Erika: Your travel planner

I started this blog to put all of my travel itineraries and advice in one place to help everyone travel on a teacher’s budget. Family, friends, and colleagues have used my travel itineraries for years, so I finally decided it would make sense to have one spot to direct everyone to. Having lived in San Francisco, Sri Lanka, and now Amsterdam, I want to share how you too can plan affordable vacations while experiencing all the world has to offer.

Who this is for: Teachers, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Travel on a Teacher’s Budget

I’m an elementary school teacher, and I love traveling. To be able to find affordable vacations, I’ve done a lot of research, and now I want to share my knowledge with you. I think every middle class person around the world can travel on a teacher’s budget, and I want to demystify how to plan affordable vacations.

I’m too old to share a dorm room with 8 strangers, but I also want to travel for many weeks a year, so I can’t be spending $200 a night on a room. This blog is to help you travel to incredible locations and be comfortable: private rooms almost everywhere, private bathrooms whenever reasonable, with the goal being about $20 a night.

Airfare is expensive, and sometimes the incredible excursion that’s $200 is worth it. This isn’t for the true budget backpacker who is willing to sleep in that shared dorm room with 8 others and take the once-a-day bus for 20 hours. But as a teacher, I’m also not taking the plane when there’s a reasonable, comfortable, safe bus for 6 hours, and I don’t see the point of the $200 hotel room if you can have a clean, safe, well-located private room and bathroom for $20. I love seeing the world, and that means I’m not spending much time in the hotel room anyway.

So if you want affordable vacations, to be able to travel for 4 or 6 weeks during a summer vacation or time between jobs, or you’re European and have that much vacation, then join me to travel on a teacher’s budget! Of course, I also have plans for a 1 or 2 week vacation, because I know it’s not always possible to go traveling for that long.

About Me: The Need for Affordable Vacations

I grew up in San Francisco, taught 4th grade in California for four years, and then I decided to follow a childhood dream of living abroad by teaching at international schools. For local insight on where to eat and what to do in San Francisco, go to How to Plan the Best Trip to San Francisco.

I started with two years in Sri Lanka. For the last seven years, I’ve been living and working in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For more on life in the Netherlands, read How to Plan the Best Trip to the Netherlands!

While living in Europe, I’ve met my Dutch husband. With the wonderful teacher schedule, I’ve been able to explore much of Europe during holiday vacations. We both love traveling, good food, trying new things, wildlife, and culture. Most of my posts are from living in Amsterdam and traveling with him from here. If you’re curious about how you could become an international teacher too, here’s my article about that.

As a teacher living in Europe, I have time: I have vacations in October, December/January, February, April, and of course the wonderful summer vacation. If I want to travel during most of those, then I need to plan affordable vacations! Here’s my article about where to go during each of those vacations!

Last year, we decided to take the year off and travel around the world! Of course, now I have even more places I’d like to write about and recommend. That was a huge planning adventure, and I’ll share all I learned here. My first article about that is about how to plan a year off! This was the best example of travel on a teacher’s budget, as we were traveling for a whole year. We wanted to experience as much as we could in an enjoyable and comfortable way…while also not spending money we didn’t have.

Whenever I travel, I do a lot of research- I love planning! While I’m there, I take notes on what was good and what wasn’t. Every time I come home, friends, family members, and colleagues ask me for advice on where to go and what to eat. So I decided to start this blog for everyone who wants one of my travel plans- here they all are!

What am I selling?

Right now, I’m not doing ads because I find them so irritating as a reader.

I am doing affiliate marketing, because that is a way where I can make money from all the time I’ve put into this website by linking to products that I would genuinely recommend. You get the same price, and I can make a bit of money from my articles.

I know from my friends and family that the biggest challenge they have when planning a vacation is deciding exactly what to do, where to go, and how to figure out the day-by-day plan. That’s why I decided my main product would be designing itineraries for my readers. Each itinerary gives you exactly what to do at each hour of the day, all with clickable links.

For example, after reading my article on traveling in New Zealand, you could then buy a 2 or 4 week itinerary of New Zealand– and then your entire trip is planned for you. All you need to do is click on the links. You have all the control over what you do, but you have a specific plan ready made for you.

Over time, I plan on adding posts about everywhere in the world we have traveled. The posts will include my favorite recommendations for food, accommodation, and things to do, all available for free. I’ll also add a clickable PDF itinerary that will condense all the information from my travels into a short, detailed itinerary that will be just a few euros. You can see how useful they would be with the free 3 day Amsterdam itinerary here.

I’m selling these because for me the hardest part of planning is deciding exactly which recommendations to do and fitting them all in together. I hope these travel itineraries will help you save time so you can spend more time having fun traveling. I hope the few euros you spend on them will be some of the best euros you’ll spend on your trip!

Who This Is For: Why Travel on a Teacher’s Budget is for you too!

In general, these travel itineraries will be best for solo travelers, couples, and friends: adults without children who aren’t into partying and late nights. This website is for people willing to wake up early for a sunrise hike, who want to eat like a local, who are interested in museums and cultural events, who want to sleep in a safe, quiet and clean room but don’t want to break the bank. It’s for people who want to experience the world on a teacher’s budget- people with time but not infinite money. If that’s you, welcome!

If you want to subscribe, you’ll get a free 3 day Amsterdam itinerary, and I’ll email you when (and only when) I have a new article for you. Otherwise, you could also follow me on Facebook or Instagram, and I’ll post there when I have a new article too. Have fun adventuring!

Note About Photos!

Every single photo on this website is a photo that my husband, Victor, took- unless he’s in it, in which case, I took it, or if it’s a photo of the two of us, when a stranger nearby took it. While there are a million stock photos online, I want you to know that we really did go to every single place I write about, and these articles are based on our real experiences here. Each photo is one we really took and shows our time there!

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