Travel Skills Tuesday #10

Welcome to Travel Skills Tuesday! in these issues of my Email Newsletter I’ll drop travel tips and tricks!

As most of us travel in the spring and summer, NOW is the time to prepare! Here’s my list of Things Every Travel Pro is Doing in January (so you should be too!) to make sure our travels go smoothly!

• 💰 Start Saving Travel Funds 

  • Here’s how I make a little mindless saving go a long way

  • 2024 Learnings: Things I saved and over-spent on

• 🧳 Luggage & Packing Refresh

  • From refreshing Air Tag Batteries to those old crusty toiletries

• 🛂 Renewing Passports & New Visa Rules

  • My Review of The NEW Online Passport Renewal Process!

• 📋 Create Your Travel Wish List

  • My secret to finding & SAVING travel activities

💵 Saving Travel Funds

I love saving (and spending) intentionally for my travels! this starts with investing in a Travel Bank Account! This travel essential will keep your daily expenses safe from travel disasters AND create a safe bucket for you to AUTO-SAVE into by depositing money right from your pay into this separate account.

Auto-Saving $25 dollars a week from your paycheck will add up to $1,300, that is plenty for 2-3 nice trips a year!

Looking back at 2024, I learned many travel spending lessons and hacks. Here are my favorites to remember for 2025!

• Ⓜ️City Metro Day Passes are such a DEAL to get around and feel like a local

• ✨Refine your Travel Points Game, I saved thousands on travel from streamlining my travel points, more tips & posts to come on this soon!

• ✈️If you Miss Your Flight DONT try to cancel it and rebook it right away. Go to the airport and they may be able to put you on a later flight for free, without you wasting $700 like I did….

• 🍽️Love Cheap Eats around the world? check out the International Too Good To Go App

I have 2 Awesome Resources for you to learn the skills you need to spend wisely on your travels! A Blog Post Series on All Things Travel Money, from travel accounts and saving on activities to budgeting basics! You can also download my 💵Travel Money PDF Guide for spending tips & travel spending scams to avoid.

🧳Luggage & Packing Refresh

Winter is a great time to refresh your luggage and toiletries! Here’s the TOP 5 Things I do to get my luggage ready for another year of travels!

1. 🚨Update your I.C.E (In Case of Emergency) Ziploc Bag: I like to rescan/update my health insurance, passport (photo page and back barcode) and emergency contact info

2. 🧖🏽‍♀️Refresh your body products, wash out old containers and refill your toiletries 

3. 📍Replace AirTag Batteries - These things are SUCH a game changer

4. 🧳Check bags for any precarious damage like weak zippers and broken wheels

5. 🏷️Make sure your luggage tags are up to date, here’s my guide for what to (and not) include on your luggage tag

🛂Renewing Passports & Updated Visa Rules

I renewed may passport online this month. The online renewal process was a BREEZE and I got my new passport and card back in a WEEK! I love the updates to the passport too, the photo page is now washing machine proof! Get your renewal app in before the summer rush!

Check official US Embassy Pages for new visa requirements for the countries you’re planning to visit in 2025, the most popular updates are new entry requirements to the United Kingdom (ETA), the European Union (ETIAS) and Brazil for US citizens.

📋Create Your Travel Wish List

To start planning our travels we need ideas!! My challenge to you is Pick 3 Places you want to travel to this year AND Follow their Tourism Pages on social media! This will get you tapped into local events, activities and news for you to plan your trip!

Save any activies and restaurants on your 📍Apple Maps Guides and ✅Sign Up for Event Email Newsletters to keep track of these items so you can actually do them.

This year my travels are packed with Food Festivals🍽️ in Charleston, SC, Tampa, FL and Miami, FL! I am also planning trips to New Orleans, LA, Atlanta, GA, Montreal, Canada and South America. Crossing my fingers I can squeeze in a trip to England too! Send me your recommendations if you have any!

Once you compete this 2025 Travels Prep Checklist, You’ll be ready to start booking those trips! Thanks for Reading! I’m Wishing you a Full and Peaceful travel season!

Forward this Travel Skills Newsletter to Your Travel Buddy, so they are prepared too and you won’t have to leave them behind on the trip

Keep Traveling & Pouring into Yourself - XOXO - Lydia

Want More Travel Skills & Tips?

Grab a Copy of My How-To & Travel Skills Handbook! Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop & Local Bookstores via Ingram. Thank you for Supporting my Blog & Newsletter by Grabbing a Copy!

Here is my main blog page, LydsLifeSkills.com, full of all of my blog posts! Use the tabs in the headers to find the blog post subjects that you love like travel, career and finance.

I love being organized when I travel so I’ve decided to share my FREE Travel Planning Template via GoogeSheets! This template has an itinerary that automagically creates a spend review for your trip! it also includes travel packing and to-do lists. Upon opening, select “make a copy” to save it to your google account. Each newsletter will have link to get your copy, so lookout for updates!

You can also follow me on Google Reviews and Trip Advisor to see my reviews of the attractions, hotels and restaurants along my travels and at home in Tampa, Florida.