Travel Support Thursday

Welcome back to Travel Support Thursday, number 10.

It's so nice to be back.

One.

We were gone for a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I feel like we need to celebrate the backness of this,

you know, being back at home.

I feel like we got to celebrate the being backness of this, right?

Like, it's exciting.

Back at home.

Back covered from our cold.

Yes, all that stuff.

And there's only one right way to celebrate that, you know.

Travel Thursday.

Wow. Travel Thursday.

We're back from New Zealand.

And we have a new channel.

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on this main channel, just kind of put all of our stuff in one home.

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in our three days and X videos.

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hey, where are your three days and X videos?

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You're releasing too many of these.

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Right back in business making these things every single Thursday,

answering your questions.

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And the jingle lives on and the jingle and the jingle lives on.

So all future Travel Support Thursdays as well as all the

previous ones, all of them are moving over to that new channel.

This is going to be the last one that's right here on the main

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to say like, Hey, go on over there.

Going over there to the podcast channel today on our 10th

Travel Support Thursday.

We're answering your questions about where to stay when you're

in Japan.

We're talking about new boarding policies for airlines and what

we learned from our New Zealand camper trip.

So our first question comes from Bethany Hopkins 1495 who asks,

do you have any recommendations on where to stay in Japan for

first time one week trip hotels versus VRBO rentals?

She's flying from Honolulu.

Cool.

I mean, I guess there's a lot of different ways you can tackle

this question.

Is it questions about where physically you should stay like

what locations, what city in the entire country or is it the

hotel versus like, is this accommodations question?

So I can say concretely that if it was my first time going to

Japan and I only had a week, I would spend that week in Tokyo.

That's where I would go.

My first solo trip was to Japan and I think I did about a week

and I think I, I mean, it was a jam packed week, but I spent

three days in Tokyo, three days in Osaka and two days in Kyoto.

So that's like eight days.

That's so fast.

And then I made my way back to Tokyo on the way back and flew

out.

Okay.

So it is really, really fast, but I think it's very doable,

especially if you've only got a week.

Yes.

But I think the more interesting question is like, would I stay

in VRBO versus what I stay in Airbnb or what, what would I do?

And so we have, I think we've solved this.

So after all of our trips to Japan, we've kind of like circled

into this idea that the right way to do it for us, at least

is to stay at a hotel that has an onsen built into it.

Or sento.

Or a public bath as they call them.

And there are a couple of different brands of hotels that

have these that are in like the budget category and one of

them is definitely Dormi in and we love the Dormi in hotels.

We've heard that a lot of these hotels actually, if you sign up

for their like rewards program, if you could figure out how

to like do the translations and sign up, you get discounts

actually.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's great.

And there's also this new kind of new chain called super

hotels that also has onsen built into all these, depending

on where you stay in the country or somewhere between like

55 and $110 per night.

They're all like right in that range of hotels.

And it's so insanely luxurious.

Yes.

To just access to this like public bath onsen that I would

honestly give up any other hotel perk, including literally

a comfortable bed.

To start with the hotels in Japan are just next level.

And I think I, I never grew up loving hotels to be honest.

When my family and I would travel, I dreaded staying in

hotels and maybe it was because they were always like hotel

aides, motel aides, whatever they're called, you know,

and they weren't the only hotel that I really felt remotely

interested in was double tree because they had chocolate chip

cookies and they were warm.

But I always ended up, this is going to sound really, really

gross, but I always ended up invariably with an eye infection

or some kind of like some kind of bug bite something that just

didn't make me sleep well.

So I craved home.

I hated going to hotels.

And then we started traveling in Asia and Japan specifically.

The hotels are, you know, they're, they're, they're tiny,

but they're efficient and they're super clean.

They're super detail oriented.

Like the amenities is really next level.

Like every single hotel we've stayed at in Japan, you get,

you get access to little combs, toothbrushes, base lotion,

face toner, like all these things plus the public bath.

And do you remember that place in Oita that we stayed at that

literally gave you noodles at night before you go to bed?

