Discipline and consistency are the keys to success 🔑🌷

Issue 10: 11 minute read

📚Life Lessons (NEW Section!!): My top 5 tips to save on your travels this summer.

🙋🏽‍♀️Dani’s Doings: Updates on my own personal travels (I finally made it to Thailand!) + we got a new apartment in Spain!

💸 Money Matters: How to spend less money this summer + Gamestop stock is moving again in 2024?!

✈️ Travel Tings: Exciting new visas available for those interested in moving abroad, the “quiet vacationing” trend, and more.

🫶🏽 Community Corner: I started a FREE community group to encourage you to walk more this summer, a hot new book reco for underrepresented folks, and more.

5 Tips on How to Save Money on Your Travels This Summer (as Someone Who Has Visited 26 countries!)

1) Be flexible with your travel dates

Rather than booking off your time from work and then choosing your travel dates, do it in reverse 🔄! Use tools like Google Flights (my personal go-to) or Skyscanner to find the cheapest travel dates for your trip. The more flexible you are, the higher the likelihood that you’ll score a great deal. Note: Summer is often the peak travel season for many popular destinations, and you’ll likely save significantly more if you wait until September or October for your trip (on flight costs, accommodations, and even excursions)!

2) Choose a budget-friendly destination

We all know someone who has visited cities like Paris, Rome, or London. While those cities may be popular, they also tend to come with more expensive costs on everything. Rather than visiting the tourist hotspots, do some research to see what popular cities the country you’re visiting has that can be attractive alternatives. For example, instead of Barcelona or Madrid, come visit me in Malaga! Or instead of Bangkok or Phuket, visit Chiang Mai! I also love using Nomadlist to give me a good idea of what it’ll cost to stay in each city.

3) Pack light

Airlines (and even trains now!) are getting very strict when it comes to luggage allowances. Make sure your bags (including your carry-on and personal item) meet the size and weight requirements so you’re not forced to pay extra at the airport/train station. Capsule wardrobes are your friends (watch YouTube videos for inspiration). My go-to luggage stack right now for packing light is this backpack from Amazon or this one, and the carry-on suitcase from Monos. I use this little luggage scale to make sure my bags aren’t too heavy.

4) Do not use data roaming from your home cell phone provider

Using your existing cell phone plan in a new country can come with some wild roaming fees. I’m talking $14+ PER DAY! I understand that it’s convenient, but there options for waaaay cheaper out there. Let me introduce you to… ✨the e-sim✨. The company I use is called Airalo. You download the e-sim directly to your phone (not a physical SIM you insert into your phone) and you get data to use on your travels. For example, my friend who just visited me in Spain got 10GB of data for only $18 USD. Get yours here and use my referral code DANICA4990 for $3 off.

5) Eat like a local

We do not need to be eating at restaurants for every single meal on our trips. Hit up the local grocery store (one of my fave activities to do in new countries) and pick up some affordable things you can eat for breakfast and lunch like fruit, sandwiches, etc.. Save the sit-down meals for dinners! Also, don’t be afraid of trying the street food (if available, where you visit). Sometimes, street food is even more flavourful than the food in the highest-rated restaurants.

✨ Bonus: Arrive early at the airport to check-in for a potential discounted or free upgrade offer to Business Class (or premium economy).

I recently learned this was ~a thing~ when I visited Thailand last month and was offered to upgrade to business class on Finnair for about a quarter of the cost compared to if I chose business class when I initially purchased the ticket. I made a video with my full review here as it was my first-ever business class flight. When you arrive at the airport, simply ask what the flight capacity is and if any upgrades are available. It helps to be extra friendly to the staff, too! It doesn’t always work, but definitely worth a shot for long-haul flights.

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• 🇹🇭 I finalllllyyy went back to Thailand (my 5th time there)! It was easily my favourite trip in the last few years. As many of you know, I took my first Liberty Leave in 2019 where I took 6 months off from work to solo travel through Asia. I had to cut it a bit short because of the pandemic, but I spent 2 months of it in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and couldn’t wait to get back. I returned to Chiang Mai (brought my partner with me this time) and we stayed in my same apartment building, ate at my same fave restaurants, and participated in some of the same activities like hanging out at the elephant sanctuary. It truly felt like homecoming, and we’re already planning a trip back next year!

• 🏠 We moved out of our Airbnb into an actual, real apartment! We’ll be here for the next 6 months. It’s a bit out of the “centro” (aka downtown) district, which is nice because it’s a quieter area with more locals and less tourists. We’re paying 1450 euros in rent (~$2156 CAD/$1566 USD) for a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom fully renovated unit. We love it so far!

