like, who did this to me? Like I was not, I had no idea. Oh, neither did I when I was in school. I didn't look at those papers until I graduated. And yeah, it's a very rude awakening. Rude awakening. And I realized that, okay, my first job is not going to make me 63K. Actually, at the time, I had no job. And the meter was running because my interest was accumulating every single day. So I was like, okay, let me figure out how much interest I owe. And I figured out that I owed $10.10. sense. And that made me angry. And again, because I felt blindsided, I felt like who signed me up for

this? No one told me about this. How can they be asking me for $10 with no job? And I turned that anger into inspired action. And I create a plan where I would work on paying off my debt as soon as possible. And I had to make a lot of different sacrifices to make that happen. So I live in Connecticut, but I work in Midtown Manhattan. And my commute is close to two hours, one way. way. So I decided to live at home with my mom, and I know that's not a choice everyone can make, but living expenses, I try to keep that down as much as possible, and I funneled that extra finances and money into my student loan journey. And I also figured out what's my repayment style. Some people will tell you that it's best to, I mean, mathematically it's best for you to

tackle your loans with the highest interest. However, for me, I prefer to tackle the smallest debts first because I love quick wins. So let me get all the small wins out of the way. And I built myself up to tackling the larger and larger, larger loans. So those are some of the strategies that I use to help me pay off my debt. And I use my student loan daily interest as a tracker. So over the course of the four years, I saw it gradually go down from like 10, 10 to 9, 10 to 8, 10 to eventually go down to zero. And that really kept me motivated to just keep going. So you kept looking at it and like having it be top of mind. Absolutely.

Because I knew for a fact, I knew that having student loans for the next 10 years would hinder me from being able to go forth and do other things that I wanted to do financially. because even with living at home with mom when I was looking at how much rent costs in the city, it would eat up a huge majority of my budget. And then I don't have enough funds to even take care of my student loans. So keeping it top of mind, making decisions based off of that, but also having something that you would look to afford to in addition to your loans. So a lot of people will tell you to just focus on your student loan debt or focus on your debt on that one thing and that's it.

and I try to reward myself by going on a trip. I would save for travel. I even at the time I even saved a small pot of money to buy a house and I eventually bought a house at 27. So I'm a multifaceted saver and I work on multiple things at the same time because, again, I know I'm a quick win style person and I just prefer having lots of different pots. It just keeps me motivated and to know that I'm working towards multiple things. things and not having to just do one thing to the end and then start another journey from scratch. Yeah. If you were only just paying off debt and that was your life, that would be pretty depressing. So I like that you incorporated some pleasure seeking things as well. Did you have

a travel fund? Was that something separate that you were doing at the same time? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And it's something that I've had ever since I graduated from grad school, having a separate bank account devoted to my travel savings, and I have that automated. And it's great because after I finished paying off my debt, I was able to increase my travel savings, you know, exponentially. But at the time when I was starting off paying off my sue loans, all I could squirrel away was like $25 every pay period. But that still afforded me amazing experience, like going on a week-long trip to Paris. So I am definitely from the philosophy of not sacrificing everything, having, you know, having smaller goals and having smaller things that you can look to while you're paying off your

debt because paying off your debt is not only emotionally draining, it's very draining, but it's also a very slow process. So you have to have little milestones and things that you could look to to make it a little bit less draining. You mentioned, you mentioned, mentioned that your travel pot was automated. Can you tell me a little bit more about how this works? Sure. So I prefer to have my travel savings account in a separate bank from my brick and mortar. I prefer to use Alley and I've been using them since like I just graduated grad school. And I literally can count on one hand how many times I've had to use them and their online bank. So what I also like about Alley is that you can open up a bank account for free with only $5 in that account. So you can- How do you spell that?

A-L-L-Y.com. Okay. I'm not sure if they're available outside of the U.S., but I'm going to take a peek at them. Yes, yes. I really do appreciate them and love them. They were actually one of the online banks that I saw and I was like, oh, I love your branding. You just attract me. So, yeah, so I've been using them for years.

And again, I could count on one hand how many times I had to call them about an issue. So I've really had a great experience with them. And again, what I like about Allie Bank is that you can open up as many big accounts as you want. So I currently have like over 10 with them, just with them, because it's so easy to open up a bank account and there's no maintenance fees and it's just really a great place to save. So what I do, because I have a full-time job, I have my employer direct deposit a specific amount of funds that I set aside every single paycheck and gets transferred to my travel fund. So every payday, I can go in my travel fund and see exactly how much money I have to spend on travel. And to figure out how much money I wanted to save, I thought through first how much money I could afford to miss. And I also have thought about travel like a bill.

