Traveling has always been an interest of mine. I was fortunate to grow up in a world where I was able to travel on a pretty regular basis. Whether it was to visit family, go to a competition, or even for a vacation. It made me comfortable with going to new places and discovering the cultures of those places. Now, I just want to travel all the time! My ultimate Bon Voyage with Bri bucket list would be to visit every single country on this planet. While that is a pretty hefty goal, I will try my hardest to make it happen.

The Inspiration

I was inspired to start this blog, Bon Voyage With Bri, due to recently booking a trip to Ireland. Like I said, I have traveled all of my life, mostly within the U.S., but I have traveled to England, Canada, and Mexico before as well. The trips I have taken have always been with my parents or traveling by myself to visit family and/or friends. I have never really just taken a trip by myself, not just to fly there by myself. But to actually stay in a new place and just travel around it all by my lonesome. I also want to note that I haven’t done this due to not wanting to, but I am barely 22 years old, so there really hasn’t been much time to take a trip without family or friends up until this point.

The First Idea

About 5 months ago, I was sitting in my car while on a lunch break at work. I wasn’t really doing anything specific, just scrolling through Facebook and Pinterest on my phone. Then I kept seeing different travel photos, a lot of which were about Ireland. Ireland has always been a place that is high on my bucket list, so seeing all of these posts about it inspired me. I started looking at how much tickets were to travel there.

What I found was what is to be expected out of Arizona, about $1200, but then an ad popped up about a tour of Ireland. I clicked on it just to see how much they were charging and what all was included to give me some more budgeting options. Then I saw that for this tour company, you didn’t have to pay the entire amount all at once, but make monthly payments instead. After looking at it for about 5 more minutes, and almost booking the tour, I realized that my 30 minutes were up and it was time for me to go back to work.

Booking the Trip

While at work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the trip I had just looked over, and almost booked without even doing research on the company. I normally do A LOT of research before buying anything, so it was pretty out of character for me. After mentioning it to a couple of people who were working with me, they all said to just book it. When I got home I did a little more (ok a lot more) research on the company. I also did some budgeting to make sure it was doable. Then went to a hockey game that night and talked to my mom about the trip; she was also telling me to book it. I don’t think she thought I was that serious about it. The next night we went to another hockey game, and to her amazement, and mine, I ended up booking my Ireland trip!

Within less than 48 hours, I went from not even thinking about taking a big overseas trip anytime soon to having one booked and a deposit down. I mean how crazy is that?! At that point in time, I booked the trip 11 months in advance, simply because with my school and internship schedule there was no time any earlier than that. I was still and am still so excited to have actually just booked it. The tour itself is spending 10 days traveling around Ireland. I extended the trip a week before and a week after so that I could travel around Europe a little.

Conclusion

So there you have it. I have always loved to travel, and I was inspired to start this blog by my recent booking of a trip to Ireland. Wanting to show people that traveling is doable no matter what your financial situation is. By just doing some research, making a budget, and sticking to the plan. I have also learned that it is true when people say, “In the end, if you want to travel, you just have to book it”. Traveling is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. I hope that Bon Voyage with Bri will inspire people to travel and that I will give helpful money saving tips, and awesome travel experiences to the readers!