Travel
From girl's getaways to couples weekends away and family travel too. Find everything you need here on Thrifty Mommas Tips to make planning your next big adventure a breeze. Travel confidently with all of these tips and ideas for what, when and where to go. Learn to ski, go sledding on a dog sled near Tremblant, zip lining over the tree tops or snorkelling with mosquito jellyfish in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Most of this travel content has one common theme - it's all about traveling affordably for your family. If you haven't traveled, you haven't lived. Travel can be one of the greatest educational experiences undertaken in a lifetime. Seeing new areas of the world is extremely rewarding no matter how you travel or where you go. Whether you are a backpacking millennial or a cruising retiree, enjoy the content on Thrifty Mommas Tips and learn before you go, so that you can make the best of your time away. The family cruise content is comprehensive and an excellent tool if you are planning or dreaming of cruising in future. Read my in depth series that ties child sponsorship in Colombia together with travel to the South American country and then don't forget to peruse the Zambian fellowship series too. Impactful and meaningful, voluntourism serves a different purpose than a recreational family trip. But, there's quite a lot of both sustainable travel and impactful travel adventures coupled with family travel opportunities to make memories that last for years. Where will you go next and who will you take with you?
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Six Cruise Hidden Extras
Don’t get caught with cruise hidden extras!! I consider myself an educated traveller. We research before we travel and we compare prices and we try always to get the best deal for our family budget. But I didn’t anticipate some of these cruise hidden extras, so even seasoned travel experts miss some things. I read reviews and I read blogs and I ask friends about their travel experiences before I book. Sometimes I find the best possible travel deal and then I take that to an agent to have her double check I am not missing anything and I always use travel rewards cards to generate the reward points on…
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Ten Things Kids Can Do on a Cruise #TravelTuesday
Before we left for our cruise late last year we had many armchair travellers weigh in on whether we were making the right choice with our travel budget. We heard from some who said the cruise would cost us a lot more than we intended to spend. (It didn’t really.) We also heard from many who hinted it was crazy to take kids on a cruise. We heard from even more who said a cruise is a big party. One told me: “You are going on the party boat? You don’t take kids on that cruise.” Well happily here I am to say that none of that was true.…
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My Wordless Wednesday Baby Turtles in Grand Cayman #travel
Grand Cayman was my favourite port of all four stops that we made on our recent cruise. Here, in this shot you can see a little of the reason why we loved it so much. We took the entire day to explore Grand Cayman and we were not disappointed. First stop was the Grand Cayman turtle farm and hatchery where we were able to learn about turtles and interact with them. Then we snorkelled, swam, held turtles again and raced down watersides before taking a bus back to our cruise ship on the Carnival Pride. My kids were hysterical with the turtles. Some of the older sea turtles can be…
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Travel Tuesday Linky – Hair in Costa Maya, Mexico
Remember how I told you we went on a cruise? (I might have mentioned it once or twice.) Our first port was Costa Maya, Mexico. We have been to Mexico several times. Most recently I was there with my older daughter visiting Puerto Vallarta back in June for a media trip. This time we parachuted in so to speak on a short time frame. We just had the day, really. It was our first stop out of four. I mentioned Roatan here last week. We left the United States from Tampa and travelled for a full day getting used to our time at sea. We decided to take that first…
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Wordless Wednesday – Ready to Dive In – Family Travel in Belize
This was our last day of 2014. We took a chance and disembarked the cruise ship and set aside the entire day to explore Belize with a tour guide, of course. Our first stop was a small speed boat that led us out into the ocean to explore a reef together. The four of us snorkelled together. My husband loved this excursion. It was his first time snorkelling. This is Payton. my oldest daughter, getting ready to explore family travel in Belize. This is her right before she hopped in and remembered salt water stings your eyes and had a small meltdown. Back on board she found a towel, wiped…
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Travel Tuesday Roatan Honduras Selfie #Linky
It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time to link up your awesome travel photos or blog posts and share the love of travel with each other. This was my magical travel moment he first week of January. Midway through our recent cruise I woke to find this! Magical and amazing. We sailed all night and slept like babies and woke to find we were in this gorgeous place we had never been before – Mahogany Bay, Roatan, Honduras. Honduras alone was captivating to me as a first time visitor. I hope to return to see more of this beautiful travel destination. Perhaps, a resort trip awaits another time. I’ve been basking…
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Top Ten Reasons We Will Take Family Cruises Again #travel
We always avoided family cruises, at least up until this past month when we took our first ever family cruise and we were hooked immediately. Family cruises can be budget friendly and worth the time and effort. Here are my top ten reasons why we will take family cruises again. Top Ten Reasons to Take Family Cruises. 1. The service is exceptional. Incomparable. The closest I can compare there experience to is staying at a Disney resort. That’s how well taken care of you are. The staff ratio to tourist ratio was something like 1 to 3. It was outrageous how much I loved having my room cleaned twice daily…
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Why I am Hooked on Cruising – Our First Cruise
e have travelled a fair bit as a family and yet we have always avoided cruising. Why? Well, I always thought it was a lot of work booking the cruise, then the flight and then figuring out all the logistics. I also thought it was too expensive. My husband has always been reluctant to cruise because of rumours we heard from friends. We heard that you wait for everything because of the number of people. We heard that the rooms are way too small and they make you feel claustrophobic. We wondered out loud if we would all get seasick. I wasn’t sure. I have a finicky stomach and I worried a…
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Our First Cruise #WordlessWednesday
We ended 2014 and started 2015 with our first cruise together ever. It was fantastic. Service was amazing and there was always something to do. The ports were stunning and the excursions each topped the next until we landed in Grand Cayman near the end of the trip and it was beyond gorgeous. This is my Wordless Wednesday post. It’s hard to be wordless about something so incredible. This is my new favourite form of family travel. It was our first cruise ever, but I am pretty sure it won’t be our last. Our first impression here the day we boarded ship was OH my goodness we can’t believe how…
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New Feature Tuesday Travel Photo #linky – Leaving Tampa
I don’t know if I can even put into words how much I love active family travel. We just returned from a New Year’s cruise. It was our first cruise ever and after a week at sea I am slowly getting my land legs back. My heart is still warm from the time spent with family and the many awesome excursions we did together. Swimming with stingrays on a reef just along the coast of Belize rocked. Snorkelling alongside my husband and daughters while stingrays, looking prehistoric and unfazed by our presence, swam just beneath us was something we all needed more than I can ever explain. This winter and…