Tag Archives: planning

How to Get a Nifty First Date

April 22, 2014 Evelyn Thorne Leave a comment

Raise your hand if you’ve had a bad first date? I’m guessing that most of you have. Well, my friends, so have I—many, in fact. And it is through these trials and tribulations that I have come to realize a good date is all in the preparation. You don’t have leave the fate of your date up to, well, fate. There is a lot that you can do to ensure a more successful date before departing on your romantic rendezvous. Let me tell you how with a few of my misadventures in the dating world.

Note: These lessons are from my experience and thus lean towards the heterosexual point of view, but I hope these tips can apply to all kinds of relationships!

1) Be clear that it’s a date.

You know how, in movies or TV, someone seems to always have the tenacity to ask “Wait, are you asking me out on a date?” with a sly smile and a knowing look? Well, I’d never have the guts to ask that and, if I did, it would probably be a shy awkwardly stuttered sentence like: “Date. ME?” If you’re like me, then it can be hard to be sure you’re either going on a date or (often in my case) clarifying that you are in fact asking someone on a date. For the latter, I find asking someone to an obvious date-like activity, say dinner and movie for two, is helpful. However, that doesn’t always work. I bring you exhibit A:

I had a crush on a guy who was kind of a friend, or at least had dated one of my friends (always a good place to start). We had started hanging out and I wanted to progress things to the next level, so I thought, Hey, you know what’s a great idea? Asking him to a movie via text, that’s what. This was my first mistake. A text is never a good way to transition a friendship to romance, let alone obviously ask someone out without the gratuitous use of winky faces. So, when I showed up for this so-called “date,” guess who was surprised to see only me standing at the door and tried to invite his roommate along? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me. If you would like to avoid this fate, I suggest you make your intentions as clear as you can.

2) You don’t have to lay it all out there, but don’t be completely opaque.

As you prepare for your date, you might find yourself worrying over what you’ll talk about. What if you say something awkward? Or you don’t have anything to say? Or, in your fear of silence, you talk too much? This last one is my biggest downfall and why I advocate keeping the first date light and fun: no midnight confessions or blood oaths. Now, I am not saying for you to hide your true self away until you’re sure he/she likes you and then reveal your deep-seated love of unicorns. All I mean is you don’t have to tell all on the first date. Take it from someone who invited a guy on a first date to a poetry slam and thought it would be a good idea to sign up. I had just met this guy, and here I was standing in front of an audience performing a poem about my parent’s relationship while he squirmed in his seat. Talk about vulnerability. You do not need to do this. In fact, just don’t.

Though, you do need to be somewhat vulnerable. You have to share something about yourself, but more importantly you have to reveal your emotions. The only way the person is going to know that you like him/her is by showing it. Now, I am horrible at flirting, so I usually go with the more direct “I had a good time. Let’s do this again” approach. But even that can be confusing if interpreted as a line. So make sure to send a flirty text later or, better yet, set up the next date. Nothing says “I like you” like I want to see you again and maybe this time I’ll tell you about my unicorn obsession.

3) It doesn’t have to be romantic.

The first date is exactly what it is: a first date. Whether you’re looking for your soul mate or just someone to date for a while, the first date is like a test drive. And since it’s just a test drive, you don’t need to go full throttle (unless you really want to: #punalwaysintended). What I mean is it’s perfectly fine if you do not touch on the first date (I would consider that normal for meeting a stranger).

In the past, I had this ideal that the best dates were the sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic ones and every time I went on a date that didn’t reach those standards, it felt like a failure. And yet many of my most romantic dates ended up being assholes later or just looking for sex. One guy invited me to the top of his roof and as we were sitting there overlooking the sunset, he swept my hair out of my face and asked me what I wanted most in the world right now. I kissed him because that seemed like the most romantic gesture. Guess who never heard back from him? It was a great moment, but it taught me to re-evaluate my standards. These days, I don’t go into the first date expecting to find sexual tension right away; I save that for later. Right now, I just want to know if we can hold a conversation without it being painful.

4) Check your expectations

And this brings me to my final pre-date prep tip: remind yourself that you don’t have to decide right away. As I said, this is a first date, not a life-time commitment, so don’t treat it as such. If you are unsure about how you feel at the end of the date, that’s fine. You can go on another date and continue to test the waters. On the other side, if you find yourself falling for someone on the first date, you should also check yourself.

I have been on both sides of this spectrum. On one hand, I stopped seeing a guy because I thought I didn’t have time to date anyone I wasn’t sure about and in retrospect realized he could have been a great match for me. And then I have gotten my heart broken over a single date. It didn’t help that I was already obsessed with him before I even went on the date, but I could have saved myself some pain if I had followed my own advice.

This is why I say I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do believe in heartbreak at first kiss. Be careful with your hearts, my friends. And try to remember: it’s just a first date. So have fun!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Health

We Don’t Know: Is My Exercise Routine Hurting Me?

April 8, 2014 Liz Bohinc Leave a comment

Last week, I shared how and why I make exercise a priority. As I was researching my article (and reading my regular health blogs), I stumbled along this post on The Greatist. I was literally turning in my final draft for last week’s article and I already knew I had to write a follow up.

Fitspo, Thinspo, and all other “spos” on Instagram, Facebook, or Tumblr are said to be promoting a healthy lifestyle. But I’m wondering if, more often than not, they might just be distorting our body image and our health even more than before.

The big question is: what is too much exercise?

There are a lot of different articles out there that say you should do this many minutes of exercise a week and this percentage should be cardio and this percentage should be strength training. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about exercising to the point where you are damaging your body.