• ⏰ The clock is ticking on our time in Spain. It’s making me sad just thinking about it. I often get anxious thinking about if I’m spending my time “the right way”. Should I be travelling around Europe more while flights are more easily accessible compared to when I live in Canada? Should I spend less time building my business and instead, outside at the many wonderful beaches Malaga has to offer? Should we look to move somewhere else in Europe when our Spain visas expire? I’m hoping I can get out of my head soon and not waste any more precious time. Ahhh… the life of a perpetually anxious girlie 😅.

• The Bank of Canada cut the key interest rate to 4.75% this past week! This is huge news because it’s been the first cut by the bank since the pandemic was declared in March 2020. Read about it here. I’m looking forward to seeing mortgage rates fall accordingly! Inflation in the U.S. has gone down sharply since 2022, but progress seems to have slowed down in recent months. Details here.

• Summer can be an expensive season. Some “money traps” to look out for are summer activities, a new wardrobe, wedding guest expenses, and more outlined in this article. Create a budget to avoid overdoing it with spending this summer.

• Grocery prices are still high as hell with no signs of relief coming any time soon. Here are 10 cheap grocery items you should always stock up on to make your money stretch further. Also, this isn’t in the article, but I am always an advocate for buying the rotisserie chicken because it’ll last a few days and you can do SO much with it!

• Roaring Kitty is BACK 👀?! In case you need a refresher, “Roaring Kitty” is the guy who started the crazy GameStop stock phenomenon back in 2021 that caused some people to become millionaires, and some people to go bankrupt. Netflix even made a documentary about the whole saga AND another film called Dumb Money was created! This time, though, it didn’t go as well and the stocks tanked almost 40% (lol). Read about it here.

• A very popular company these days, Nvidia, which sells chips for AI (artificial intelligence) factories, has been doing incredible in the stock market. I don’t typically get FOMO (and I also don’t tend to invest in individual stocks), but seeing $NVDA’s numbers lately have made me wish I started researching them sooner! To learn more about what they’re working on and their recent stock split, check out this article. Note: This is not financial advice. Don’t know what a “stock split” is? Read this article.

• Mastercard just dropped their Travel Trends 2024 report! Takeaways I found most interesting: 1) People are taking longer trips than they did pre-COVID. 2) It’s becoming more common for people to travel for events like concerts (definitely the Swifties!) or sporting events. 3) The top trending travel destination for Summer 2024 is Munich, Germany (then Tokyo, Japan).

• “Quiet Vacationing” is trending. It’s the concept where people aren’t comfortable asking for time off…so they just don’t 😅 (but still take the time off anyway). 4 in 10 millennials say they’ve done this! Read about it here. My thoughts? Don’t be afraid to use your PTO (paid time off). It’s part of your compensation package and helps prevent burnout!

• Thailand🇹🇭 (my fave country in the world!) just announced exciting changes to their visa programs to allow tourist and nomads/immigrants/expats to stay in the country for longer. It’s in an effort to boost tourism. Details here.

• Italy🇮🇹 recently launched a Digital Nomad visa, too! Read about it here. Perhaps instead of a hotel or Airbnb, you can scoop up one of these homes in rural Southern Italy that are selling for a whopping 3 euros/ $4.46 CAD/$3.24 USD. (This is a joke. Please don’t do that lol).

• Canada🇨🇦 is warning people travelling to Italy, Germany, France, and Spain to exercise a high degree of caution due to terr0rism threats. Scary! Read the article here. Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen any notice of this in the Spanish press.

• 📰 New press feature! I chatted with CBC about my thoughts on the Liberal Government working with Creators such as myself to share updates + thoughts on takeaways from Budget 2024. Read the article here. Also, all of my press features over the years are on my website.

• 📚 Shout out: My friend, Devika Brij, just released her new book called “Thrive in Color: How to Master Self-Advocacy and Command Your Career as an Underrepresented Professional”. It’s already received incredible reviews, and a FREE book club for it starts soon! Get all of the details + sign up here!

• This app called “StepUp” is trending, and I loooove that it’s building a community around movement. I made a group called “Liberty Lifestyle 👟” if you’d like to join for a little extra encouragement to get your steps in this summer. Discipline and consistency are the keys to success, and I’m trying to level up my fitness game. You too? Join here (it’s free! If you already have the app, just search for the group by name).

Psssst: Did you know that the Liberty Letter is part of the Liberty Leave brand? Visit the website to learn more! | Wanna work together? Reach out here.