So similar to your cell phone bill, your gym subscriptions, all the other things that you pay for on a monthly basis, travel is right up there with all of those things for me. So it's something that has to get done, which is why I automate it. So I don't interfere or get in my own way when it comes to saving for travel because it's all automatic. So you have various different bank accounts. What are those poor? Because I've mentioned before, Daniel, you have so much going on. I don't know how you do it. You've got various income streams, which I would love to talk about next. Did you set up account for each one of these streams or how is this working? Okay. So when it comes to a bank account organization, I create bank accounts based off of major bills or goals that I have. And some of these accounts

are like pretty stale. So before I got engaged, I had a wedding fund that had like $10 in there for like five years. But now that I'm engaged, that's the account that I'm using to save for my engagement and my wedding. So I think of each bank account as creating a space. for a goal or a bill. And similar to the envelope system, so there's a system that budgeters use where they have different envelopes for different budget categories. I use envelope system, but just virtually. So an important bill that I've identified is my mortgage. So again, my paycheck, a portion of my paycheck goes directly into my mortgage account every single pay period. So I don't have to think about it. It's there. I don't have to do anything. It's like I love

just having it there automatic. I also have an account for groceries. So I, again, like to track. There's several things I like to track individually on its own, but I just like seeing it separately. And I could better budget for groceries when I know, okay, there's no more money in this account. I can't. There's no, you know, nothing I can do there. Other accounts that I have, I have, let's say, a house repair fund now that I'm a homeowner. So any repairs that I have, I have an emergency savings for just general emergency savings. I even have a account for my car insurance because I just prefer to see it separately that way. So I definitely recommend it.

And you don't have to necessarily have as many as I have. But at least I think it's important to have a travel fund because you can see your travel savings separately and you're spending separately. And you don't have to question how much money you have. because it's all there and you have a system for it. So are you teaching the system to people? I do have a budgeting course, yes, and I do teach that system, yes. Excellent, excellent.

I thought you did. So that online course is one of your different income streams. So tell me about the different things you've got going on. Plus, you have a full-time job. Tell me, what are you doing? Yes. So I'm a grant manager at a medical school. So pretty much I help physicians, doctors, and researchers apply for grants.

funding for their projects. And then once that funding comes in, I help them manage their funds. Okay. And then, but you have a bunch of businesses on your own, right? Yeah. So, I mean, this all started off as like a hobby. Like it started off as a reluctant travel blog. And then it has grown since, since then. And I think for me, the big, the big picture is that I'm on a journey to seek financial freedom and to hopefully be able to retire early. So that has been like an overarching like what drives me. But I am also a very creative person. Like I love to actually create. I'm a virtual builder, let's say, because I just like to create things, which is why having a blog was really great. But over time, I've expanded my blog to create courses. I've always

also written books. I'm on my third book now. I have a whole other brand for podcasting, Women of Color podcasters. So that is its own own entity as well. I've also done speaking. So that's an income stream. And yeah, those are some of the things that I've done to really build up my platform outside of the nine to five. You have a lot going on. And I think some people listening might be thinking, like, where do you even get started if you wanted to have like a little side hustle like this? Or if you want to be creative and do you do everything at once? Do you pick one thing? Like, how would you go about getting started?

I would definitely recommend not doing all the things, but being open to expanding when the time is right. I definitely seem like a jack of all trades now. But I've been doing digital content creation for the past five years. and I saw opportunities that made sense for me to expand in different spheres. But when I first started, it was just having a blog and being consistent with the blog by writing once a week. That has been a goal of mine forever. Just create one piece of content on the blog. And at the end of the year, if you do that, you have 52 pieces of content on your blog. So I would just say start off with that. And then it was like three years after I had the

blog. I was like, you know, let me start a podcast. And I didn't create more work for myself because the podcast is exactly the same content pillars and the same topics as my blog. So it's still using the same, everything is still very, you know, very similar. It's just taking it off of the blog and really putting a voice and sharing stories behind that. And then when I expanded to books, what I did, honestly, because my first book was a Iceland travel guide. It's called Iceland Nature, Nurture and Adventure. And I started it because I have written so many articles on Iceland. So you can take your blog and create different types of content like a podcast.