They just made you fresh noodles and you could just go down

and get them and they were absolutely delicious.

That was a Dormien, by the way.

Yes.

So Dormien, I mean, trust me, we aren't sponsored by them or

anybody else, but they, we just, we just love their style of

hotel.

I think they really focus on the things we care about, which

are these like cool amenities, the public bath, things like

that, and they absolutely cut back and basically every other

way of stuff that we don't care about.

And that's perfect.

And I know that a lot of people care about space and like where

to put things in.

Some people complain a lot about like the size of hotel rooms

in Japan, but I actually think like if we're in Japan, we're,

we're using the room to sleep essentially and, and everything

else.

So, so for us, having that space isn't really that much of a

necessity, but having access to the amenities is really, really

cool, especially the ones that have the public bath.

Yes.

Also, I have a lot of feelings about this one.

It's just, I love, can you tell?

I love hotels now.

I forgot to talk about the robes, the slippers that you get.

I mean, just we may or may not have a few of those slippers

that we took from those various hotels.

Just our next level.

They take care of you.

They take care of you.

So the other part of the question.

Airbnbs, VRBOs, et cetera.

So I think the hostels in Japan are over, are great.

All of them are great.

If that's the type of budget you're on.

Yes.

Yeah.

Airbnb and VRBO, unless you got a group of like five or larger,

I don't think it makes financial sense to go with it, nor

does it make comfort sense to go with it.

I think a lot of the like Airbnb slash VRBO and VRBO is not a

big thing there.

I'd really look at Airbnb first just for availability.

There's just, it's always some like really old apartment and

generally some area of the city that you don't necessarily

want to stay in.

And I think with all the fees now, cleaning fees, service fees,

like it just doesn't, it doesn't offer you that much difference.

I mean, we've definitely stayed in Airbnb's with friends in

Tokyo, I think specifically.

Yeah.

But like what we got for what it was really, really, we got

the Airbnb so that we could all hang out together.

And that was the primary purpose, but the rooms themselves

and the place itself didn't offer that much, much more.

No, no, not really much at all.

Especially for the price.

Yeah.

Like I think that this like hotel with the documentaries and

the built in Onsen, I think that that's as good as it gets

for traveling to Japan.

There are a lot of different options in Japan across the

entire country and specifically in the bigger cities like

Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, it depends largely on if you're traveling

by yourself or you're traveling with other people.

But I think we're definitely, especially for the two of us,

we're definitely into the hotel category.

But I think one thing that I don't know, I think everybody

should try once at least in Japan are the capsule hotels.

Oh, those are really cool.

Yeah.

I wouldn't stay a week in a capsule hotel.

Maybe not.

I would stay one night just to be like experienced.

That was fun.

Or if I'm like the night before I fly out, capsule hotels

are perfect for that.

Yeah.

But a week in a capsule hotel, I think would be a bit much.

Well, but the only reason I say that is because when you're

solo traveling, like I stayed exclusively in capsule hotels

because it didn't make sense for me to pay, you know, $100

a night, $80 a night for a big hotel room when it was just me.

So I loved the, the, I, I loved the availability of just rooms

or bunk beds or just a small space to sleep in every single

night, a place to store my luggage.

And a lot of them also happen to have the amenities that we

talk about.

Oh, right.

Like the public baths.

Yes.

The lotion.

Especially the one in Osaka that we stayed at.

Skincare.

Yes.

Skincare there.

Amazing.

I just, I can't get over it.

And we almost, I would say we almost always use Agoda or Google

to look at the areas that we want to stay in Japan and almost

always Agoda and booking directly through the hotel has been

the cheapest.

Yeah.

It's, it's one or the other always.

And it can be sometimes hard to find these hotels website.

So if you use like hotels.google.com, it'll search all of the

other various booking things.

Like on the last one that we booked from on the last one that

we had, it was much cheaper through price line.

And explainably, I would have never checked there, not in a

million years, but, uh, but that tool searches all of them for

you.

So I think that that's how we'd approach it.

