Learn How to Have a Splurge on Your Trip Without Busting Your Budget!
Taking a trip can feel like one big splurge. Travelers can often bust their budget early in their trip because they are so excited. $6 for a coffee? $65 for a walking tour? $22 for a t-shirt? Sure! Why not? It’s vacation!
Well, that’s why many can only vacation for a week at a time! Blowing all your extra cash on little things will leave you and your bank account drained when you get back home.
The best way to beat the budget bust is by planning your splurge event! This allows you to say “no” to unnecessary extras because you know the big event/tour/adventure is coming up. It also allows you to pay for some (or all) of that splurge in advance so you can feel confident about how much you are spending.
Our favorite splurge
Our favorite splurge event to date was an incredible day of winery hopping around Bordeaux, France. Jackie had this awesome idea to do as a birthday splurge for my 30th. We very quickly got overwhelmed by the wine country of France. Which region do you pick? In case you haven’t gone down that rabbit hole, there is literally 16 different regions which then all have towns, areas, and gorgeous wineries to go to. Check out this map. Woah.
Jackie then found the incredible people at winerist.com to help us plan our dream day. Jac is much more in tune with wines (I’m just great at drinking them) so I leaned on her to choose the area and the wineries. With the guidance from the team over at Winerist, we were able to set up a driver for the day and tours/tastings at 3 different wineries all over the Bordeaux countryside. This also included a lunch at a farm-to-table restaurant within one of the wineries. How cool?
Two main things to point out here: 1) if we can, we like to only work off of WiFi in countries that speak a lot of English. So, without the driver, getting an Uber or Taxi in between wineries would’ve been a nightmare. It also helps us to disconnect and really enjoy the experience. 2) With so many options of wineries to choose from, Winerist helped guide us towards the types of wine’s we wanted plus the experience we wanted. It made a huge difference in our special splurge.
History on Bordeaux
A little history on the Bordeaux wine region, France’s sixth largest city. The mix of old limestone buildings and modern elements make it a unique place to visit. Bordeaux’s perfect soil mix is ideal for wine making with most of the vineyards lying along the River Garonne, leading a long-time debate on which bank of the river has better wines. There are over 6300 winemakers who produce 5.7 million hectoliters of red, white, rose, and sparkling wines.
According to Lonley Planet, “The entire Bordeaux region is divided into 65 appellations (production areas whose soil and microclimate impart distinctive characteristics to the wine produced there). Each geographic subregion produces at least two or three different appellations – some produce up to a dozen.”
We will do another blog on the wineries we visited this day as well as our entire Bordeaux trip which including an incredible day trip to St-Émilion that will steal your heart and make you want to book a trip tomorrow.
As you can imagine, this type of experience was not light on the wallet. It was, however, totally doable within a budget that we planned for the trip in advance. And by far our favorite experience over this particular trip. Near the end, the driver even added an extra stop to the trip at one of his favorite wineries because he knew we would love it!
Travel tip from this: Plan a big splurge in advance and you won’t feel the need to splurge on little things throughout the rest of your trip!
Plus, you get to do incredible things like wine tasting in Bordeaux, France and not feel guilty. Double win.
Cheers to chasing our compass!
Mandy & Jackie
