The Plan
After dating my girlfriend for over 2 and a half years, I find it unbelievable that we’ve never traveled together outside of the U.S. Sure, we can blame her immigration status since she couldn’t leave the U.S. until her Green Card was processed which took a while. But alas, her Green Card has arrived and the adventures to conquer the globe can finally begin.
I’ve made a plan to take her to 14 major cities around the world. Each of which are in a different country. We’ll travel to more places in between but our route is set… or at least kind of. I’ve sort of put some restrictions on where I want us to travel which makes it a bit complicated…
Anyways, I’ve made a reasonable budget of what I will spend on her and hope that I don’t go over (sorry I’m not rich). Nevertheless, as long as our travels are part of my journey planned then she’s in luck because drinks* are on me. Every expense will be tracked and we’ll do our best to minimize our costs. This plan will definitely take years but I will make sure we see it through. Welcome to The Adventures of Shawn & Yagmur!
*drinks include airfare, transportation, lodging & all other possible expenses
Washington D.C.
I’m going to start things slow for these trips (don’t worry, they’ll definitely pick up). We kept things local and made our first stop at our nation’s capital: Washington D.C. We visited my family and enjoyed that wonderful, global warming weather!
Useful Travel Tips
Believe it or not, even short trips from NYC to DC and back can have problems. We got to the Greyhound bus stop at Union station 30 minutes early and were first in line. The line grew and before you know it our departure time of 5:15PM came and left. After waiting in the parking garage in 90+ degree temperatures for about an hour we were forced to buy more water and began to lose hope. Given that it was a 4 hour bus ride and we both worked the next day, we felt that we would never make it back home.
All of us in line complained to the Greyhound employees who told us that the driver was waiting at a garage but Greyhound apparently ran out of buses. After the lady on the line next to us told Yagmur that she had been waiting for 4 hours for her bus to Charlotte, I could see 3 words clear as day written on Yagmur’s face: ohhh hell no.
She went across the lot to see if the Megabus to NYC had seats while I searched online for other tickets. No luck with Megabus since they were booked until 10PM but the bus company (OurBus) next to them had room for $20 cash per person. I told Yagmur to wait by the OurBus line to make sure we could get two seats while I waited in vain, just in case, for our Greyhound bus to appear. At 6:20PM, probably because of all of our complaining, a Greyhound employee told us that we could either wait in the waiting area or get a refund. I quickly ran over to the small Greyhound office for that refund.
After waiting for 6 minutes in line and the 2 minutes of processing time, we got our money back.
The two tips I leave you all with are these:
- Always carry at least $60 in cash wherever you go no matter what. I usually have some ready for chicken & rice post after-office-drinks with Matt on my way home. Also good to have in case you were foolish enough to buy Greyhound tickets and need to rock OurBus on your way back to NYC. I should note that we took a different bus company on our way down to D.C.
- Be proactive at finding a solution or alternative route. Don’t just sit on your ass waiting for a bus to come. Go look for one or you’ll be stuck at a parking lot in Union Station, melting away.
Fortunately for us we got 2 seats and enjoyed some wonderful AC.
The bus was great and we made it back to NYC in exactly 4 hours flat! The bus did have some strange rules that I’m sure every gentleman blatantly ignored…
Total Costs: $292 (SRB:$96 | YA:$196)
I spent around $292 for the weekend but that includes $135 for the map I bought. Excluding the map, we are at $157 which consists of $84 on 2 round trip bus tickets and $73 of food (groceries for the BBQ and lunch at a Peruvian restaurant).
Her Budget: 1.31% LTD
Not too much going on here since it was a weekend trip and we stayed with the fam, but since numbers add up lets breakout the costs. Unfortunately for her, since I bought the world map for these trips, it falls under her budget 😉
Our Progress: 7.14%
We’re starting off slow for this journey of trips. I’ve included below our major trips which was to visit my sister in San Francisco and our road trip to Miami.
Lets not forget the mandatory cheesy pic:
Safe travels everyone!
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