When I was fourteen years old, I played a lot of softball. And I mean, a lot of softball. Between the two JV & Varsity teams, I was one of only three pitchers. That meant I often would play six games a week. If I threw sixty pitches a game, that meant three hundred and sixty pitches a week (not including any practices, warm ups, etc.). As the season would progress, you could slowly see me fall apart—my mechanics, my pitches, my focus—finding the strike zone got harder and harder and it wasn’t my arm.

You see, at fourteen, I wasn’t strong enough to carry a college level-schedule for pitching. That many pitches a week is a lot, even for an eighteen-year-old or a twenty-four-year-old. But I didn’t know that. So I kept pitching. The more tired I got, the shorter my step became, and I started locking my knee. Sure, this gave me a great drop ball, but it also made the ball-and-socket joint in my left hip repeatedly pound against each other. Yeah, it hurt! It hurt a lot and I didn’t know why. The trainer and the coaches just blamed it on fatigue: I would get used to it. Now, I look back and say, “Hell yeah, it was fatigue.” My body was fucking tired, and it was telling me to slow down and take seat. But I was an athlete, I could handle it. I kept playing and a mere six weeks into the season, I tore a tendon in my hip that took a piece of my bone with it. It left in its wake a crack just small enough to not need surgery but serious enough to put me on crutches for eight weeks. I was fourteen, not eighty-five. And what followed was four years of physical therapy (due to continuing alignment issues), knee pain, and back pain. Anytime I go to the running store to get fitted for new shoes, they are surprised I’m a runner because my right leg still supports a majority of my body weight. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy it so much: I wasn’t ever supposed to be good at it again.

The psychological effects of my injury ran deep. I never threw off my high school’s home field pitching mound again. I eventually quit swimming, field hockey, and softball. Maybe if someone had told me not to push myself so hard, I would have enjoyed them through college. Now, as an adult, I shared with you how I make time to exercise regularly. I tried to focus that article on having fun, not burning calories. Why? Well that’s another dangerous line to toe. You know bulimia? The potentially life-threatening eating disorder. People with bulimia may secretly binge—eat large amounts of food—and then purge, try to get rid of the extra calories in an unhealthy way. For example, someone with bulimia may force vomiting or do excessive exercise.

I think often, we forget about that part I put in bold and only focus on the vomiting. I’m not a doctor but I have experienced the obsessive emotions associated with disordered exercising. It’s hard to get them out of your head. You don’t have to be skinny to have them. Yes, being incredibly underweight is a sign you are sick, but so are other things: Is your workout schedule making you lose sleep? Are you constantly stressing about when you can have your next workout? Do you go through a run despite illness or injury? I have. I have obsessed about how to plan my weekend around my workouts. I justify it in some ways because I’m “training for a marathon” and getting enough miles in each week. Or I will sit and look over an entire restaurant menu and plug each and every item in to make sure it’s not too many calories because I only ran five miles today. Most of the time, it means plugging in 10 ingredients per dish to figure out if it’s right and, by the way, that takes forty minutes of my day. WTF, LIZ.

Though I’m really proud of my healthier habits, there are times where I feel my fitness obsession is also my biggest demon. I never feel more alive than I do after a spin class. Running has taught me so much about my limitations and given me confidence in myself I never had before. Early on, running was a way for me to get away from twenty-something stress (work, friends, etc.). But at the same time, I wonder if threw myself into it too fast.

So now, I say: Liz, if you want the damn pastrami melt, get the pastrami melt. I hate this term, but YOLO. Stop wasting hours obsessing over whether you worked out enough to earn that pastrami sandwich. Don’t go home for a run you didn’t plan just because you ate a bit too much. You shouldn’t punish yourself for living life like a normal person. We’re all different. We will find different activities and foods and lifestyles we enjoy. It’s great if you lose ten pounds before summer but if you don’t and you are loving life anyway, that’s all that matters. Go forth!

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Health

How I Made Exercise a Priority

April 3, 2014 Liz Bohinc Leave a comment

I love running. I specifically love running half marathons (soon to be marathons, I hope). I didn’t always like it—in fact in 7^th grade my mom made me join the cross country team and I would walk 3.1 miles. I broke my hip in high school. One time my field hockey coach told me she was surprised I even finished two miles. I guess it was a special type of stubbornness that made me a runner. But I did it because I wanted to challenge myself. First, I ran a half-marathon on a whim. Then, I wanted to try and be a “real runner” and tackle my first marathon. I realized I loved planning for the races—you can’t just roll out of bed and run 13.1 miles. You have to build from 0 to 12, and then run your race. And while I wheezed and huffed and walked all around those 13.1 miles in Agoura Hills, it felt fabulous to actually make it through that first race.

To learn to love running, I realized I had to change my mindset. For me it was a competitive attitude (and lack of a team sport) that pushed me to live a more fit life. I’m not saying exercise is always fun for me, but I have learned to make it a time. Why do I make the time? How do I make time? Why do I schedule exercise and make it a priority?

I set a goal and make a plan

One way I force myself to workout is to set a goal, like a race, and then work backwards to create a training plan. Each takes up 14-18 weeks of a year and, a few races in, you have a whole year of training.

I make it fun

Do you hate exercise? You might be doing the wrong kind of exercise! I don’t mean you aren’t doing the Self Magazine endorsed “right exercise.” I mean you have to find the right type of exercise for you. For example, I don’t get Zumba but some of my friends don’t get kickboxing. You have to make the exercise not feel like work and make it fun. Find something amazing and give it a try. By the time you cool down, it will be like you just went to the best therapy ever! Whether it’s trying a new spin class or aerial yoga or Just Dance, you have to try things until you find your staple.