You can create books off of your blog posts without having to recreate the wheel or spend super, like enormous amount of time. But I would definitely recommend starting off with one thing first, getting really good and consistent at that before. expanding into other spheres. And I'd also say that I know there are plenty of people who make a ton of money doing online work and, you know, blogging. I am not one of those people. Like, I don't make a ton of money. But as a side hustle, it's satisfying. Like, I enjoy it. It's very satisfying. It's very rewarding. I love working with clients. I love provide, I love that feedback you get when someone is really happy with what you produce for them or created for them or the experience

that you brought them. So I didn't do it for the money and I don't do it now primarily for the money. I do it because it's in line with the things I would do naturally for free. But now that I can make money, I'm like, oh, great. Let's, you know, let's keep going. Let's keep going. I love that. So tell me about some of the trips that you've taken. What have you spoken about on your podcast this year? Yes. So this year, unfortunately, there hasn't really been that much travel. But in 2020, I did get to go to London. I wish we knew each other before. I would have stopped by. That would have been amazing. I would have been in London. Yeah, I went to London. I've been to London a couple times. It's just, I just really do love going to London. And it's also a really easy trip. So I did London. And in December, I actually went to China. So I was in China in December before everything. happened. So I shared that on the podcast. And I even was able to bring some of my equipment with me

and shared like climbing on the Great Wall of China Live to bring that to bring my audience in. So those were some of the cool trips that I had pre, pre everything. Well, you are in my home state of Connecticut. And I definitely want to talk to you in the future about fun things to do. Because I don't feel like our state is, you know, it doesn't get enough coverage. Oh, yeah. It's like, New York City or Boston and everything in between is like not, not newsworthy, but that's not true. That's not true. And Sarah and I were talking before this chat that one of my goals is to really explore Connecticut more. I don't foresee me doing a lot of travel at all this summer.

But every single week, I've had a mission and goal to do one new thing. So last week I went to a brewery, the week before, I was in. able to go on a hiking excursion. And the week before that, I went to the beach. So one thing a day, one thing a week. And hopefully by the end of the summer, I'll be able to come back and share with you a lot more things. This episode is sponsored by me or rather by my online course, podcast launch academy. You are a podcast lover and thank you so much for being here. But I was wondering, have you ever thought about creating a podcast yourself? Well, visit sarahmicatel.com to learn how we can work together and to take the podcast personality quiz. I would love to hear about your trip that you took

to Paris as was that did you take this after you paid off your student loans or was this year like one of your reward trips while you were still paying? Yes. So my Paris trip, I've been to Paris twice, I believe, but the first trip to Paris was during the time that I was actually paying off student loan debt. And that. That's. trip manifested because when I was actually an undergrad, I saw an opportunity to study abroad. And I wanted to study abroad. And when I looked into the financial aid package, it wouldn't cover it. So I would have to spend something like $10,000 for three months to study in Paris. And because we were in such a financial pinch because of the recession, I just couldn't muster up the courage to be like, mom, can you help me here?

So because I missed out on that opportunity, I made a promise to myself that the first trip I would take as soon as I got a job would be to Paris. So after a year of working and starting off small with $25 every paycheck, I was able to get myself to Paris. And I even added on a day trip to Brussels. So I was very excited about that. Very cool. So are you a solo traveler or did you go with people? I was a solo traveler. And I still do a lot of solo travel.

And I think for me, wanting to travel and not having the finances to do so really motivated me and motivates me to be like, if there's an opportunity, I'm just going to just hop on it and just do it because I know that time and money are real obstacles. So if I have the time and I have the savings, why not? And a lot of times that means solo. And I'm totally fine with that. I love solo travel. Like I love traveling with other people as well. But there's very some, there's something special, as you said, of just being your own boss and not having to answer to anyone.

And if you want to go to this place, hop on this train, you can do it. And you don't have to wait for anybody else. Exactly. And I think now it's actually so much easier. Because I remember back in like 2014 when I first started. and I'm sure that there's people who were traveling way before that. Like, my cell phone reception wasn't international. Who knows that you have to have a SIM card and all these like complexities.

Navigation wasn't really like super strong. So there were, and I used to like print out paper maps, so I'd look like a tourist, which was awkward. But technology has come so far. So when I'm traveling solo, I can still keep in touch with my family. I do a lot of FaceTime and video conferencing with them. I try to like loop them in as much as possible in the experience that I'm having. So I don't necessarily always feel alone, which is great. So that's, I think technology has really helped, especially for me, how I feel much more comfortable, traveling solo.