Probably like a couple of days in Tokyo, a couple of days in

Osaka, a couple of days in Kyoto.

It'd be a whirlwind of a trip and then trying to stay at like

one of those Dormians or APAs so that way you have access to

an onsen as often as frequently possible.

Yeah.

I think that's how we'd approach it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny that you say that that's a whirlwind trip and

literally we have a three days in Tokyo video and a five days

in Osaka and Kyoto video.

Yeah.

Just saying.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know that, I know that not everybody

has a lot of time.

In fact, we frequently don't have a ton of time to do these

things, but yeah, you're just going to be like, go, go,

go, go, go every single day, you know, and after a week you'd

probably be, you'd probably still be good, but if you did like

two straight weeks of that pace, you'd probably be pretty

burned out, pretty burnt out.

Okay.

That's our approach.

Yeah.

We love the hotels in Japan end of story.

For sure.

For sure.

Okay.

So what about these new, what about?

Oh, yes.

New airline boarding procedures.

Okay.

Tell me the story.

Lisa found.

So I've been loving finding these articles, travel adjacent

articles, but this one, this one caught my attention because

some of the, some of the headlines here are pretty, pretty

divisive.

United Airlines is changing their boarding procedures.

So some of the headlines, new United plan for economy class

boarding, window seats first, aisle seats last, United's

boarding changes explained, aisle seats go last.

I mean, aisle seat.

People are going to hate this, but I am a dedicated aisle seat

person to the core.

Yes.

You know, but I don't care when I get.

On.

Well, I don't know.

So starting October 26th, which is today, today, travel

Thursday, United basic economy ticket holders, all those who

have window seats will board first, then comes the middle

seat people, then comes the aisle seat.

And all of this is because United has determined that this

process will save boarding time by two minutes.

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it sounds more efficient, but also I think it's

going to be chaos for at least the first.

I hate it.

Yeah.

Cause imagine if you're like traveling with your kids or

your partner or whatever.

And you're just like, well, see you later.

And then you're just trusting your like six year old to walk

on the plane by himself and get into the seat by himself

without you there.

Like what about those who have disabilities or what of the

elderly are traveling?

And so United specifically says that the process for people

traveling with children, people that are traveling,

unaccompanied minors, people with disabilities, people

traveling with families, they will still get priority

boarding.

And of course, I think people in the first class will get

priority, but then everyone else will follow kind of this

group method and maybe it won't feel that different except

like we'll look at our tickets and maybe because I like

window, I'll be like in group three, which is the next one

and you'll be in group five.

Right.

Yeah, and I'll just say bye to you.

It seems so, I just don't understand because it's not the

most efficient way to board like you'd think the most

efficient way to board a plane would be all the way from

the back to all the way in the front.

And if you had some way to just tell people all the way in

the back to start, then you could just have the other

people feeling because what takes the longest is people

like put stuff overhead and taken forever to do it and

then never sitting down and people not being able to get

passed to people who are further back or people want to go

to the bathroom.

It's all that and you kind of alleviate all that by just

boarding from back to front.

Yeah.

But they also, I don't know who cares about this.

I guess I don't is like what order you get on the plane?

Like why are there boarding groups at all?

Like who cares in what like who cares if you get, why would

anyone care that they care about what order?

I don't know.

There's something for me.

I don't understand it at all why that would be like it's like

a status symbol of course, but well sure status for what

you're just like sitting on this cold airplane for five

minutes longer than other people and sure it does guarantee

that you'll have like more overhead bin space for all

your stuff, but nobody brings stuff for the overhead anymore

because it costs a billion dollars to do so.

I don't know.

For me, there's something about getting on the plane and

just sitting there and and it's not even about like it's

not even about being being able to be the first one.

It's this feeling of I want to get settled.

I want to get settled.

I want to put away all my things.

I have a process of like putting things underneath my seat.

I have a process for taking out all my headphones, all my

gear just so I can feel ready and I hate I hate being the

straggler.

I hate being the one that's like everybody's already all

settled and I have to like squeeze in.

