R and R’s Travel Tips

Initially we would have been in Portugal starting in September, but Covid 19 restricted us to the US for now and we don’t expect to get overseas until January or even April 2021. This has been beneficial as we get our travel procedures honed and find what works for us. We have primarily been staying in Airbnb’s and found that 28 days or longer gives us a 5-65% discount as well as only a single cleaning fee. Although we may stay in a city for longer than 28 days, we only commit to the initial 28 until we spend 7-10 days to acclimate and determine if the location is right for us and if so, we can extend our stay.

We choose stays with a kitchen, so we can eat most meals at home. One simple home meal favorite consists of Ceasar salads with tuna or chicken. We love chili and find deli chili and beans with an added can of spiced beans goes a long way. Broccoli either steamed or roasted is one of our favorites. Robin loves making protein shakes many mornings and sliced melon, muffins and cereal are frequent choices. Randy will whip up scrambled eggs with mushrooms and cheese sometimes even for dinner. Generally we eat 2 meals a day. We loved Fred Meyer stores in Washington and found that being a Kroger store there are many affiliates in other states with the added plus of getting fuel discounts. Safeway/Albertsons also are very reasonable and well equipped for our needs. We have some inexpensive fast food favorites, Taco Bell, Subway and enjoy trying the local haunts such as In N Out Burger, Carl’s Jr and Cafe Rio. We love Dollar Tree to stock up on small items to make our stay more comfortable as well as pick up snacks. You never know what will be supplied at your next stay, aluminum foil, saran wrap, muffin tin, bath mat, so the dollar store comes in handy and we can always leave items for the next guest. Super Supplements (Vitamin Shoppe) has stores all over to pick up our nutritional supplements. AAA, AARP, Groupon and senior disounts have all been helpful for admissions to museums and meals.

Since we still have a car for our US travel, we bring along a few extras that we would not bring on a flight. Robin prefers bringing our own towels and washcloths as most stays provide very few and the quality is uncertain. Many stays have a washer/dryer included, but we have had to frequent several laundromats with great success. The commercial machines are fast, high tech, high capacity and take debit cards. We usually sit there and play Uno while getting our laundry done in under an hour. Some locations have a transfer service where you put clothes in the washer and they will put in the dryer and remove when done and send you a text message. Our wardrobes and belongings have been greatly reduced as we find it best to travel light and we can always pick up additional clothing or items. For example, our current bed is almost 40″ off the ground. Five foot tall Robin was challenged to get into bed. Using Facebook Marketplace, we bought a small stepstool for $5 and life is good. Each move, we discard a few more items to better prepare for the future day when a backpack and carryon will be all we take.

To get online purchases, Amazon has boxes everywhere. We share a UPS box with Katy and she can send what little snail mail we get to our local UPS store. We have our own Amazon Prime account for streaming TV shows and movies, yet most stays have access to Netflix. Amazon also provides Prime reading and the local King county library provides access to plenty of E-books. Pluto TV provides free TV and movies. For news we use the NewsOn app to get news from different regions including Seattle. The local channel news apps actually work better if available.

We have enjoyed our extra time here in the states and it has helped immensely with regard to our future travel endeavors.

We look forward to hearing from you and hope we see you in one of our future destinations.