My dream vacations for 2 for under $4,200 including everything!

Amalfi Coast, Italy - Credit: Creative Commons from Chris&Steve

Oregon Coast- credit: Creative Commons from JoeDuck

Yangtze River, China- Credit: Creative Commons from Skype Nomad

Hawaii- credit: Creative commons from Mark J P

$4,200 is a lot of money, I know. However, when we are talking a DREAM vacation for two people, it is quite reasonable. (Okay, so maybe a dream vacation would have no budget or limits..but this is for Dreams that this teacher on a budget would like to actually make come true).  I plan to budget about $350/ month between my husband and myself to make many vacation dreams in the future a reality. I hope to go on dream vacations about once a year. In order to do this, I frequently use travel sites to plan out my dream vacations to the dollar to make this work. I scan flights, hotels, priceline, hotwire, restaurants, menus, excursions, transportation and add up the amount it would cost to take such trips. In the future on this blog, I will show you many trips you can take...and how much it is possible to take them for. Keep in mind, when I include airfare in budget it will be from Atlanta, since that is where I live. Therefore, some travel destinations will cost a bit more or a bit less depending on where you are flying out of. All the other costs will remain the same. In the mean time, I would like to introduce you to the places I would love to visit in my lifetime, some of which will be included in my future dream vacation itinerary s on this blog.

Santorini : Greek Isles- credit: creative commons from BruceHH

Better Bidding for all your Hotwire and Priceline bidding needs

I very rarely ever spend more than $100 including tax on a hotel room. I stay in 3 star and better hotels in cities and near beaches. I have www.hotwire.com and www.priceline.com's name your own price tool to thank for this. They allow you to book extremely discounted hotels. There is a catch though; while you know the star rating, general location, and amenities of the hotel, you can not find out the actual hotel you are staying at until after you have paid for and booked it, and there are no refunds. This makes using these websites a bit of a gamble. Even if you put in 3 star hotels, some 3 star hotels get downright pitiful ratings on www.tripadvisor.com and other review sites. This is where a very useful site comes in to play.

www.betterbidding.com is a site where people who have used Hotwire and Priceline go and enter their winning bids, along with what specifics they entered, and amenities were shown. This really helps narrow down what hotel you will likely win, so you have a better idea of the hotel you most likely will get. I almost always get the hotel that Betterbidding says I will most likely get, and I am able to look on TripAdvisor ratings before booking that hotel. If using Priceline, you will also know about what price to bid on the hotel you are looking for based on previous guest's wins. 

It is easy to understand once you visit the site, so do so now!

An example of how betterbidding helped me is that is showed me there was only one 2 1/2 star hotel off Savannah Hwy in Charleston on Priceline's name your on price...the Best Western. Knowing this, I was almost 100% sure that if I bid on that zone, I'd get that hotel. The Tripadvisor reviews checked out on the hotel, so I bid on it for around the same cost of previous winning bids (as seen on betterbidding). Sure enough, I won  the hotel at a 40% discount off the other hotels. 

getting to enjoy Charleston thanks to affordable hotel rates at Better Bidding!

Go check it out for yourself and never pay full price for a hotel!

The best website to begin your journeys

I kinda sorta always wanted to be a travel agent growing up, but let's face it...with the abundance of web sites available to even the least tech-savvy individuals on the internet, the business of an agency storefront is dying, and has given way to an abundance of travel sites. I have experience with many of the sites available, and I am going to give you a wonderful web site to visit for budget travels.

skyscanner - skyscanner.com is seriously one of the most organized travel web sites out there and is extremely easy to navigate. 

With skyscanner, you can dream of your destination, and then instead of plugging in specific dates (which you can still do) you can have skyscanner show you the best flight and hotel prices for up to a whole year to that destination! 
Maybe you have a specific time you have to travel, but are feeling a bit spontaneous about where to go. Skyscanner also allows you to input a certain date and the location you will be leaving, then shows you the cheapest flights from your state to other states and countries. It shows you the least expensive flights throughout the U.S. from your destination, and it also shows you the least expensive flights from your destination to various continents and countries. You can see flight costs from your departing city throughout the world with a simple click of a button. It is a great resource for planning budget travels. 


They also have a feature for hotels and cars. They pull the prices from most travel sites for your entered dates and show you the best prices in the area including taxes. This is great, because the same hotel at one site may be $100 cheaper than another. You can then sort the hotel search results based on prices, distance, rating, start rating, etc.. 


I love this site! I spend so much time on it planning dream vacations that I may or may not ever go on. I recommend you check it out. You will be hooked if you love planning vacations as much as I do.

A bit about "Dreaming of Traveling"

      Hi blog buddies and fellow travel enthusiasts. My name is Kristin and I have a strong passion and desire to travel the world. I dream of oceans, mountains, glaciers, beaches, culture, food, scenery, music, dancing, architecture, history, connecting, relaxing, and all the things that are truly great about traveling. While I have done some traveling in the states, it is my dream to travel to every continent and visit many, many countries throughout the world. 

      Unfortunately, I am not a millionaire, and the reality is I may not ever travel to all of these places that I fantasize about all day, every day. I realize that, but being a planner at heart, my financial and personal situations do not keep me from planning for the trips that could possibly be. One thing to know about me, that although I am a dreamer, I do like to set realistic goals. For this reason, the trips I plan do have budgets that most people could save up for. My goal in this blog is to give you resources, tips, and advice to travel for less than you thought you could. I think everyone deserves to travel and vacation, and so I hope you enjoy my tips, and finds. I will give you travel deals and tips that I find, as well as sample itinerary's to help guide you to your perfect trip. Happy travels!