How will you know when to find the right thing? I’ll give you a hint. When you are posting Facebook statuses and taking Sweatie Selfies—you found the right thing. I can’t shut up about my workout and have to share it with all my friends. I brag about my new cycle shoes I got on sale. It’s like showing off a new dress—except it’s an amazing feeling of accomplishment and self-worth! We were even talking about this at my boot camp this week: who wants to give it all they’ve got and get yelled at when you can work with someone who will make you laugh and feel good about yourself?

I find a buddy

Sometimes, finding something fun is about creating something social. Consider finding a workout buddy: your buddy can keep you entertained during the boring parts of a ten-mile run. Or it can just be someone to commiserate with after a killer crossfit workout, or someone to make fun of your bad moves in Zumba class.

A workout buddy can also push you to be better. I used to do TRX training sessions, but the private ones were expensive. I switched to the trainer’s group boot camp classes to save money, and soon I discovered another perk: I’m a bit competitive. Okay… a lot competitive. Working out with other people at boot camp pushes me to hold a plank ten seconds longer or sprint instead of jog. So partner up!

I plan ahead (and pay ahead)

For some, money is the best motivator. I’m not telling you to go out and purchase an Equinox membership if you are not going to use it. But getting money involved in my exercise regime does help! For example, a lot of boutique spinning studios like SoulCycle require cancellation by 5:30 pm the night before class or you lose the class. This means when I book a 6:00 am bike, I get out of bed because there is no way in hell I’m losing that thirty dollars.

I also recently signed up for GymPact. This app allows you to set a goal of X amount of workouts a week. For every workout you miss, Pact charges you at least ten dollars. If you complete your pact, you earn a portion of the money collected from the people who missed days. I like this because it forces me to get moving for at least thirty minutes a day and earn money while doing it. It’s not a lot but I’ll be up to twenty dollars this week after five weeks. It’s something!

But Liz, I’m broke! I can’t make it to fancy classes.

When I have to workout at home, I always queue up cool online videos like Blogilates, Daily Burn and Lionsgate BeFit (all free or dirt cheap) but inevitably I find myself skipping out for another episode of House of Cards.

This is where you have to decide if you really are serious about making exercise a priority and and figure out how to motivate yourself to do it. Invite someone to do a home workout with you. Refuse to buy those new shoes you want until you do three weeks of workouts! It takes twenty-one days to make a habit—I know you can do it. You just have to tell yourself you can.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Career, Relationships

I Put a Ring on It in a City of Single Ladies

February 13, 2014 Nicole Odell Leave a comment

I moved to Los Angeles about four years ago. In all that time, LA has proved to be a lot of things. Yes, there are a million blonde white girls who look exactly like me (and it seems like they snapped up all the agents already). Yes, there are images of fitness perfection everywhere and people really love the word “cleanse.” Yes, there’s no such thing as winter, to my great dismay. But most of all, people here care about their careers more than any other city I’ve lived in.

Granted, I haven’t lived very many places, and I have no reason to be surprised. Working in entertainment in LA takes a great deal of focus and drive. But I had no idea the level of scrutiny my own life choices would be subject to.

I had long ago decided that the LA lifestyle wasn’t something I would subscribe to completely. I moved down there with a grain of salt and an escape plan in mind. I wasn’t planning on scrabbling for infomercials or paying hundreds of dollars for “Agent-Meet Workshops”; really, my personal goals were to gain experience doing projects I was interested in and expanding my acting horizons. Because of this level of detachment, I hadn’t thought that the attitude of Los Angeles toward marriage would be any different than that of the rest of the country, where 20-something-year-old women are subject to the questions of their older counterparts: “Who are you dating? When will you settle down? When will you be married?” So, when I became engaged at 23 and set the wedding date for after I turned 25, I didn’t consider it unusual at all and was excited to wear a beautiful ring that would scream the happy news for me without me even having to open my mouth.

But man, the reactions I got! People acted as if I had decided to become a nun. Or join a cult. The ring on my finger became an instant magnet for attention, and not all of it was good.

Let me clarify: those who have known me for a while, and who know my fiancé, or are at least good enough friends with me that they feel as if they know him, didn’t have any comments to offer except “I’m so happy for you! It was only a matter of time!” Instead, it’s those who met me more recently, and who noticed the ring, who had less positive things to say. Things like, “Wait….you’re getting married? How old are you? Oh my god, you’re a baby! How do you even know what you want when you’re so young? What about your career? Do you want children right away? Wait…you don’t want to have children right away?!? Why get married so soon then? What about your career? Why are you settling down? What about your career? What’s the rush? For the love of GOD, what about your CAREER?!? THINK ABOUT YOUR CAREER, WOMAN!”

I was completely unprepared for this onslaught of questions. I got them from new coworkers, new acquaintances, and even had other comedians ask me these questions while I was working… a completely unsolicited barrage of opinions and judgment. I tried not to fall in the trap of explaining my life choices to a stranger, but the more I was exposed to it, the harder it got to not be defensive.

The fact was, I had never really thought about what a marriage would do to my career because I never felt the need to weigh “career vs. relationship.” I wasn’t planning on having children for at least five years. I wasn’t planning on being a stay-at-home wife. My fiancé is an encouraging and supportive partner. I had been in a relationship with this man for six years and was still able to pursue a career. Our relationship, and my love for him, has in no way been a detriment to that end. I’ll admit that if there was no one in my life, I would have been more engrossed in my job, but the situation I was in was what I had been looking for all along: a balance in my life, with love, passions, art, family, and career.