What is your travel style like? Do you stay in hostels? Do you stay in Airbnbs? So I would say my travel style is cheap flights. So as long as I can get there cheaply, I am all for that. So I'm really obsessed with finding great flight deals. And I have never flown business or first class. So it's literally like the get me there safely, cheaply. And then what's your cheap flight strategy? My cheap flight strategy is sign up for as many newsletters as possible. Some of

my favorites are like secret flying.com who's international. I love thrifty traveler premium. That's service. There's quite a few of them. The flight deal is also another one. So I sign up for all these newsletters. And what they do is that throughout the day, they're searching and scouring the web for flight deals and they email you once a day. And the paid services, they email you as many times as they get deals. And I pick and I cherry pick and choose, like, which deals I think are worth exploring. And that is literally how I have traveled since like the past six years. Now that I have a partner, our travel style is definitely different. And before my partner, I definitely stayed at hotels. I definitely stayed at hostels. I did all of it. Definitely keeping my budget top of mind.

So I'm not a budget traveler. I'm a budget conscious traveler. So my finances definitely dictates what I'm doing. But I found so many creative ways to make it happen. But over time, I definitely do value a nice hotel stay, preferably with a pool. and on-site dining options. Like, I have preferences now. But earlier, I was very, very minimalistic. And a lot of my budget, actually, my travel budget goes to experiences.

So food tours and excursions or day trips. So I just really value experiences while I'm there. And especially if it has a historical context, that's like even greater. So I will reserve a lot of my funds. for that. And then all the other times, I try to do as many free things as possible. And Pinterest is a good place to look at for free ideas and free things to do. Oh, tell me more about that. So if you want, I don't use to Pinterest that often, but I keep saying I'm going to get into it. So yeah,

do you mean like say I want to go to Wahaka or something? I could just look up for pins on that. Yeah. So Pinterest is a visual search engine. It's less a social media platform and more search engine. And what I do is I, you can type in. And also when you type, start typing in, it'll start filling in things for you. So you can actually like start typing in Wahaka and it'll might say Waxaca hotels or Wohaka, you know, anything and everything. Wauca travel. So what I try to do is I use Pinterest to connect me to blogs, right? Because what these blogs do is that they create pins that get pinned on Pinterest. And once you click on a pin, it'll direct you. directly to that blog. So you can go ahead and read a blog post from locals or travelers. And I like to do

for Pinterest, primarily, I do like free things to do in Chicago. And I start there. And maybe I go through three or four pins and read those blog posts and start making a list. And that really allows me to get a good idea of some of the unique things to do or some of the like top things to do. I know a lot of people use like TripAdvisor. And I mean, that's fine. You know, lonely planet, that's, that's fine too. But I like to also mix in getting a blogger perspective because I know that they're documenting their trip and they're also like really passionate about exploring and things like that. So you mentioned some other creative ways that you've employed to save money but still have a good time. Could you share some of those with us? Yes. So based off of like my Pinterest strategy and just

doing research on the free things to do. When I'm planning a trip, I actually fill my itinerary up with free things first so that I can have all of my finances and my funds to actually spend on more expensive experiences and experiences that you have to pay for. So I think for me, that has really helped me to really prioritize my values and pay for the things that are really, really important to me. I also try my best to do a bit of research to see how much things typically cost at a destination. And that's exactly why I have a trip cost breakdown section on my blog. So I try my best as possible whenever I'm traveling to a new destination to keep track of all my expenses and I break them down for folks that they can see from a mid-range budget traveler's kind of sense,

like how much things cost. And I think that transparency is very, very important. So I use a website called budget your trip.com. And they'll show you things from like cost of transportation to like 12 pack of eggs or something like that so that you can really start piecing together your strategy. And the last seed, I also, what I do is once I figure out the more expensive things I want to pay for, I try to book them before my trip so that it's kind of out of sight, out of mind, and that time is reserved so that I'm not like kind of like trying to piece together my trip while I'm on the vacation. So I try to do as much of like planning. And I'm not really that big of a planner, but I do book things ahead of time. So if I'm going to go,

let's say, on a horseback ride for three hours, I'm going to book that before I leave. So I know these are the big experiences that we're having. And I don't have to pull up my wallet every, you know, every second while I'm on that trip. That sounds like a perfect balance. balance of, you know, being kind of free, but then also planning because not only do you have to like think about your budget and money, but also things book up, right? Especially if it's a special experience and it'll be really sad if you get there like with your heart content on like doing something. And then it's like, oh, I'm sorry, this booked up last week and then you can't do it. Yes, which has happened to me plenty, plenty, plenty of times. So yeah, same for sure. And