So maybe some of this will be alleviated, you know, by by

letting, you know, the middle seat people go first.

Yeah, but still you're going to get like a guy in row 12 or

whatever who's all the way at the window and then there's

also going to be someone right behind them who's in row 27

and they still have to wait for row 12 guy to get all of his

stuff sorted before they can go and do it where they can go

and like sit in their seat.

It just I don't I could see how it would add more efficiency

than what they're doing right now, which is basically just

like everybody on the boat.

Well, based on your they're kind of doing it efficiently

based on like location still.

But yeah, there's always going to be.

It's just based on how much money you paid right now.

That's all it is.

Is there fair class?

So if you pay for first class, you're on first and if you're

in basic economy, you're the last group, but you could be

anywhere on the plane except for in the first class cabinets.

So like so they just say like everybody on and it doesn't

matter if you're row 10 on a window seat or if you're row

57 in an aisle seat or whatever.

Everybody just I just always assumed that they boarded the

groups based on location of the plane.

I never thought about that.

Yeah, no, it's all just how much money you paid.

Oh, how fancy your ticket is gets you the group or if you

have like a credit card or if you have status with them or

think it's all based on like these like social status

markers way more than it is about efficiency.

So I think anything they do now is better than just then

just everybody get on.

But still, I think this is just going to cause more confusion

for a very little gain and it's also going to like split

people.

I think it's going to make people upset.

It's the most.

I think that's the most.

I mean, it sounds to me like two minutes and I obviously

don't understand the world of flying and getting passengers

on board in the time frame.

The timelines two minutes to me doesn't sound like a lot,

but this article is talking about how every minute counts

and every amount of efficiency matters.

And so when your flight attendants are saying sit down,

sit down, like just sit down, you know, like because the flight

attendants aren't getting paid until the doors are closed

and they can't close the doors until everyone's in their

seat.

Is that right?

Yeah.

So they their pay doesn't start getting you on the plane.

It's when the doors close to when the doors reopen.

That's that's when they clock in and out.

Gosh, I would love to hear if any of you out there are flight

attendants, please chime in and tell us your thoughts on this

because I assume that you guys have to deal with so so much

stuff on a daily basis.

Yeah.

And I would love to hear your perspective.

And also would love to hear all of your thoughts.

What would you do if you if you're flying United starting

today and from here on this applies to like all domestic

and also I think to some flights in Central and South America.

Hmm.

It just it's like one other thing to think about when you're

flying this airline, you know, like with with Southwest,

for example, you know that it's just going to be everyone's

going to be in a big line and you're going to sit wherever

wherever you understand that goes.

But with United, they understand why they did it.

But I think with how many exceptions there are to how

this thing works, I just think people are used and it's just

going to end up taking longer.

Just in case you're flying United.

The process for preboarding groups such as unaccompanied

minors, people with disabilities, families with small

children and active duty military members won't change.

And it also unremains and it also remains unchanged for

boarding groups one through three, which I assume is like

first class.

Fancy people.

Not a four will now be reserved for passengers with

middle seats.

Group five will be exclusively for those with aisle seats.

I just keep thinking back to, you know how sometimes airlines

in Europe, they board from both the front and the back at

the same time and really it just causes like absolute mass

chaos because for some reason people when they're getting

on a plane can't figure out am I on the back of a boat or

am I on the front?

So then there's just people trying to walk all the way from

the back of the plane all the way to the front and it just

makes the whole thing like it should be objectively way

more efficient.

But then you're always like trying to cross and there's

like two directions, two schools of fish going.

Yeah, and there shouldn't be, but it happens anyway.

I just think that like that problem is going to happen,

but like 10 X with this United said that since 2019,

their boarding times have gone up by two minutes.

So they're hoping this new policy will shave those two

minutes and they've tested at five different airports.

I don't know how many flights.

They've tried that, but they said they found that it was

faster.

Okay, well, good for them experience it.

Let us know in the comments below experiences new boarding

thing that's starting today.

So yeah, it's called what Wilma.

