It’s Time to Plan 2025 Travels

TTT Book 2025
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Meggan: Hey everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Travel Tip Tuesday with the Travel Mug Podcast. As always, I'm joined by Jenn. How are you today, Jenn?

Jenn: I am doing well. It is the holiday season, and that is one of my favorite seasons. If it can't be summer, it might as well be Christmas.

Meggan: I love that. Well, that is excellent. And I actually quite agree. Um, so today I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the year ahead. Being the holiday season, that means it is toward the end of the year. For a lot of people, putting 2024 behind them will be a blessing. So it is the perfect time to start looking ahead. In terms of travel, I just want to go over a few things. Like, what should you be thinking about? What should we be thinking about? So the first one I kind of wanted to go over was, what are your travel priorities for 2025? So as you look into the new year ahead, start to consider a few things like your budget, uh, your bucket list.

Maybe it's one of those years where you get to scratch something off. Uh, your vacation time allotment. Uh, what's happening in the state of the world that could affect your travel plans. Sadly, we have to be very conscious of that. And where you might like to spend that time. So is it near or far in 2025?

So travel priorities, number one. Number two, book weekend getaways now to get what you want. It might seem early. But it isn't. So one thing we do, especially as we get deeper into winter, and sadder in winter, um, is we start to map out weekend getaways for the year ahead. Now we don't have pets, we don't have kids to consider, so that might be a bit easier for us to just plunk down dates, but I think everyone can do this to an extent with a little bit of planning. we all know a few weekend getaways, and we've talked about this before, are good for the soul. Um, so get out your calendar. Maybe pick a few weekends around maybe birthdays so you know you won't have like a lot going on that weekend because you want to do something special or long weekends and get some stuff booked on your favorite booking site, whatever that is for you. So for us, booking early really has snagged us some amazing spots that would surely be all booked up as you get closer to spring and summer. So booking ahead has really worked in our favor. And if you find something with a great cancellation policy, and you do need to make a change, you can. So that's also something to really watch out for. , number three, start saving for later 2025 travel now. So maybe 2024 has been a busy year having spent lots of money on travel. I am definitely at this point talking about myself. More than anyone, but maybe this applies to you as well. So you are starting to think that maybe fall 2025 would be the best time for a bigger trip, so nothing sort of in that first half of the year. So if that is the case, start putting money away right now, as it really can help down the road to pay off flights if you need to book those sooner, or start saving toward those accommodation costs. If you're sticking close to home and booking weekend getaways or a week of vacation in a nearby state or province, saving this money ahead bit by bit will also take the sting out of that when the trip comes. Number four, very important if you're leaving your country, Check your passport expiry. So right now here in Canada, our postal workers are currently on strike, um, and have been for weeks. So my heart goes out to anyone who is missing out on important mail, including those who have been awaiting their passports because that is how, if you cannot get to a passport office to pick it up, it comes to you via Canada Post. So having said that, a good tip is to check your passport expiry date now. Most countries require your passport to be good for at least six months when you travel there, and it needs to be in pristine condition to be allowed to board your flight. So if your passport is tattered or within the six to tw Really to be safe, six to 10 month timeframe of expiry and you don't have travel imminently, consider going to your local passport office and getting a new one sooner rather than later. And then finally, tip number five, uh, consider closer to home travel as a vacation. So things are rough out there. You know, it's, it's a tough economy and travel for some is more of a luxury when you have so many other expenses to consider. And maybe 2025 is not your year for a big trip or any trip. And that will be a shared experience of a lot of people.

But if you do have the ability to get away, but nowhere far, consider a vacation closer to home. Of course, a staycation is always an option, but if you want to get away from the regular every day, consider a nearby city. Province, town, or state, or whatever is applicable in your country, um, for us, , for Peter and I, we feel nearby New Brunswick, which isn't far, is an amazing value that we've talked about before for the type of accommodations we've been able to find. And away from the highway, as we've also discussed, New Brunswick is really lovely. And then nearby to New Brunswick, of course, is Maine, which everyone knows we also enjoy for a nice fall trip to New Brunswick and Maine. You're not going too far, and it isn't as cost intensive because really, the travel time isn't that long. So for you, it could be within your province or state or something else even near to you, maybe a town over. It doesn't have to be anything too exotic, just don't overlook possibilities in your own neck of the woods if a big world adventure isn't in the cards for you in2025. So Jenn, having said all that, do you and Ryan have any travel plans already for 2025, or what are you hoping to plan for if not?

Jenn: Yeah, so we have nothing booked for 2025, which

Meggan: clutching my pearls.

Jenn: I know. Um, so first I need to renew my passport, which I plan to do as soon as Canada post strike is over. My passport expires in September, so you know, we're, we're around the nine month mark now. We had to cancel our usual February Florida trip. Boo. Very sad.

Uh, just some personal circumstances. So the plan right now is actually to keep an eye out for some seat sales and be flexible. So we're just going to see what happens. The plan right now is to kind of take some bigger trips in April or May and hopefully again in September and October. So I guess we'll just have to stay tuned to learn where we go because we don't know where we're going.

Meggan: Stay tuned, cannot wait.

Jenn: No idea. Um, I also want to plan a few weekend getaway trips. I've been kind of eyeing up the calendar to see when we might be able to fit those in, but we have nothing planned yet. Um, there are some Broadway shows that are like touring, so like outside of New York that I do want to see. So I hope we can make that happen, including one in Moncton. And so like. That's really not far at all. So

Meggan: No, but still a getaway, and if you get to see a show, that would be cool too.

Jenn: yeah, let's, you're just going to have to stay tuned because I don't know what I'm doing either.

Meggan: Yep, no, we don't have much in the books either. We are going to Mexico in January for a week. But past that, which gives me the jitters, um, we don't have anything planned. So hopefully we'll, uh, I'd say in the next month or two we'll hopefully pin something down. That's my hope.

Jenn: Yeah.

Meggan: So that is it for this week's Travel Tip Tuesday.

We hope you are getting ready for a bit of a break ahead as we end near 2024 and start looking into 2025. Bye! As always, if you like what we're doing here, you can support us in a few different ways. So buy me a coffee. The link is in the show notes. It would be a financial support of what we are doing here.

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