And I imagine you might do this, but, you know, quite a while ago I interviewed my front Crystal Dyer, the Tofu Traveler, on this podcast on, you know, ways to save money while traveling and find cheap flights and all that. And one of the things that she talked about was traveling in the shoulder season, which these days is like the best time, I think, weather-wise. Yes, absolutely. I definitely try to travel in the shoulder season. But again, I think, think because of my full-time job, there are constraints. So I don't always have the flexibility to do that. But some of my favorite times to travel are actually in January. I love traveling in winter. And a lot of times people are like, oh, I don't want to go anywhere. You know, I was going

to stay home and hunker down. I'm like, this is the time. The deals are cheap. The deals are cheap. Deals are cheap. And it's definitely low, low traffic. So that's exactly why I booked a flight to London. in January, it's, you know, it's pretty, not frigid, but it's cold. It's, it's, it's, it's, I've been also to London, May, in June. It's gorgeous. But January, um, is a really popular time for me to go, a travel. I even try to travel. We have a holiday in the States, uh, President's Day weekend, which also falls in line with, um, Valentine's Day as well. So I do try to see if I could book international trips around that time. Uh, Thanksgiving time is also surprisingly very, very, very much.

affordable. But when I say very affordable, I'm booking usually flights six to seven months ahead of time. And I read a statistic a while ago that flights change about like over 60 times in the year. So it fluctuates. And I think that's important to know. But you can use like apps like Google flights to help you to at least keep track of your flights prices so that you know. And you start to kind of establish a baseline. You're like, okay, if a flight usually, cost $500. If I see it for $350, this may be the time to book now because it might not go that low ever again. So these are some of those things that I use that have helped me. So Google flights can give you historical prices of whether it's a good chance. Okay.

Yes, yes. I don't think that they recommend, like some like apps will recommend you to tell you, they'll actually say explicitly like this is a good, this is a good time to buy. However, if you do track the price on Google flights, they email you when there's any movement, either up or down. So based off of that movement and based off of me knowing the baseline price, I'm able to make that determination to see if I am interested in going. And for Google flights, you have to put in the dates that you're looking at. So it's usually like a destination. Maybe I have, let's say, three or four destinations I'm looking at for, let's say, an April trip. And then I have all these flight price trackers. And then whenever there's a movement, if I find a deal or if I find something

that I think is, I could swing that. I'll book it based off of Google flights, just alert telling me that this price has decreased. Well, this is all great advice, Danielle. Is there anything else that you wanted to add before we go? Yeah, I would just say that, you know, a lot of us, time and money are the biggest factors that hold us back from traveling the world or traveling as much. much as we want to. And I just implore everyone to think about these restrictions and challenges creatively. I found that looking at things differently or having a can-do attitude has really helped me to really blow past all the limitations that I thought were, you know, holding me back. And I know with the change of climate, it's going to be interesting to see how things change

in travel. But I'm hoping all the strategies and the creativity that we use in the past will help us continue to explore the world more affordably. Well, thank you so much. Where can we find out more about you? Absolutely. So you could head over to thoughtcard.com. That's my blog and my podcast is the thought card. If you have a full-time job or you work for someone else, I have a new book coming out called Traveling with a Full-Time job. I think that could be really, really helpful. I'm also at the Thought Card on social media. I am on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Excellent. And I will link to all of these in the show notes. Thank you, Danielle. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much. I loved so much of what Danielle said today. And I plan on

opening a bank account dedicated exclusively for travel. I also really liked what she had to say about filling your itinerary with free things so that you can invest in the more expensive experiences that you want to have. And top tip, because of COVID, a lot of walking tours and other activities have much more limited availability. So if you have your heart set on something, book in advance. I am visiting my family in the States and we recently went to Kenny Bunk-Portnine together. And I was very interested in doing a historical walking tour and there was availability right up until the day before, which is of course when I was going to book. And they were sold out. And so from now on, even when we are post-COVID, I'm going to do a better

job of booking at least the main activities, like the can't miss type of tours that I want to do. So anyway, I encourage you to do the same. Learn from my mistakes. In addition to hosting the Thought Card podcast, Danielle founded WOC podcasters, and I interviewed her on my other show podcasting step by step to learn more about the WOC podcasters origin story and WC means women of color. So women of color podcasters. And on that episode, Danielle and I talk about the group's mission to amplify the voices of WOC podcasters. So head on over to sarahigatel.com if you want to find that episode. And finally, I will include links to the websites that Danielle and I talked about today at postcardacademy.com. Oh, and final thing, I finally joined Pinterest. So if you'd like to be Pinterest

friends, you can find me at Pinterest.com slash Sarah Mikea Tell. All right, that's all for Thanks so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.