Splurge

Yep. You read that right.

Splurge.

That’s my next travel tip.

And no. I don’t mean to just ignore your budget completely and go YOLO when you travel…. What I mean here is to do/go to that one thing/place you want to go to but hold yourself back because you don’t secretly grow money on your backyard.

When you decide to go to that country/city you’re going to, surely it was because something attract you to it. Right? Right?

I’m saying go do that thing.

Yes, it might be a lil (or maybe even a lot?) pricey, but if that’s what you really really want? I’d say go do it. As nike says, just do it!

But of course I’m not pushing you to go buy that designer handbag you ‘really really want’ even if you don’t actually have the means to. A little disclaimer: I am not enabling you into debt here!

Let me give you an example: When I went to Japan, I wanted to try out an onsen but afraid that the ryokan would be out of my price range… So I chose that as the splurge of my trip. Of course I didn’t go searching for those super expensive ryokan on those touristy areas. I searched for one that is fairly close to Tokyo (which I will be staying the rest of the trip) and one within my budget (or you can go beyond your initial budget! It’s really up to you!). I booked one along with the dinner and breakfast because I wanted that full experience and while that made a dent in my budget, I’m not going broke over it.

Everything in moderation they say.

The idea here is to make sure that you actually enjoy your trip. Because see, you’ve spent a considerable amount on your flight tickets so yeah, splurge on yourself. Save on other things, but do that thing you really want.

For that trip, I stayed in a fairly cheap hostel and as I already mentioned in my past article, I made sure to have a good budget for my meals but eat moderately. This way I can still keep to my budget while still enjoying the onsen and the even the full course meals at the ryokan!

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Just a head’s up. I’m trying to fix this website to get it to look the way I wanted so I’m trying out a few themes from wordpress. So if you stumbled here and when you refresh the page looks different.. this is why.

My Last Vacation

Guys, serious question. When was your last vacation? And I’m not talking about a weekend staycation here. I’m talking about that 2 weeks (or more??) vacation that took you 7 hours to get there…. I mean… That’s what I personally think of as a proper vacation at least. And yeah, I totally understand that that in itself is a privilege that not everybody has. And of course I’m not saying you have to get 2 weeks off and fly 7 hours to get a vacation, but you know what I mean. ………. Right?

My last vacation was on July 2019, which now that I think about it, was pretty close to the beginning of the pandemic….. It was not generally the time we would have our yearly family vacation, and I remember we planned it rather last minute because we had to pay an exorbitant amount for the flight since it was near the biggest holiday in Indonesia and I was almost not able to go because my work permit was expiring in less than 6 month, which mean I didn’t fulfil one of the requirements for a visa. Anw, long story short, we went to Europe.

Another long story short, what I wanted to ask was this: have you ever got sidetracked and went somewhere that you’ve never heard of before that you never even planned on going on your vacation but ended up completely in love with it? Cos I have. In that trip to Europe, during our train ride back to Brussels from Dinant, we had to make a brief stop at Namur and just made a split second decision to get out of the train and have a look around.

OK, if you live in Europe you might be thinking, how can you not know Namur? It’s such a big hub! Well, sorry, I don’t know all the towns there are in Indonesia, the country I live in, let alone Europe. Anw, Namur is such a pretty town but the place that was dear to me was this tiny little shop:

We walked quite a bit from the train station was just looking around for a place to sit when we chance on this cafe. The inside was cute… but full… so we sat outside. The thing that make it stuck in my mind so vividly? Their strawberry tart! It was easily the best strawberry tart I ever tasted! I would 10/10 go back to Namur just for that strawberry tart. So guys, if you can visit, please do visit and get their strawberry tart (if I remember correctly, their tart was outsourced locally and the person we talked to recommended it to us). If you already knew this cafe, do you also like their tart as much as I do?

If you guys have any such experiences, can you please comment down below and let me know? I’d love to know your experience!