FLYING THE NEST: MONTH 7
I know we say this every month, but how is it already month 7?! Our goal has always been to last one whole year travelling full time ... but there was always that voice in the back of our heads saying we were not going to make it. Yes, we have always been good at saving money, however we are self-confessed spenders when it comes to travel.
The hardest part about travelling full time is, and always will be, stretching our money out for as long as possible. We are pretty proud of ourselves we have been able to make it to month 7, and having all of your support is 100% the reason we have been able to make it this far. We just wanted to start off this monthly roundup with a massive THANK YOU to everyone that reads our blog, watches our videos, shares our photographs- thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Okay... ramble over ... here is our month 7 round up.
Where We Went
12 days in Salt Lake City / Utah
2 days in Anchorage / Alaska
2 days in McCarthy / Alaska
1 day in Tangle Lakes / Alaska
3 days in Denali National Park / Alaska
3 days in Seward / Alaska
2 days in Homer / Alaska
1 day in Hope / Alaska
4 days in San Jose / Costa Rica
Highlights
Paragliding in Utah. During our stay in Draper, Salt Lake City we realised we were minutes away from one of the best places to paraglide in all of Utah. We spent an incredible morning soaring high above Utah with fellow paragliders.
Exploring Alaska with TrekAmerica! We had the incredible opportunity to travel to Alaska for 13 days with TrekAmerica. It is by far the best experience we have had so far this year and a trip we will never forget.
Ice Climbing on a Glacier!!!! We never in our wildest dreams thought we would ever ice climb a glacier - but we did! Check out our YouTube video sharing our experience.
WE SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS...TWICE!!!! The northern lights has been at the top of our bucket list for as long as we can remember. Travelling to Alaska we knew there was a slight chance we could see them, however being there in the summer time we did not think this would happen... how wrong we were. We ended up seeing the northern lights twice - a moment we will never forget!
Alaska
Climbing FOUR mountains. We knew visiting Alaska would mean a lot of hiking, but we never thought we would be climbing 4 mountains! Yes each climb was tough, but every time we completed a climb we felt the biggest sense of accomplishment.
WE SAW A ORCA! Jess's favourite animal has always been the killer whale, and during a cruise along the Kenai we not only saw a pod of orca, but also a number of humpback whales.
Moose, bears, caribou - oh my! While we explored Denali National Park we saw so many animals we had never seen in the wild before. Seeing moose, grizzly bears, caribou, beaver, dole sheep and mountain goats in their natural habitat was so special. Check out the video.
Alaska 3
New friends from around the globe. During our trek through Alaska we were with 11 other travellers from around the world. After camping in the Alaskan wilderness together for 13 days we can say we have made some amazing new friends.
Hello Costa Rica. We have been given the amazing opportunity thanks to Go Eco Tours to travel to Costa Rica for 2 weeks and volunteer with different animal rescue centers. We are so excited to share our experience with you all.
Our first volunteer work experience. We are currently volunteering at the Costa Rica Animal Rescue Center. This is our first experience volunteering for an organising, and will definitely not be the last!
Alaska 2
Lowlights
Losing ALL our photos and footage from the past 7 months... Yep, we stupidly did not back up our hard drive and when we went to plug in during our time here in Costa Rica it stopped working. After many tears (as ALL our photos from the past 7 months is also on this hard drive) we have decided to not let it ruin our time here in Costa Rica. Once we leave and arrive in a country that has recovery support stores we will find out if we can get back all our footage/photos. In the meantime we just wanted to let you all know - BACK UP EVERYTHING!!!!
Breaking the vlogging camera. While we were in Alaska climbing glaciers our vlogging camera was dropped and stopped working. Again, we were in the wilderness and had no way of getting someone to look at our camera. Instead we filmed our entire Alaskan experience on our DSLR, and when we returned back to Utah the camera started working again - thank goodness!!!
Goodbye to the US. Our holiday visa for the US officially ran out on the 6th of September, which means no more exploring the states until we return home and renew our visa. We LOVE travelling through the United States and it is our mission to explore every single state (one day).
The Funds
This month we had the opportunity to work with 2 companies during our travels. We really learnt the benefits of teaming up with travel brands that want to promote journeys rather then day trips. For the month we spent $2,226 for the two of us, most of this which went on last minute flights.
To break it down for you we spent $219 on food in Utah and $560 of food in Alaska (Alaska is pretty darn expensive to travel through). Activities in Utah came to $219 and $75 in Alaska. What made a dent in our savings this month was flights - flights to Alaska cost us $550 and return flights cost us $560. When we purchased our flights to Alaska we purchased one way as we were not sure where we would be travelling to next (which is obviously a more expensive way to do things - and something we will not be doing again).
** Flights to Costa were purchased using our flight center voucher we received from the Covermore Ultimate Traveller competition.
Quick Numbers So Far…
Flights taken: 19
Kilometres travelled: 55,585
Photographs taken: 13,474 ... which may be lost :(
Days uploaded to YouTube: 210
Coffee’s Had: 170
Where To Next:
We will be spending most of September in Costa Rica volunteering with GoEco Tours. In October we decided it is time to see more of Canada. As we have travelled around the west coast, we decided to see what the east coast has to offer! We have a flight booked to Montreal, but that is all we really have planned for the moment. We will just have to wait and see what October may bring!
Thank you so much for coming along on our journey of leaving home and travelling the world!
