The key to cheap holidays is always packing light, but not too light. The last thing we want is to lug extra stuff through airports, shuttle buses, and hotels. And now with airlines charging for checked luggage, we want to carry on as much as possible to save money and keep your holiday as affordable and low cost as you can. Plus, when you pack light, you tend to save more money since you don’t have as much room to buy tons of expensive souvenirs.

While we want to prepared for anything, we don’t want to carry items we are not going to use. Look at the items you are packing. Is there anything you are packing “just in case”? Could you run out to a local store and replace that item cheaply if you actually did in fact need it? If yes, don’t bring it.

Most hotels have complimentary combs, razors, shaving cream, and other toiletry items in the event that you forget or loose yours.

When it comes to clothes, this is where some of us have a hard time choosing what to bring. Firstly, don’t bring anything that you don’t feel comfortable wearing at home. Chances are, you won’t feel comfortable wearing it on vacation either.

Choose clothes that match each other. Make sure each shirt or blouse that you bring match at least three of the shorts, skirts, or pants. You can change the outfits by accessorizing. Accessories take up a lot less space than clothing.

I also choose clothing that doesn’t wrinkle, that can possibly be worn more than one time, that has pockets. I want to enjoy my time away without thinking about my clothes. I also bring a few pieces that I could rinse out in my hotel room sink just in case and it would be dry the next day.

By strategic packing, we carry less, have less worries and enjoy our vacation more!

My experiences with the canyon go back many years when I explored it for its fossil resources for the United States Forest Service. The canyon has seen a lot of history, too, as you can see petroglyphs from ancient Native Americans, ruins of Spanish settlement, and more recent American homesteads. It was its prehistoric resources that drew me back to the place over and over.

You might be confused by the various names that get applied to the region. The French word for the river, Purgatoire, was along the way corrupted by the locals into the far less euphonic phrase Picket Wire, so it is also called the Picket Wire Canyon.

At the bottom of the canyon in the river is an amazing exposure if you like dinosaurs. In this out-of-the-way place is the largest continuous dinosaur trackway in North America, with over 1,400 individual dinosaur footprints. Both the large sauropod dinosaurs like “Brontosaurus” and their meat-eating contemporaries like Allosaurus left their distinctive prints.

The canyon also has an extensive outcrop of the Morrison Formation. The Morrison is perhaps the most famous of the rock formations that contain dinosaurs, and skeletal remains of every Jurassic dinosaur you ever heard of comes from this unit. It was this fact that led me to the canyon, to explore for fossil resources and advise the Forest Service about what they had.

Turns out that the sections on Forest Service lands are fossil-rich, just as you would expect. In the last decade the Forest Service has been leading Passport in Time (PIT) programs there, exploring for fossils and digging out the dinosaurs they find.

If you are interested in this wild place know a couple of things in advance. You cannot drive into the canyon without prior authorization. You can hike into the track site and through the canyon, but it is several miles in and out from the trailhead. During the summers, the heat of the canyon can be brutal, so take plenty of water and be prepared. Your entire family will love a holiday to the river, and dinosaur hunting is something your children will never forget! This is one family holiday vacation idea that everybody simply must try!

One budget honeymoon idea is to stay in the area or within driving distance, rent a nice, yet affordable hotel for a few days, and act like a tourist in your own or nearby city. Go to all the places you may not have had the chance to while dealing with day to day life. Go to the museum, go to the place you had your first date, or to an unusual spot. If there are carriage rides, take one, you may be surprised by the interesting facts or information that your guide can tell you that you may not have ever known.

Another suggestion for fun honeymoon ideas is to find an all inclusive resort or vacation package that includes air travel and food, or a nice cruise. Usually a cruise can be booked for short term trips, usually three to five days. The nice thing about these ideas is that for the most part, everything is included. The food is provided, as well as ample entertainment. With cruises there are guided tours available, activities on the boat as well as at your destination. For resorts, there are an abundance of different activities to choose from, and this really depends on the resort. There are many water sports, skiing, and other free things to do. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about kids being around, and you have the choice to go out, or stay at the bungalow or suite.

Whichever honeymoon idea you choose and regardless of how much money you have in your pocket, the real gift of it all resides in being together with one another for the first time as husband and wife and the memories that the honeymoon will bring will last an eternity, so don’t stress about cost or location, just enjoy your time together and your honeymoon will be perfect.

The first part of this equation that will make a huge difference is to set up a separate, preferably high interest, savings account. There are great online banks like ING Direct that offer an unlimited number of free bank accounts with much higher interest rates than the brick and mortar banks can offer. It might seem like a pretty minor detail to have this account separate, but it keeps the money separate and just far enough out of reach.

The second part of the equation that will make a big difference is to go ahead and automate the savings process by having a set amount of money transferred each month into your account. The amount is up to you, but obviously the higher it is, the sooner you will be getting on a plane. A normal response would be that you don’t have a single dollar to spare for this; it’s understandable to feel this way, but pretty much anyone can spare something, even if it’s a very small amount.

