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A $900 Giveaway + Our Cheap Backpacking Adventure

  August 1

This post may contain affiliate links.

$900 giveawayWhat do you get when 30 bloggers loooove their readers and want to give them something awesome?

Oh ya know, just $900!

It’s true; we’ve been very sneaky and working behind the scenes to bring you our biggest giveaway yet, and unlike last time, there are 3 chances to win! The first prize is $500, the second prize is $300, and the third prize is $100.

Are you excited yet? Good!

Now we can get to the topic at hand, which is to write about the best vacation I’ve ever had:

Our Cheap Backpacking Adventure, Baby!

It’s funny, my best vacation was also one of my cheapest, because I spent it backpacking with my boyfriend in college, who later turned into – you guessed it – the one and only hubs. ๐Ÿ˜€

As I’ve written about before, I was able to study abroad back in the college days. The hubs (then the boyfriend) met me at the end of my school session, and we hung out in London for a day then hopped on a train to Paris.

Oh my gosh, it was beautiful there! We stayed on the outskirts of Paris, so the hotel was really, really cheap, and those Parisians have great public transportation so we just rode their railway system all around, stopping to eat as many crepes as our stomachs would allow. We hit up the Louvre on student day, which means our tickets were cheaper, and of course we saw the Eiffel Tower!

cheap backpacking adventureย  cheap backpacking adventure

cheap backpacking adventure

After that, we took a small, cheap flight to Venice, and that was also really fun. Just like in Paris, we stayed in the outside of the city to save some money in a town called Mirano (not to be confused with Murano, where they make all the glass.) We got super duper lost on a bus that we thought was taking us into the city of Venice. Instead, we rode it the whole way until it stopped in a supermarket parking lot, haha! A little old man tried to help us but he didnโ€™t speak of lick of English, and we didnโ€™t speak a lick of Italian, so we ended up getting a cab instead.

After Venice, we took a train to Florence, where the hubs complained I bought too many shoes. ๐Ÿ˜€ Seriously, peeps, Florence was a hagglers paradise. I bargained with the street vendors for just about everything including an awesome wallet that the hubs still uses to this day and some gorgeous leather gloves for me. Ah, bliss.

Lastly, we took the train to Cinque Terre, a cluster of 5 cute Italian towns where one is more amazing than the next. You take a little tram in between each one or you can hike the whole thing, which we did. Our hotel was so cheap, maybe $60 a night or less and it overlooked this amazing vineyard. This is where we also got the legendary chocolate croissants that we still talk about to this day and inadvertently ordered an entire fish, eyeballs and everything.

Our journey ended in Rome, where we spent time with some of my grandparents’ friends, threw some coins in the Trevi Fountain, and caught a flight back home to the States.

All in all I’m still amazed that we saw as much as we did in those 2-3 weeks, and I donโ€™t even think that we spent more than 2k including flights since we constantly stayed outside of the big cities and ate at little tiny restaurants. It is definitely one of my fondest memories and really cemented the fact that the hubs and I were meant to be travel buddies for life. He proposed a few months after we got back from that trip, and now look at where he’s taken me to live, lol! Gotta love it!

So, now it’s your turn to win some moolah so you can go on an awesome trip too!

Enter below & Good Luck!

Please note: This contest is open worldwide, paid via PayPal, and optional (aka I won’t force you to enter since that means more chances for the others to win. Muahaha!) Oh, and you can find the terms and conditions right there in the RaffleCopter widget.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

53 responses to “A $900 Giveaway + Our Cheap Backpacking Adventure

  1. That sounds like an awesome vacation and for pretty cheap! My favorite vacation wasn’t cheap at all, but was totally worth it. It was my wife and I’s honeymoon to Jamaica. Looking back, I’m glad we took the trip, but I’m not sure I’ll spend that much on a vacation for two ever again.

  2. That is an amazing vacation! My favorite vacation has only been about 3 hours from my house to Austin, TX but it was for SXSW so I got to see an ton of shows that blew my mind. Hopefully some day soon I’ll get to venture out more and see the world. Those all sound like lovely destinations. Have you ever written a post on getting cheap airfare?

  3. Traveling was such a different animal when I was younger, mostly because I had zero shame in taking the cheapest option every time. The best part was that in every place I went, there were always tons of other young people my age doing the same thing and looking to have inexpensive fun… no judging… Ah, I miss Paris. I think I might finally go back next year.

  4. I love the random bus adventure. Times like that can be the best memories for many many years to come. =)

  5. The most exciting vacation I ever took, I didn’t actually take. My 7th grade social studies teacher assigned a wonderful task to pair up and write a story as if we had actually visited another country. My partner and I dove into tourists books and decided to backpack Europe in our story. I’ve yet to make it to Europe, but I look forward to seeing so many of those destinations I envisioned all those years ago.