I'm guessing I know I've been sitting here trying to window

I'll well I L.

Windows in last no last.

I assume L stands for last, but I don't know.

M stands for middle a file.

Yeah, it's just window window middle aisle.

So what's the I in the L?

Who knows?

Are we missing something obvious here about how this acronym

works or I just I feel real dumb that I can't figure out

when we mail.

Wilma.

No, it's Wilma, but it but it's yeah, I know.

I know it's not maybe it's secretive.

We just got back from three weeks in New Zealand driving

around a camper van all the way from Christchurch down to

Queenstown all the way across the ferry and then all the way

up to Auckland basically the entire country from south

and it was a beautiful time.

We had an amazing time there and we're actually just about

to fly off to Singapore and then Bangkok and then a handful

of other places to start filming season two of this like

three days and X series we've been making currently

currently deep deep deep in the cave for editing the three

weeks in New Zealand video it'll be out sometime hopefully

this weekend.

We're hoping we don't we just don't want to rush it.

You know, we don't want to rush it.

It's a big video three weeks.

It's how do you encapsulate three weeks in such a beautiful

country like New Zealand?

I don't know, but we got to try.

We are we are in the process of figuring that out anyway.

Yes, what we really wanted to talk about is three things

that we thought went really well three things that we thought

that we like nailed on this trip to New Zealand that we had

and then three things that we would do totally different.

Yeah, three three things that basically we screwed up.

Yeah, which of which there's many more than three.

So let's start with one good thing one one.

So the first good thing that I think of is that the actual

camper van that we got sassy which you guys will be introduced

to sassy very soon in this video amazing can't wait for you

to meet you can't wait for you all to meet each other.

This camper van was just the perfect size and price and just

the perfect vehicle I think for two people to go around New

Zealand we got what was called a chubby camper van which is

like a kind of big mini van with a bed in the back that can

also turn into a little like table thing.

It's a Toyota.

It's a Toyota highest and for those of you who have watched

our channel from the beginning you'll know that we've not

necessarily had the best of luck with van life in the past

understatement.

I mean there was the very first V one clunk clunk good old

clunk clunk that we built out during the pandemic at the

cabin and wow she was beautiful and it was a it was a really

really fun journey to build that with your parents but she

just didn't have it in her to keep going.

No the sprinter was just not not working version two was not

too long ago a couple of years ago when we spent a nice I don't

know how long it was even a week two weeks was supposed to be

a month in Australia traveling in a camper van unfortunately

gosh the weather the floods and the van just was not not

working for us it did not end so well and then the third time

good old sassy third time's a charm.

Yeah third time's a charm.

Everything went well for the first time in our van life

history something like catastrophic that's maybe an

overstatement but some really gigantic terrible thing did

not happen during the process and I think we started to get

into a groove of it and we'll talk about this more later and

I think in of course in the video but I think the camper

van journey while it does bring a lot of challenges for sure

it's definitely not glamorous camper vanning.

No it allowed us to see a lot of New Zealand in a lot of cool

ways and experience the camping lifestyle.

Yeah absolutely bad thing.

The time of year we went our first our first mistake we made

I think was this time of year we went not from a pricing

perspective we got a crazy good deal on the camper van that

we got but it rained a third of the time we were there maybe

a half of the days we were there it was raining very

frequently.

I think there were definitely a lot of times as we were

traveling through like questioning did we just pick the

wrong time of year to come is this weather normally like this

I mean we experienced a lot of extreme weather unfortunately

and we know in New Zealand has unpredictable weather and

there's a lot of changes that have happened in the climate

in general but it felt like there were times where.

Yeah maybe we should have pushed back our trip a little

bit so we went we went in September we spent the entire

month of September in New Zealand which is kind of like

their shoulder season.