The thing that drove me over the edge was that other women were having the exact opposite problem that I was having. Women who were single, whether to concentrate on their jobs or simply because they hadn’t found the right person yet, were being examined and questioned for not doing the exact thing that I was about to do. Ladies just couldn’t win! I was also baffled that—given that there are so many different family structures and relationship choices in this modern age—there is anybody left to be surprised or seemingly personally offended by my somewhat conventional life choices.

Later, I discovered that one of my coworkers who questioned me so relentlessly was actually unsatisfied with her own relationship status. It made me realize that there’s usually more under the surface when people present their judgment, but I still don’t excuse those people. To me, if someone tells you about their relationship or family status, whether it’s “married with children,” “single mother/father,” “dating around (or sleeping around),” “gay,” “bi,” “straight,” or “polyamorous,” it is insufferably rude to respond with anything other than: “Oh, that’s cool.”

The plus side of all of this is that I have learned to gain some perspective on the whole concept of judgment. I realized that no matter what your choices, no matter how “normal” they might seem, someone somewhere is going to judge you for it. I’ve learned to not give a shit. I’ve resolved to become less judgmental myself. If someone goes on about something that someone else is doing and how “weird” it is, I just shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, if it works for them and it’s not hurting anybody…” Even if I’m uncomfortable with something, it doesn’t give me a pass to be a judgey little meanie about it.

Finally, this thought: Many people have many opinions and thoughts on marriage. I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but for me, marriage doesn’t mean a one-way ticket to Stepford wife-ness, nor is it the equivalent of a grave. It is not an excuse to stop growing and learning and exploring. The reason I cringe at the term “settling down” is because I never plan to, no matter what my relationship status. When my fiancé becomes my husband, we will both continue to be ever-changing and ever-expanding human beings. The beautiful part is that we choose to pursue that growth and learn those lessons with another person. My life and marriage will be, in the words of J.M. Barrie, “an awfully big adventure.”

Photo by Michelle White

Relationships

Micromanaging My Engagement

December 11, 2013 Meggyn Watkins 3 Comments

I’ve never believed that real proposals are like the ones in the movies. Raise your hand if Billy Idol helped your significant other propose to you. See? That like hardly ever happens.

It’s all about what fits you best as a couple. Personally, I’m on the practical side. My fiancé and I discussed it beforehand, came to a mutual decision, and agreed that we wanted to get married. I wasn’t caught off-guard with crowds of strangers and loud megaphones like those viral videos you see these days—knowing that the question was coming was a mixture of anticipation and excitement, culminating in a night that was sweet and relaxed and perfect for us.

When my then-boyfriend popped the question to me, it had been a while in the making. I had already known him for ten years (hel-lo, middle school), and we had been dating for five. But we were (and are) young: so how did we know? How could I be sure he was good for me? How could he know that I would want to marry him? How certain were we that we would be compatible forever?

Seventeen-year-old me thought I would never get married. My parents finally ended their unhappy marriage in an angry, years-long divorce when I was 12. In the years that followed, my significant others in high school simply reinforced my belief that committed relationships were a melange of manipulation and selfishness—the behavior that I had seen in my dad for years. To me, “compatibility” was a temporary mode: a person could fill a place in your heart for a little over a year and, when the laughing inevitably stopped, it was time to move on.

What changed my mind? Honestly, I have no clue. I dated Mike for three years and realized at some point that I didn’t want to ever let him go. Gradually, we started talking what the future held for us (a somewhat inevitable conversation, considering we were in college preparing for that future). We planned our careers, talked about how we both loved our city, dreamed about vacations and whether either of us would ever be able to afford a house in the insanely expensive Silicon Valley. And those conversations occasionally, jokingly, included one another.

Our joking continued for over a year—laughing about how our hypothetical children would be insanely smart but with horrible unibrows (from both of us), horrible teeth (from both of us), horrible eyesight (from me), and horrible scoliosis (from him). Those poor things.

And then, at some point, I started wondering. Graduation inched closer, and as a forward-thinker I had to know whether or not to plan to keep him in my life. I decided I didn’t want to ever lose him, but guys get freaked out by commitment, right? I broached the subject a few times (with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop): “So, uh, I love you a lot and stuff. Do you think we could, like, be happy forever?” Somewhat infuriatingly, I couldn’t tell if Mike was catching my hint: his adorable, easy-going nature led to the ever-so-helpful responses such as “Of course, darling, I will love you forever!” I had no idea if he was engaging in stereotypical romantic hyperbole, or if he actually was down with this whole marriage thing.

Today, I can’t recall exactly how I first introduced the M-word, but I do remember a period of a few months where I alternated between swells of blissful happiness and deflating dread that I was “pushing him” toward an engagement because “men are afraid of commitment” so obviously he’s just saying these wonderful things to “appease me.” (I’m obviously neurotic.) It only took Mike reassuring me approximately fifty thousand times before I started to believe that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

These now-serious conversations sweetened into sappy heart-to-hearts and continued for almost a year, until the practical side of my brain just couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled up Google Calendar and we blocked out a general plan: my graduation in spring 2012, a summer engagement, his fall graduation, next year’s wedding, some crappy entry-level jobs, living abroad in 2014, then coming home and getting real jobs. It was getting real, you guys.

In the end, the plan didn’t work out. Mike’s counselors had steered him wrong and he ended up taking summer courses in order to avoid delaying graduation: this caused a very stressful summer where he was too overloaded to plan a proposal. In the meantime, I landed an actual, real job right off the bat, thus ruining our plans of living abroad anytime soon (oops).

After Mike finished school in fall 2012, I sat him down, opened up gCal, and we tried to plan our lives again. The year abroad was put on indefinite hiatus, and the proposal was moved to the following spring so that Mike could focus on training at his new job. But after waiting a couple months into 2013, I got impatient and finally just picked the day for him to propose: our five-year anniversary.

