Hawaii is an ideal summer vacation destination, isn’t it? It’s a place where you can go to enjoy wonderful beaches and activities on the water. That’s what everyone wants to indulge in during the summer months. However, that’s the problem. Everyone wants to take their Hawaiian vacation during the summer. The crowds and popularity mean that it’s expensive to travel to Hawaii in the summer. Smart frugal travelers will skip Hawaii summer travel and choose a cheaper alternative instead.

What are some good alternatives to a Hawaii vacation? Here’s a few:

• Galveston Island, Texas. The beach here is wonderfully warm since it’s on the Gulf of Mexico. Getting here is much more affordable than getting to Hawaii, especially if you live close enough to drive. Plus you can get terrific Houston hotel deals and Houston is only a short drive away from this beach.
• The Outer Banks of North Carolina. The beaches of North Carolina often get overlooked by travelers. People who head to the warm Atlantic waters of this region often choose to go to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina instead. However, North Carolina has amazing beaches. Compared to other beach destinations, this is a really affordable place for a terrific summer vacation.
• San Luis Obispo, California. The water here isn’t quite as nice as some of the other places you can visit but you can enjoy affordable activities on the water (such as boating). You can get great ocean views from cheap hotels here, too.
• Local lakes throughout the United States. Lakes are warm enough to swim in. They often have boat rentals or jet ski rentals. You can enjoy some fishing. Larger lakes even have some waves to enjoy. And since these lakes are often not in high-tourist-traffic areas, they are very affordable to visit.

I definitely think Hawaii is a place you should visit. However, go in spring, fall or even winter. The weather is still nice there, the beaches are still wonderful and the cost is a lot lower!

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Unfortunately, though, the problem with online relationships is that they’re as easy to lose track of as they are to form. It’s easy to go a long time without answering someone’s email even though you don’t mean to put it off. That’s what’s happened with me and my Houston friend. I keep meaning to write to her and I keep putting it off for no good reason. It’s frustrating, too, because I do want to know what she’s been up to but I can’t seem to gather myself together to write to her to find out.

I thought maybe I’d write about that here because I figure it will motivate me to go ahead and write that email. After all, I know that she’s going to see this post and that she’s going to know that I have no good excuse for not writing. Sometimes we have to do little things to hold ourselves accountable to do the things that we want to do.

Anyway, none of this has much to do with why you read this blog but it did get me thinking about Houston travel again. In fact, because it’s nagging at the back of my mind that I need to write that email, I’ve been thinking about Houston travel quite a bit lately.

One of my favorite sites for travel daydreams is YouTube. You can use general searches on YouTube to find out lots of different travel information. You can get travel news from clips posted on YouTube. You can watch beautiful slideshows of other people’s trips to a destination. You can learn detailed information about an area’s budget hotels or best restaurants. These videos are a great place to explore the idea of traveling somewhere new.

So, yes, I’ve been watching Houston travel videos on YouTube and yes I wanted to share a few of them with you here:

Enjoy! Now I’ve got an email to go write!

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Guess I’ve gotten off to a slow start with my blog posting for this year. It’s been more than a week since my last post! I’m the type of person who tends to beat myself up a little bit about things like that. However, one of my personal New Year’s goals is to be kinder to myself. Although I hope that a lot of you are enjoying my budget travel blog, I realize that it’s not the end of your world if I don’t post every few days. I’m trying to remind myself of that and to just be happy that I get the chance to post as often as I do.

That said, the New Year has gotten off to a great start here. I was able to take a little bit of time to myself to solidify some of my goals for 2010. I had already established my travel goals for the year but I wanted to take the time to make some other personal goals instead. Like the one about being kinder to myself. And I also want to be more compassionate and caring with my family. It’s so easy to snap at the ones that we love but it’s so unfortunate that we do this, isn’t it?

Anyway, I’d love to know how your holiday travels went. Were you able to get good deals on hotels? Did you spend as much as you thought you would or more than that or less? The friend I’ve mentioned on the blog before (who originally wrote to me about Houston hotel deals) actually ended up not spending anything at all on her holiday travels. I thought that the way that she did this was great so I figured I’d share it here to get us all off on the right foot for a great New Year.

Here’s what she did:

• Used frequent flyer miles that she’d accumulated to pay for her flight.
• Used travel points from her credit card to pay for an affordable hotel room.
• Traded her time and energy for food (by cooking the food bought by relatives in the area so everyone was happy)
• Committed to only enjoying free activities – and kept that commitment
• Refused to buy anything new for the trip or during the trip

How inspiring! I think a new 2010 goal of mine might be to travel next Christmas season without spending any money.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this blog. What I’ve discovered is that blogging is a joy. It’s also a great way to get information about new budget travel deals that I would not have necessarily found on my own.

For example, one of my readers contacted me last week to let me know about some great Houston hotel deals that are available right now. I don’t actually have any need to plan a trip to Houston at the moment so the deals themselves weren’t of that much interest to me. However I didn’t want to alienate this reader so I responded back. We ended up getting involved in a lengthy back-and-forth email conversation about the best ways to travel inexpensively in Houston.

I learned a lot from my online conversation with this stranger-turned-online-friend. I learned about the history of Houston and how to best see it on a budget. I learned about the tourist traps to avoid and to see. I don’t know when I’ll use this information but it’s good to have in the back of my mind. (And if I ever do get a chance to use it then I’ll be sure to share it with you here!)

I never would have thought about researching this topic on my own at this point in time. I’m busy planning holiday stuff so I’m not even thinking too much about upcoming travel other than the stuff related to Christmas. However I enjoyed this little online conversation. It was useful. And it made me feel connected to someone else.

As a blogger, I have a tip for all blog readers: Comment! Someone who truly loves his or her blog will really appreciate that you took the time to comment. You’ll start a great conversation. This two-way interaction is really what sets blogging apart from other forms of news and travel information. Take advantage of it. I know that I’m really enjoying it. And to think, this blog began with just a friend asking advice about a downtown Chicago cheap hotel and now here I am!

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