Tag Archives: travel

Homeless and Unemployed in Costa Rica (Giving Birth Abroad)

We made it! We hope you understand our absence lately, but we’ve been selling our things, moving, and preparing for our trip to Costa Rica.

We wanted to give you a quick tour of the neighborhood/hospital so you can get an idea of where we’re staying and where we’ll be giving birth. So far our experience has been much better than we could hope for!

Giving Birth Abroad

Giving birth abroad has been something we’ve been thinking about since backpacking Europe. We discovered the rest of the world is not very accommodating to people with US passports, since we are so strict with immigration here in the States.

We also thought dual citizenship would be an extremely cool/useful/valuable gift we could give our children. After ruling out Europe and Canada, we found Costa Rica.

Our tickets and AirBnb is booked, and appointments are made. This is happening for real!

We’re not the first people to do this:
https://www.ticotimes.net/2015/08/15/west-side-birth-story-isla-arrives-at-cima
https://www.american-european.net/article-moving-to-costa-rica-while-pregnant-297.html
https://puravidaculture.com/having-a-baby-in-costa-rica/
https://familyfreedomproject.com/having-baby-costa-rica/
https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/Giving_Birth_Again_at_Hospital_CIMA_in_Costa_Rica.cfm

Traveling the Most Expensive Country in the World on a Budget

This will be our last video about our trip to Norway. Since we share all of our financials in our monthly newsletter, we wanted to break down the costs of gear and travel in this video.

If you’re thinking about going to Norway, our number one tip is to avoid restaurants. Everything else is actually pretty reasonable. (Note: A lot of that has to do with the current exchange rate being more favorable than in the past.)

Mike’s First Attempt at Photography

I’ve always been jealous?of professional photographers. ?Not bored housewives with $600 DSLR cameras on auto-mode, but artists who can turn any scene into something worth looking at.

Most of the technical knowledge I’ve?gained from making videos directly translates to photography. ?Setting up a camera to properly capture light comes naturally now. ?What doesn’t come naturally is composing good looking shots into a single frame.

Before leaving for Norway I decided I wanted to hone my photography and editing skills. Landscapes seemed like a good place to start and who could ask for better landscape than fjords, glacial rivers, and sandy beaches all in one trip.

My hope going into the trip was that I would come out with 3 or 4 photos that accurately represented the country. I’m happy to say I think I accomplished that goal.

Photo 1
sunnyrock
I think this one is my favorite because it came out looking so natural.?Some of my other pictures look more “processed.” It’s interesting, though, since the sun beam and rain drops in this one were enhanced dramatically (see original).

Photo 2
shipwreck
This is a ship wreck at low tide in Tromso. Editing this image showed me how versatile shooting in RAW can be. The original?was really underexposed to capture the detail of the sky and mountains in the background, but I was able to brighten up the ship without any problems. This turned out a little too sharp in my opinion. I need to go back in and fix it at some point.

Photo 3
mountainside
This one is definitely the most print worthy. As we came around a bend in the road this mountain side village revealed itself. The road was a series switchbacks with no real place to pull off so I quickly put on our blinker, jumped out of the car, snapped this picture and kept driving. The original looked amazing by itself, I just adjusted the colors and added a few highlights.

Photo 4
beachhouse
This photo was taken from the window of the car. We were exploring the Lofoten Islands and saw this barn sitting on what looks like a tropical beach. ?We’re actually above the Arctic Circle. (Original)

Photo 5
northernlightsWe’ll remember two things from our trip to Norway forever-?The glacier hike and the northern lights. I increased the exposure and adjusted the white balance to more accurately reflect the colors we saw. In the original, the lights were greener than in real life. They were actually more of a teal-ish color like in the edited photo.

I hope you enjoyed! I learned a lot in this process about taking and editing photographs. By the end of my editing session I had a much better understanding about RAW files, dodging and burning, and finding interesting subject matter.

Why Norway? (Road Trip 2015)

Many of you were probably wondering, of all the places in the world to travel, why Norway? Initially it was because we found round trip tickets for $375 and wanted to see the northern lights.

But after going it ended up being one of the best trips of our lives. We tried to capture just a few unforgettable moments in this video.

Glacier Hike – https://goo.gl/3uvW4l

We Climbed a GLACIER!

WE’RE BACK!!! We had an amazing trip and didn’t plan on posting a video today, but as we were sorting through our GoPro footage, the clips just fell into place. We had an opportunity to hike up a glacier in Jostedalsbreen National Park, Norway.

As it happened, we got a private tour of the glacier with our own guide for about an hour longer than normal. It was the real deal with ice crampon shoes, pick axes, harnesses, ropes etc.

Yes, Lauren is 4 months pregnant in this video but the guides were confident she would be fine. She was glad they let her come because it was a once in a lifetime experience!

Videos should resume as normal shortly 🙂

All-Inclusive? The Hidden Costs of Cruise Vacations

Thinking about taking your first cruise vacation? Even if you book a cheap cruise, there are still a few hidden costs that you might not expect.

For example, most people don’t expect free alcohol, but soda isn’t free either. Add $6.50 per day for unlimited soda. What about tips and gratuities, and internet? We’ll talk about these and many more!

Is Bigger Really Better? Our Cruise Vacation on Allure of the Seas!

We?ve just returned from a 7 day vacation on the biggest cruise ship in the world, the ?Allure of the Seas.? Many people wonder if it?s worth the extra money, if it?s too crowded, and what makes this ship so special. We have answers to all those questions and many more.

We talk about the advantages and disadvantages of vacationing on a floating city at sea. As diamond members of Royal Caribbean?s crown and anchor, we?ve been on many different classes, itineraries, and cruise lines. Oasis and Allure of the Seas are amazing, but are they our favorite cruise ship?

FINCON15, Here We Come!

We never had a chance to share our experience last year at FinCon. It was held in the beautiful and historic french quarter in New Orleans.

This year FinCon15 is being held in Charlotte, NC, and we’re happy to report we’ve been invited to speak again! Our topic will have something to do with video/YouTube/podcasting etc.

Here’s a recap of last year’s conference to give you an idea of why we’re so excited. The video includes brief clips with:

J.D. Roth – https://jdroth.com
J. Money – https://budgetsaresexy.com
Jim Wang – https://microblogger.com
Paula Pant – https://affordanything.com
Joshua Sheats – https://radicalpersonalfinance.com
Chris Ducker – https://chrisducker.com

Special thanks to our host, PT – https://ptmoney.com
For more info or to buy tickets, visit: https://finconexpo.com/