It was nothing like the movies. While that’s perfect for some, it would have been all wrong for us. We’re of a practical ilk, and that works well for us. When the chosen day rolled around, I knowingly let Mike drag me around to all the spots that meant so much to us: cavorting around all day at the museum we love to visit, changing into fancy clothes at the hotel where we had stayed when I got home after my semester abroad, indulging in a champagne dinner at the restaurant from our third anniversary.

And when stage fright caused him to forget everything he had planned on saying, I laughed, wiped the tears from my eyes, said yes and kissed him.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Travel

Budgeting Your Overwhelming Trip Overseas

August 12, 2013 Emily Knight 1 Comment

As I demonstrated in part one of this topic (Planning Your Overwhelming Trip Overseas), when it comes to trip planning, Effie Trinket has nothing on me. I charted a course for my best friend and myself through Paris, Rome, Florence, and Venice, scheduling in every sight we wanted to see and restaurant we wanted to eat at. In two weeks. On a student budget.

Photos by Remi Coin

Since my first installment was an overview on how to approach planning a trip abroad, I wanted to follow up with a deep dive on how I budgeted the trip. It can be tricky knowing where to splurge and where to pinch! Again, this article comes from my personal knowledge traveling France and Italy, but these tips can definitely be of use when planning any trip.

When you start budgeting your whirlwind trip overseas, break down your choices and approach them step-by-step as you estimate and add up prices. Naturally, every traveler will have personal preferences on where they want to save money and where they want to go a bit crazy. My friend might have rolled her eyes at me when I laid down 40 euros to make a necklace of hand-blown Murano glass beads in Venice, but I maintain that maybe she didn’t need a ¼ liter of wine at every meal, either! It was no big deal, though, as neither of us expected the other to pay for something huge unless we both wanted to. Make sure to plan what you want to spend the most on, and consult with your travel partner(s) so no one is taken by surprise.

1. Airfare – This will likely be the biggest price tag, with round trip plane tickets overseas easily going into the thousands of dollars. You can save a lot here by planning ahead! Studies have suggested that the optimal time to buy plane tickets is either weeks in advance and that tickets are pricier in the morning (when business people are typically booking on the company dime) than in the afternoon (when future vacationers come home from work and plan their own trips). Websites like Kayak, Expedia, and TripAdvisor can also help you find cheap airfare by allowing you to plug in numbers and play around with different airports in nearby cities and compare prices from many different airlines. These sites even let you set up notifications for certain flights, so the site emails you if one of your saved flights lowers in price.

2. Accommodations – Depending on your comfort and safety preferences, the cost of your accommodations can vary greatly. If, like many young backpackers, you are planning on hitting up the local hostels, you still have a wide range of options. Websites like HostelWorld and HostleBookers can be hugely helpful in finding accommodations that fit your preferences and budget. These sites have listings for tons of places and come with reviews, photos, lists of amenities, rates, availability, and maps to show where you’ll be in the city and where public transit is located—everything you need to plan your trip.

When I was sorting through this wealth of information and options, I considered price and location first and foremost. Often, the cheapest accommodations are distant from the main attractions and events the city has to offer. Do some research into the city’s public transit: is there an easy way for you to get where you want to go, and does the transit run as early/late as you’ll need? Also, keep in mind that staying out all day without a stop at “home base” can be draining. My friend and I went abroad during July and were often hot and exhausted after lunch. Finding a park to nap in became a frequent routine that was critical to our enjoyment of the rest of the day. If that doesn’t jive with you, make sure you’ll be able to head back to the hostel fairly easily when and if you need to.

Aside from price and location, it is also important to consider the atmosphere of your accommodation. In Italy, we stayed in a vastly different hostel in each city. A Venice Fish was a communal, hippy-ish house full of excitable, partying Australians. After Venice, we stayed in PLUS Florence, one of a chain of hostels under the PLUS name. Though we were worried that it would feel distant and corporate, it turned out to be an awesome experience and it was very geared towards ease of the traveler, with everything from a money exchange at the front desk to preplanned daytrip offers for the guests. In Rome, we stayed in these cabins outside the city. About half of them seemed to be populated with other travelers, while Roman citizens rented the other half to temporarily escape the hustle and bustle of the city. This seemed like it would be a really relaxing stop at the end of our trip, but since the cabins were sorted by type of occupants, we ended up in one end of a duplex shared by five or six enormous bros who drank and listened to dubstep until approximately 4 o’clock each morning. In short, even though you will never know exactly what a place will be like until you get there, you are going to be spending a significant amount of time at your accommodations, and it is worthwhile to scour reviews and photos to find a good match for your personality and preferences.

3. Travel within City/Country/Continent – This item varies a lot depending on where you are going. In some places I’ve been to, like West Africa, one could take daytrips from a central location very cheaply and easily, but traveling from country to country took either a good deal of time (a few days) or much more money (flights around Africa are nearly as much as flights from North America to Africa!). However, traveling around Europe was (relatively) cheap and, because it is such a frequent destination for people in their 20s taking a modern-day Grand Tour, there are many discounts available to young travelers. RailEurope is an excellent tool to plan and book tickets, as you can layout your trip and get price quotes for each leg or find special offers that help guide your planning. Another benefit is that you can buy passes that will work on any one of a number of given days. That means if you decide to stay an extra day or leave early from a city, all you have to do is look up when the next train comes and hop on!

