Vale Viaja

  "Ok seriously, how can you afford all of this?" As a female solo traveler that's been to over 30 countries and 110 cities, this is a question I get often.  And here's the honesty:  I didn't always take the best financial choices when I was younger and took some of these trips. And as I've grown and financially suffered from some of those 'not as smart' choices, I knew the only way I could realistically keep up with this lifestyle was by getting really serious about my finances. I did not want to stop traveling, but I also needed to be debt-free. And I'm lucky to be at this point! This question is going to be explained with several posts, where I'd love to provide more insight on discount travel, travel with credit cards, hacks for finding cheaper flights...  For now, let's talk budgeting.  Learning how to budget was definitely a journey. First, I entered the obsessive stage, a very short-lived one.  I made budget excel where I budgeted ...

I first wrote this blog post in 2023, after two trips to Big Bend. Now, in March 2025, I have officially gone to Big Bend seven times, and West Texas eight times. Raised in Houston, my road trips across Texas were pretty limited to the other big Texas cities and some Southern cities when we'd drive to Mexico. I was not prepared to fall deeply in love with the desert out in the isolated West, and I'm already planning another trip back. Feel free to read my recs, updated now after so much experience with visiting the park:   Here's what I did and learned from my trips:  What To Know About BBNP:  This is a BIG park. A HUGE park. Fun Fact: Big Bend National Park is larger than the state of Rhode Island! From one side of the park to the other side of the park, it is over an hour of a drive. So while there's lots to do in the park, there may be long drives from one activity to the other, so it's important to plan ahead.  Big Bend is unofficially split into 3 parts:...