  6. What a great giveaway! Your vacation sounds amazing – I dream of doing that one day. The biggest and best vacation I’ve ever taken was to Hawaii for my honeymoon, we did it cheap so we could stay longer…we ate a lot of pb&js and pineapple ๐Ÿ™‚

  7. My favorite vacation has to be the time we sailed from Cape Cod to New York City, with stops in Nantucket and Block Island. To sail around the Statue of Liberty like that was amazing!!

  8. The most exciting trip I have ever taken was to St. Lucia! It was so beautiful!!

  9. You guys did a very cool tour of Europe. I love the Eiffel Tower too, but I didn’t get a chance to go to the top. The line ups were so long.

  10. Most exciting vacation was right in my own island home. Went to another parish with my boyfriend. It was very relaxing. Visiting other islands in 2008 was great too! Would love to see Europe or even the US or Canada. So many dreams of travelling but not enough money to do it >.<. Great giveaway! Thanks

  11. My most exciting vacation was a trip our company took us on to Cancun a few years ago. Fabulous!

  12. It sounds like you had an amazing vacation. I always wanted to visit Paris (or any part of France, actually) but didn’t get the chance so far. And I live like right around the corner :))

  13. That sounds like a fantastic way to see Europe. We’re planning something similar as we try to use up those Starwood Points that Holly pointed us to….we’ll refer back to this post when planning. Thanks!

  14. I’ve spent a week in Warsaw sightseeing, mostly walking around the city and visiting museums. It doesn’t get any more exciting in my case. :p

  15. At the end of 2011, my boyfriend and I embarked on an eight-day, cross-country road trip from New England to California to move to Los Angeles. It was the most spectacular trip of my life. I was so grateful to be exposed to more of our country and to visit such beautiful places along the way. My favorite locations were definitely Santa Fe, NM and the Grand Canyon. I would absolutely love to visit Hawaii within the next year!

  16. Negril, Jamaica circa 2004. To this day I have never been so tan and so relaxed after a vacation.

  17. I loved going to North Carolina, it was away from the city and showed me a different view.

  18. THE MOST EXCITING WAS A TRIP TO THE COAST AND LITTLE DEEP SEA FISHING FOR 7 DAYS..CAUGHT A LOT OF FISH..

  19. I had a vacation in Singapore a while ago with the entire family. It was wonderful. We never got the opportunity to have this again.

  20. My honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico. We stayed at an all inclusive resort with all our hopes and dreams fulfilled on the beachfront!

  21. One of the most exciting vacation I’ve ever taken was the first time I went to Vegas! I wish I could go to Europe someday! ๐Ÿ™‚

  22. I think the best vacation I’ve ever had is the fad trip to Moscow Russia With the Friendship force of Greater Des Moines (IA),

  23. My most exciting vacation i have ever been on would be a cruise to the Bahamas when I was in my teens. It would be awesome to be able to go another awesome vacation with my husband for our 10 year in may this coming year!!!

  24. my best vacation is always old Montreal & Quebec enjoy Chinese food, I would live off Chinese food for a month if I win!

  25. Probably New Jersey ๐Ÿ™‚ I was quite young and there was really nice weather and pools and cool places to go shopping as a kid! America is a lot different to Ireland (where I’m from and live) so it was quite exciting at such a young age ๐Ÿ™‚

  26. My most exciting adventure was our honeymoon to New Zealand. Can’t believe it’s been a year (sigh).

  27. I haven’t taken many vacations since my family has never been able to afford one, but the vacation I have taken was to Brandon, MI… With my church to go to Champions For Christ and it was amazinggg, we went to Dixie Stampede, the mall, & the water park there.! :]]]] I’m from Oklahoma.!

  28. the most exciting vacation that i went to was going to Mexico and seeing pyramids from before and traveling around and learning about their culture and ancestors.

  29. My most amazing vacation was a month long tour of Europe, major cities – Paris, Amsterdam, Venice. Venice has remained my favourite city all my life…

  30. I like so much Brazilian Iguaรงu Falls, but I prefer one of its beaches called “Iha Bela”, it’s paradisiacal!

  31. I had a great holiday one year with my mother and my Aunts in spain, it was great fun! xx

  32. My favorite vacation was in Italy – we stayed in Rome, Florence, and Venice and it was amazing!!! Great giveaway! Thank you!

  33. The most exciting was my study abroad trip to Paris! I lived there for 6 weeks, and although there was some class time involved, I got to live in the city, learn about it, and even visit some other areas on France in London!

  34. My most exciting vacation was the year that we went to New York City. I did not want to leave. I absolutely loved it there. Thank you for the amazing and exciting giveaway!

  35. My favorite vacation was Scotland and England. Scotland is absolutely gorgeous!

  36. One vacation I particularly enjoyed was a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. It was beautiful, and I loved learning about the history of the city. Gorgeous, and I’d definitely go there again. Thanks for the giveaway!

  37. Last year, when i was in Barcelona ! Lovely city, i would come back every time !

  38. Most exciting vacation was probably to Disneyworld because it was with the whole family.

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