Once you’re inside your chosen city for a few days, you’ll want to get around to all the sights. You can certainly take taxis everywhere, but most of us just don’t have that kind of money, or we would rather spend it on awesome stuff instead of a yellow car that smells like cigarettes. Getting familiar with the city’s subway or bus system is a must. The bonus to this is that you can spot the deals ahead of time and get the most ride time for your money. Our lack of foresight in this aspect of our trip was what ultimately led to our ferry ticket in Venice, as we were trying to make it back to a station large enough to have 5-day passes for sale without having to purchase another one-way pass. C’est la vie! But it is a fate you can now avoid.

4. Food Budget – I am a huge foodie, make no mistake. A big part of traveling for me is trying the weird things they like to eat there and the classic foods for which they’re famous. That being said, I revolved my Italy/France trip around art, not around food. Still, I was able to find a plethora of tasty food options all over every city. For me, the Rick Steve’s guide to Europe was invaluable. It (and other travel guides like it) collects the tastiest and most interesting food options and sorts them by neighborhood and price. With short descriptions of the restaurant’s atmosphere and fare and a little pricing scale, we had no trouble choosing a restaurant just a short walk from wherever we were.

When planning ahead for a budget, it’s extremely helpful to use these guides and the benefit of your home Internet to plan ahead a bit and check out the online menus and price lists of the type of restaurants where you plan on dining. Though there is, of course, no need to commit to a specific restaurant tour just yet, this will help you estimate costs and allow you and your travel partner(s) to consider where to save and where to splurge.

5. Attractions and Shopping Budget – This part is very broad and very dependent on your interests, budgets, and need to bring home cheesy souvenirs for your loved ones. Keep in mind that you will possibly be paying for things like entry fees for museums, covers for bars, tasty bottles of wine, key chains that say “I ♥ NY,” and other things that spark your interest. Consider your buying habits and maybe even make a list of what kinds of things you plan to purchase while on vacation, so you can more easily budget your money for those items and not buy the first 20 euro Eiffel Tower paperweight you come across.

As for attractions, the Internet is the perfect resource for discovering that admission to the British Museum is free but a ride on the London Eye costs 26 pounds. You can also often find similar tourist deals as you did for transit—for example, the Paris Museum Pass gives you free entry, with skip-the-line privileges, to over sixty Paris museums and monuments. That is something I wish I had researched before spending two hours outside the Musee d’Orsay.

In closing, plan your budget, stick to it when you can, and most importantly, have fun!

Photo by Remi Coin

Travel

Planning Your Overwhelming Trip Overseas

July 31, 2013 Emily Knight 4 Comments

When the Venice ferry stopped at the Rialto station and several Italian men in serious-looking uniforms boarded and started checking people’s tickets, I thought, “Man, I coulda planned this better.” My best friend and I did not have a ticket for that particular ferry, and we were promptly and sternly written a 70 euro ticket (each!) and deposited—red-faced and stammering excuses—at the next stop, a 45 minute walk from our hostel.

When traveling abroad, it can sound fun to go with little to no plan. It sounds very romantic and exciting to frolic about Europe (or wherever you’re headed) with every intention of going wherever the winds of adventure take you and departing whenever these winds happen to blow. That might work out really well for some people. For most of us, though, that might lead to being stranded in Milan with no money, no place to sleep, no plane ticket home, and numerous bags of expensive Italian dresses.

I consider myself a fairly thorough trip planner and, aside from the misstep with the ferry police, my 3-week trip to Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome was amazing and filled with safe, clean hostels, cleverly-purchased transit tickets, top-notch food, and a plethora of art and activities for the student budget. How did I plan it, you ask? That’s what I’m here to tell you! Though this article comes from my personal knowledge traveling France and Italy, these tips can definitely be of use when planning any trip!

Step 1:

Make a “Places to go, Things to see” list. If you are going with a friend or group of friends, it is important to consult with them early about this. Maybe the biggest problem you’ll face is that your friend digs architecture while you want more paintings. Maybe, though, your friend wants to hit up every DVNO nightclub he can find, while you expect him to get up for your 6 am snorkel appointment. Even if you are good friends, it’s important that you discuss styles of vacationing (I’m a big “main attractions” and “foodie spots” girl; others are into nightlife, outdoor adventure, leisurely relaxation, etc.), as well as pace of vacationing (squeeze in 3 museums, 1 monument, 2 long meals, and a play every day or slow it down some?).

Step 2:

Narrow down that list to fit in to your budget (both time and money). Again, pace of the vacation plays a big role here. If you want to fill each of your days to the brim, go for it! Just be wary of wearing out. Also keep in mind the locations of all these “must sees.” If your budget allows you to hit up every European capital and then go to Greece before heading home, that’s awesome! But most of us can’t make that happen. Remember that it costs both time and money to move around a country or continent, and it might ultimately be worth it to you to skip out on Madrid in order to spend two more days in Barcelona.

As you research, you will probably have to do steps 1 and 2 several times, but that’s okay. Better to go to wherever you’re going with a practical sense of what you’ll be able to do, rather than be there and either spend your time running around like crazy or leave fuming about missing the second, smaller Jewish History Museum in NYC.

Step 3:

In order to do step 2 more effectively (and you’ve probably already done this), it’s now time to start making choices and estimating and adding up prices.

Airfare – Use sites like Kayak and TripAdvisor to find the cheapest airfare. You can even set up alerts for your chosen trips!
Accommodations – Hostels are the way to go for the discerning, frugal traveler. Websites like HostelWorld and HostleBookers can help you out with reviews and amenities of tons of places.
Travel within City/Country/Continent – Look for youth and student discounts for trains. Also, most city subways and bus systems have a week long traveler pass for a discount.
Food Budget – If you want to splurge on food, plan on it and save! Also, use Yelp or travel books to figure out how much your average meals will cost to budget.
Attractions and Shopping Budget – This will be very different for different types of travelers, but planning it out will help you stick to a budget.

