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Why Don’t Worry About Money and Just Travel is the Worst Article of All Time

Caye Caulker Belize

Nothing to see here. These chairs are not for you.

There’s one travel article that really needs to be written. It’s a column we’ve had on the back burner for quite some time and it’s titled “Why ‘Don’t Worry About Money and Just Travel’ is the Worst Advice of All Time.” Unfortunately, the piece recently published by Time.com under that same headline is not at all what we had in mind.

If only its author, Chelsea Fagan, had attempted to address the title question her story may have stood as a useful tonic against some of the more irresponsible financial advice that sometimes passes for lifestyle wisdom these days. Instead, she chose to use most of her 1,100 words to rail against a single rich blogger’s privilege. Entertaining, perhaps, in the way that watching a temper tantrum can sometimes be but about as illuminating.

Worse is that rather than tearing down the travel finance myth her title promises, the article instead enthusiastically perpetuates another, more common, myth: that only the very rich can travel. Reading Ms. Fagan you’re left with the impression that there are only two economic classes in America. On one end of the financial divide are wildly wealthy trust fund kids represented by travel bloggers who want for nothing but self-awareness. On the other end are huddled masses living lives of complete immiseration. That’s it. 

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The value of reading the fine print

Highlighting added by EverywhereOnce

Highlighting added by EverywhereOnce

It’s as easy to do as it is to overlook. But consistently paying close attention to details is something that has easily saved us thousands (or is it tens of thousands?) of dollars over the years. That’s especially true when taking advantage of special rates that increasingly come booby-trapped with unexpected fees.

Today’s example comes courtesy of Ryanair, a well known champion of loading their teaser fares with hidden fees. One such fee we hadn’t encountered before is Ryanair’s requirement that passengers check-in and print their boarding passes prior to arriving at the airport. This is an especially tricksy surcharge considering how common it is to get your boarding passes from an agent or a kiosk at the airport.

But if you’re flying Ryanair and show up at the airport without printing your boarding pass beforehand, that simple oversight will cost you an extra €45 / £45 per ticket. Had we not read this little detail in our confirmation e-mail, the flight we thought was going to run a mere €38 would have cost us more than double that amount.

Paying twice as much for something is a pretty steep penalty for not reading the fine print. Unfortunately we’re encountering more stuff like this all the time.

How Not to Achieve Balance in Your Life

In what has to be the most dystopian ad campaign ever, Microsoft has released a new info-graphic demonstrating how we can fill all of those unproductive moments in our lives with something totally worthwhile, like meetings. 

Work on vacation

It goes without saying that everyone wants to work on vacation, because what’s the point of going someplace different if you can’t swaddle yourself in the same exact bullshit you deal with every other day of your life?

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Four Finds for (Female) Travelers

Shannon with Backpack

Refining the contents of my backpack is a process that will last as long as I’m on the road. With space at a premium, every item that goes into the bag has to be well thought out. I’ve downsized and streamlined, but I’m always on the lookout for resourceful products that make packing easier and take up less room.

Here are a few of my favorite finds:

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Get $40 Off Your Next Booking With Hotels.com

Please Note: This offer has expired.

Well, this is timely. We just published an article describing our process for Finding the Perfect Hotel Room in which we said that our final stop is always Hotels.com. Just now we got an e-mail from the company offering a $40 off coupon for new users of the site. The offer is only available to people who have never booked with or received an e-mail from Hotels.com. And it’s only valid on bookings of $300 or more. But if you meet those criteria, you can get a $40 off coupon through this link.

Redeem Your $40 Hotels.com Coupon

One of the big reasons we tend to book more often with Hotels.com than with any other booking site is because of their Welcome Rewards loyalty program. It’s basically a 10% off program for frequent travelers. And because Hotels.com will match any other publicly available price on the internet, you can pretty much guarantee you’re paying 10% less than the best available price. Oh, and with this offer you can now pay $40 less than that as well.

P.S. If you click through the “Redeem Your $40 Coupon” button and it doesn’t bring you to the following screen, that means you’ve already been cookied by Hotels.com. 

$40 Hotels.com Coupon