It's generally colder at night like it dipped down to like

the 30s sometimes yeah maybe sometimes colder some days it

would snow some days it would rain I think hey yeah but

that's what I think that's what you get when you when you

choose the off season right like the campsites were almost

always empty or they were almost always available they're

really affordable if I had to do it again I do it like right

now end of October early November yeah I think this

will be the perfect time it's much drier during this time

of year much warmer another like month and a half later and

you're kind of getting into summer now yeah it would also

be a lot busier and maybe a little bit more expensive but

I think that we would have been able to do something every

day instead of losing the days that we did because we were

just waiting out torrential rainstorms or other things

that were blocking the path good thing number two so a thing

that we learned that we didn't know at first was that there

are so many good free campsites if you're if you have a

self-contained sticker which if you are going to New Zealand

you absolutely have to get one of those in a van yeah it's

like a sticker that goes on the front and back of the camper

van that says basically that you have a toilet inside of your

camper van as well as a gray water tank and that's called

self-contained and then that opens up this huge world of

free campsites that you can stay at there are hundreds

maybe even thousands of them throughout the country and

there were so many just staggeringly beautiful campsites

and so many free I mean we we made a couple of mistakes in

the very beginning just staying at holiday parks and the

holiday parks are incredible right they come with all the

like amenities they've got the power they've got the hot

showers but we found as we were driving that the $30 or $40

which you know is terrible that we'd spend on some of these

nice holiday parks was just not not worth it because then

you could stay at some of these incredibly beautiful like on

the water on the mount on the water next to a glacier spot

for free or for $10 sometimes yeah it was amazing so many

good campsites in fact so good that we actually could have

done our entire three week trip there without paying for a

single campsite the entire time some of them were empty

gravel parking lots but incredibly close to the water

you know but they were they were incredible like for us I

think we're learning to that we don't need necessarily the

all the comforts when we're driving or camper banning as

long as you have a bathroom I'm pretty good so that leads on

to mistake number two of our New Zealand trip here which is

that we drove a ton and we were in a hurry yes almost the

entirety of the time because of just how big the country is

how slow the driving is everywhere you go and just how

much we wanted to see I think the mistake here is that we just

underestimated how challenging driving gear would be and

underestimated how much time we would need to see New Zealand

and I know that's the quintessential problem when we're

doing these travel when we're doing these trips and travel

in general especially if you're from the US you have a limited

amount of time but and you want to see everything but as a

result then you're you know you're you're driving many many

hours at a time you're constantly moving you can't really

enjoy sweet moments because you're just hopping to the next

yeah and that's what we were doing all the time and I think

to try to fix this I think we would have tried to do less

I think we would have tried to do less try to jam pack less

things in and we were just like we're on such a tight time

schedule that we would like show up in a place without even

considering the weather before we got there and then we'd get

there and it just be like pouring rain and we just couldn't

do that thing so we ended up wasting a day just because

we're in such a hurry and we didn't really think so I mean

even as you're saying that though it's so hard because I

think it brings back a lot of the conversations that we've had

in the last couple of weeks about slowing down versus trying

to seize the day and see everything because we don't

have enough time in this world it's just like that it's that

core problem like when you're traveling there's so much that

you want to you want to squeeze out every last ounce but

then you also want to see for the moment right and I think

I would have done especially in New Zealand especially on this

type of campervan trip we did way more savoring and way less

driving I think I would have tried to tackle less overall

and like limited the scope more of the trip would you have

stopped more probably we did spend we'd like drove and drove

and drove every single day every single day for hours so I

think I would have just tried to like do less try to just do

less and then go deeper into the stuff that we really like

but then I think the things that were really really

positive so this was my first time in the North Island too

so we did both the South Island we did two weeks on the

South Island and one week on the North Island which I think

was the perfect amount asterisk I wish we had more time

everywhere but on the North Island I think the surprisingly

really cool and fun things that I didn't know that I would

enjoy was Hobbiton and the glow worm case oh yeah both those

were great and both those are like mega touristy things that

generally were not overly attracted to where we like kind

of avoid but we had so much fun such a blast at both of both