I’ll share more on these next week in my article about Budgeting for your Overwhelming Trip Overseas.

Step 4:

Chart out your course. Now that you have brochures, maps, bookmarked webpages, some sort of budget, and hopefully a travel guide (believe me, I used mine everyday!), you are ready to set out an itinerary. “But,” you protest, “I don’t want to plan out every millisecond of my trip! I want to play some things by ear, check out the local scene, have some freedom!” Of course you do—this is your vacation after all. However, planning ahead, even with a vague sketch of a plan, can save you a lot of money and can help ensure that you make the most of your time abroad, so you never have to say, “Man, I wish I knew that electro K-pop festival was coming to Berlin before I left for Moscow.” Which is a thing I am sure countless disappointed electro K-pop fans have said.

When charting your course, your finalized list of necessary stops and cities is invaluable. You want to amp up the research at this stage, looking into the goings-on of these cities. Are there festivals or events or holidays you really want to be there for? Are there any of these that you want to avoid? I was in San Francisco for Pride a few weeks ago and, let me tell you, I did not envy the clueless tourists trying to navigate BART to get to the airport with 80 pounds of luggage. You definitely want to avoid experiences like that—though enjoying Pride in the city on foot with nowhere to get to except for your hostel that night would be awesome.

Of course, you also want to use logical proximity to chart your course. Keep in mind the general order of your destinations. Also, decide if you want to do a circular route so you can fly in and out for the same city (cheaper) or a straight route from, say, London to Budapest (no backtracking, but pricier airfare). Like I said above, you can often tweak your plans for hopping from city to city and country to country, especially with an open rain pass. That way, all you need is the general timeline of your trip and you can change the rest to suit your whims.

Some people (me, for instance), are a bit more diehard in the planning department. I know that my traveling style is squeezing every last drop out of cities, and with that trait comes a bit of a micromanaging vacation planning style. In a three-day trip to London, I managed to get in more than my travel partner would have done in a week on his own. If this sounds like you, then you will be doing even more research. Which night is 80s night at that club? Pencil it in. That antique store closes on Mondays? We’ll do the zoo that day instead. The tactic I found most useful for my short London trip was to jot down the times each of my necessary attractions was open and pin those times to a tourist map. Then, I used iCal (no Google Calendar yet, but that would have been perfect) to set aside times to do each item on my long list. I moved everything around based on open times and location until I had a strict 9:00 am – 8:00 pm schedule for each day, squeezing in Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Parliament and Big Ben, the London Eye, the Tower, Westminster Abbey (my favorite!), the British Museum, Saint Paul’s, the Globe (play included), Covent Garden, and Hampton Court Palace. Probably you fall somewhere between that (my highest level of dedication to trip planning) and complete laissez-faire (homelessness in Europe, basically). Do the level of charting that seems appropriate to you to make sure you feel comfortable and confident but not overwhelmed.

Step 5:

Get out of here! You’ve set a plan for your adventure, you’ve got your tickets, your passport is burning a hole in your pocket—it’s time to go! But, before you do, remember: not everything will go according to plan. The Eiffel Tower might be closed for maintenance, the Great Wall might have crumbled a little bit, Venice might sink! Your superb planning cannot account for every little thing, so it’s important that you roll with the punches and stay flexible.

That can get tough sometimes, but remembering that you’re on vacation and it is your job to have fun (or at least be relaxed) can often help. Even if things don’t “go wrong,” don’t be afraid to change your plans. You can have an amazing, unexpected adventure that way! One of my favorite days in Rome was one when we were too tired to navigate the city on our own and signed up for a bus tour of a vineyard with our hostel. Totally unplanned, totally amazing.

Stay sensible, stay safe, and most importantly, have fun!

Health

Remotivation: Jumping Back on the Health Bandwagon

May 29, 2013 Nicole Odell Leave a comment

It’s 11 pm. You stand in front of the open refrigerator, rub your distended belly and wonder what just happened to the fifteen Darth Maul cookies left over from your boyfriend’s “May the Fourth Be With You” Star Wars party. Oh yeah, you just ate them all, despite your determined declaration just last Monday that “It’s time to start fresh!” They somehow found their way into your mouth, and on the fourth day in a row of not working out, too. What bad luck! Evil cookies!

If you have ever tried to begin living a healthy lifestyle, you are probably familiar with one of the two following scenarios. One is to say “Screw it, I’ll start next month” and throw out your entire health plan (so you might as well cram in that last cupcake, too). The other is to spiral into a fit of self-loathing and overcompensation, involving weird cleanses with exotic spices and citrus and two hours every day on the elliptical.

Stop! There is a healthier way! Stop binging or purging (or a combination of both) and follow this easy, healthy method to remotivate yourself in the days immediately following a slip-up. And if you’ve never tried to live a healthy lifestyle for the first time, you can apply these same principles to begin in an appropriate, non-Nicole-Richie way!

That Night

Don’t beat yourself up. You are human, and humans make mistakes. Don’t make yourself throw up (or even try) and don’t continue to binge—you know you’re uncomfortable anyway. Take that food baby to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

And stop doing jumping jacks; it’s just going to give you cramps. You’ll know it’s futile when you have to stop after three of them.

The Next Morning

First of all, I’d like to reiterate last night’s message: don’t beat yourself up. Realize that one day of overeating (or even a couple of days) isn’t going to morph you into Jabba the Hut. That being said, it doesn’t give you a pass to keep screwing up. Those calories count, and so do calories for the rest of that week, and all those extras add up quickly. This is a new day, a day to forgive yourself and start out with fresh determination.