those expensive as heck yes no question about it but was just

stunning and beautiful and the Hobbiton was so esoterically

nerdy and weird even though I'm not like a I've seen all the

Lord of the Rings and I know generally about the Lord of

the Rings I I was like skeptical I was like I don't know that

I want to pay that much money but as soon as I got there I was

like I'm into this I'm a Hobbit I want to live here for me it

really reminded me to not write off touristy things just

because they're touristy like things are touristy for a

reason and things are popular for a reason we know that not

everybody is going to be willing to pay things pay a lot of

money to go see attractions like that but there's something

special about for me at least there's something special

about these two experiences because they feel so specific

to New Zealand yes it was just such a cool experience such a

great experience and I would add one more onto that going to

Taipapa was definitely a big I mean that was we could have

spent days there at New Zealand's National Museum and we

normally hate museums but I think to like clump up this like

good thing number three like the North Island was where also

like I felt like I just got a a better understanding I don't

want to say good because I don't pretend to understand

completely the history and complexities of New Zealand but

it visiting Taipapa and seeing the North Island really helped

me see how New Zealand is confronting their history and

their present oh yeah like I won't go into too much detail

because I'm not a history teacher and I don't pretend to

understand what it's like to live there but New Zealand in

general and North Island specifically was where I I had

core memories of seeing every single sign in both English

and Maori English and everything yeah I think and then I had

to think about the last time I actually remember seeing I

actually remember seeing languages like that everywhere

where we live and I'm still thinking and processing you

know how to sum this up but I felt like I left New Zealand

and specifically the the North Island with this this overall

question and feeling of like what would our world look like

if we all approached our cultures the way that New Zealand

did I know this is a huge generalization but it was

incredible incredible to see every single sign in both

English and Te Reo Maori or it was incredible to see how much

celebration of Maori culture there was it wasn't just like

a you know you get a month here and that to me was like my

good thing number three yes the Glowworm caves were awesome

Hobbiton was awesome touristy spots were awesome but the

North Island and just highlighted so many parts and so many

aspects of New Zealand culture that we'd seen throughout the

entire trip just like kept it for me yeah I feel like we

really got to experience like a lot of different sides of

New Zealand culture especially once we made it to the North

Island it's very inspiring yeah super inspiring so for a

final mistake in New Zealand that we made we didn't budget

enough money at all at all spoiler alert I think a hundred

dollars per day like we try to do everywhere can work in New

Zealand but you'd be sacrificing so much by trying to make it

work that you'd just be missing out on way too much okay so

first our camper van itself was 30 bucks a day 30 us a day

yeah that's a really good deal a campsite each night if you did

decide to pay for that would be somewhere between like twenty

twenty five dollars per night we could have done it for free

but we didn't yes and then gas per day if you're driving as

far as we did was like 50 to 60 dollars US per day yeah that

was probably the if you just had those things up you're already

at a hundred dollars per day no food definitely no restaurants

definitely can't afford to go to Milford Sound definitely can't

afford to do Hobbiton or you know any of the other things

yeah all you're doing is just driving all day every day

staying in free campsites and eating probably like spaghetti

for dinner every single night that is the hundred dollar per

day budget and I think you'd just be sacrificing too much of

the experience to try to know but at like a hundred twenty

or a hundred thirty dollars per day I think that opens up the

possibilities a lot more and that's just like a couple hundred

more dollars than we brought than we normally would yeah so

well and I think there's something different about a three

week trip versus a three day trip anywhere like in a three

day trip you're not traveling every single day you're not

taking a train every single day you're not you're not driving

every single day so I think trying to see a big country

and a place like New Zealand requires just more time and

more budget yeah more time or budget I think it's doable if

all you wanted to do was drive and see New Zealand and go on

hikes because there are a ton a ton of free things to do for

sure like free camping free hikes free museums you know

there's so many incredible free things to do in New Zealand

but yeah I think for us we're learning that there are

definitely some experiences that we just didn't want to miss

out on and so that required more of a budget than we planned

for yeah absolutely and we got to see a lot of really really

cool epic yeah such a great time that we had in New Zealand

we can't wait to show you guys this video that's coming out

soon that is it for today's episode again please hop on

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we'll see you next Thursday bye bye