With all of that in mind, start with a healthy breakfast. I know you might still feel kind of bloated and gross from the night before, and eating might be the last thing you want to do, but starting your day with a light but nourishing meal will give you energy, keep your metabolism going, avoid the 3 pm hunger attack, and remind you that food is not of the devil. If you don’t usually eat breakfast, now is a good time to start. Most people think that they will lose weight by cutting calories earlier in the day; however, most people who skip breakfast end up making up those calories later in the day, and often even more than usual because starvation leads to very poor choices later on. Intense hunger pangs tend to make you go for the fastest food option. Keep driving past that McDonald’s, and don’t you dare stop!

Make sure your breakfast includes a lean protein, which will help keep you full, and a complex carbohydrate (any whole grain or fibrous fruit or vegetable), which will slow your digestion, keep you full, and create a slow-release energy that will hold you over ‘til lunchtime. Some great examples are:

Nonfat Greek yogurt, with a handful of berries (I use frozen for convenience), a sprinkling of granola, and a drizzle of honey.
Two whole grain toaster waffles spread with a tablespoon of peanut butter and sliced banana.
Scrambled egg whites with mixed vegetables and a slice of whole wheat toast.

Also, get a workout in! It’ll boost your endorphins, and even a light morning walk will remind you that food is fuel and that calories don’t have to stick if you don’t want them to! Plus, you’ll feel much better and get a self-esteem boost if you tend to be hard on yourself.

The Rest of That Day

There are two things you need to do before the day is over. One is to make a plan for the rest of the week, including your dinners and workouts. The best way to combat a future slip-up is to have a plan and treat it as a non-negotiable appointment. At the same time, keep your expectations realistic. Know thyself, and give yourself goals that you know you can accomplish. For instance, if you work an 80-hour workweek starting at 9 am and you come home exhausted every day, don’t expect to work out after your workday—you’ll never get it done. Instead, plan to suck it up and set your alarm for an hour earlier. Get your workout in before work when you still have a ton of energy, or plan a lunchtime workout. Having your plan in front of you, on paper (or smartphone), will assure you that it’s doable. Look, you have time for it! You scheduled it in: it’s in your schedule right there!

The other task is to get rid of whatever triggered your slip-up in the first place. I know it sucks to throw out food, especially if that food happens to be leftover nachos (they crisp up great in the oven!), but just close your eyes and get it done. In fact, this might be a great time to go through your cupboard and throw out problem foods in general. Giant jar of mayonnaise? Get rid of it. Double-stuff Oreos lurking in your pantry? Bid it farewell. Cooking lard? What are you, crazy? Banish it from thy sight!

This is one I have trouble with. My pantry is pretty well-behaved in general, but if there is leftover brownie cheesecake from a party, my logic says, “Well, I don’t want it to go to waste, but I don’t want it tempting me all week. I’ll just… eat it all now! That way, it won’t be a problem later and I’ll only have been really bad for one day, instead of slightly bad for seven days! Genius!”

What? Don’t raise your eyebrows at me. No one is perfect. Let’s move on.

The Rest of That Week

Stick to your plan. Recognize that treat days are perfectly acceptable within the structure of a healthy lifestyle, but the best way to distribute them is to wait for a treat day (or, preferably, just one treat meal) on a special occasion when you really won’t care, such as a family dinner, birthday party, or holiday. A good way to look at it is the 90/10 rule: eat well 90% of the time, and don’t worry about the other 10%.

Do your research. Find healthy alternatives for cooking methods, ingredients, or your favorite treats. For example, sauté vegetables in chicken broth instead of butter, or replace an after-dinner serving of ice cream or cake with a bowl of sliced apples, sprinkled with cinnamon, oats, and honey heated in the microwave. Voilà, healthy apple crumble. Once you’ve done your research, do your grocery shopping and begin incorporating these substitutes into your diet!

Have a rule for your workouts: never, ever, go more than two days in a row without exercise. Any kind of exercise. If you’re on a trip, find the hotel gym or go jogging. Visiting friends? Go out for a walk or hike, and let them show you the town. If you’re in space, I don’t know… bounce off the walls in zero gravity or something! Just make it a priority to keep active and keep it in the forefront of your mind. With this rule, you will never wake up one morning and realize it’s been two months since you’ve worked out, and you will get a decent number of workouts in per week.

The Rest of your Life

Remember, a healthy lifestyle is just that… a lifestyle. Whatever you plan to do, you have to see yourself doing it for the rest of your life. There is no magic diet that will help you reach your ideal Hugh Jackman/Gwyneth Paltrow proportions, and then let you go back to eating whatever garbage you want without gaining it all back.

This also may mean letting go of some unrealistic expectations. If the only way you’ll ever look like Gwyneth Paltrow (who, honestly, I don’t think is that hot anyway) is by starving yourself, then you aren’t meant to look like Gwyneth Paltrow (who, again… is not that hot). Learn to love your body for what it is! The human body is an extraordinary thing, and can do extraordinary things if you treat it well and let it try. Often, exercise is a doorway to this frame of mind; once you see what your body can do given the chance, you’ll stop punishing it and start taking good care of it.

And finally, I’d like to leave you with this final note on the nature of food. Food can be the best medicine in the world or a slow, agonizing poison, but food is not evil. It isn’t trying to trip you up, and that burger honestly does not have it out for you. There is great joy to be found in our food. Treats can be enjoyed in moderation, but you need to find the balance for yourself. Good, healthy, and nutritious food can have beautiful tastes, textures, and color, and above all, it will nourish and enrich your life and fuel your amazing body. Make the right choices, find the love and richness that can be found through good health, and make that your healthy lifestyle.

It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it, and I promise you will thank yourself.