The beautiful thing about automating the transfer of money is that it will accumulate without you even realizing it. The amount you’re putting away might not seem like much, but you’d be surprised how quickly it accumulates. Also, there is always the option of frugality and the surprisingly uncommon method of earning more money. Any other method of increasing your income will only bring you closer to your goal more quickly. You can easily save your pennies to do some custom postcard printing to share your travels with loved ones! Who knows, it may even remind them to send you that birthday money they’ve been meaning to send your way so can keep the birthday invitations tucked away for later.

Whichever method you choose, do yourself a favor and make it as painless as possible and you will be on your way to a place like Japan sooner than you might think possible.

Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) has become a popular activity for young and old alike. The basic idea is that it is a grownup game of hide and seek. Someone places a treasure, or cache, in a secret place and provides its latitude and longitude coordinates for other to locate it again. If you are exploring the outdoors anyway this is a way to have a bit of an adventure, like Indiana Jones looking for lost treasure.

The cache is usually stored in some sort of water-proof container. It often has a pencil (not a pen in case it freezes) and paper inside for those who find it to leave a bit about themselves to share with the owner and other geocachers. Also, there may be a note explaining that the cache is left there intentionally in case a casual visitor comes upon it.

Caches can be placed in far away and exotic, hard to get to locations (way off the beaten path, or in the middle of a lake, for example), or they can be near a popular street corner and you only have to adventure as hard as walking to get a cup of coffee.

There are some rules of etiquette for geocaching. If you find a cache, there are often little trinkets left behind. You are allowed to take something but only if you leave something in return. Obviously, don’t leave anything that can spoil like food, and don’t leave anything dangerous or illegal.

Also, respect the land. The owner of the cache should have cleared the cache location with the land owner or manager, so they have agreed to let people on the land for the fun.  Make sure that you respect their good will in letting you be there.

There are a number of groups that distribute the coordinates of geocaches, the largest likely being geocaching.com. A basic membership is free and you can get locations of geocaches near you, or near where you want to explore. Don’t forget that a quality handheld GPS unit is essential for this game. You can find reviews of some of the best models, and other stories about science, nature, and being in the outdoors at Boneblogger.

But in almost every destination, there’s a time of year when the weather’s not that great.  Even in paradise, it’s usually hurricane season between August and November.   Since no one wants to take a cruise where it’s rainy, windy, and cold, the cruise ships that sail in these waters when it’s nice usually relocate when the rainy season starts.

Those relocation trips – where a ship sails one way from one destination to another – are called repositioning cruises, and they can be a really good deal.  As a rule, they don’t visit as many ports as regular cruises, which usually visit a different port almost every day.  And there are often several days at sea.  For instance, a ship that repositions from the Caribbean to Europe will spend five or six days crossing the Atlantic ocean.

Today’s cruise ships have so many amenities onboard – everything from ice skating rinks to bowling alleys – that there’s plenty to do even when the ship is at sea.  And then, there are all those meals.  During sea days, the cruise lines often have special buffets in addition to all the regular meals.

Because repositioning cruises stop in fewer ports, they don’t sell as well as conventional cruises that call in five or six places.  For this reason, they’re often much less expensive on a cost-per-day basis.

Before you calculate your savings, find out what the airfare will be.  Since you may end up buying two one-way tickets, your airfare may be more expensive than a roundtrip ticket would be.

A short repositioning cruise, say one from California to Vancouver, is a great way to see if you like cruising.  And if you live within driving distance of the port, your airfare should be very reasonable.  Fares for these cruises are often as low as $50 per person, per night.  Considering that that covers your lodging, meals, transportation, and entertainment, that’s pretty hard to beat.

If you’d like to know more about repositioning cruises, visit http://repositioningcruisesguide.com.  Find out more about California cruises at http://repositioningcruisesguide.com/2010/03/west-coast-repositioning-cruises-on-norwegian-cruise-line-and-princess-cruises-in-april-and-may-2010.

Most cruises include some basic amenities in the price. There should be a list of these services provided when booking online on the cruise line’s website or through a travel agent. Usually, all meals, snacks, basic beverages at meals, onboard entertainment, activities, all of the ship’s facilities, and port-of-call transportation are included. It is very rare to find an all inclusive cruise that includes soft drinks, tips, and alcoholic beverages. Those services may be included in the base price on a luxury cruise line. For most travelers, those extras are paid for as used on the ship. Additional services like spa treatments and shore excursions are extra.

Cruises are always offering deals, as they want their cruise ships to fill up before the sailing date. Sometimes there are specials as low as $300 and $400 per person for a short five day cruise. Many websites out there will even send an email when a cruise goes on sale, so having flexible dates is a plus. VacationsToGo, Expedia, Travelocity, and Kayak are just a few websites to start watching for prices.  Some of the best deals on my all inclusive cruises that I have gone on were obtained from VacationsToGo, for example.

So when planning the next couple or family vacation, take into consideration the benefits of an all inclusive cruise, especially the flight cost to reach far flung departure ports, like European cruises departing from the south of France, or yachts that traverse Australia and New Zealand. Most services are included, so there is not a guessing game as to the cost. Most cruise lines will show their prices for shore excursions as well, so families can plan ahead. There is also a variety as to how long travelers want to cruise as well, from three day cruises to fourteen day cruises being the norm.

Today, apart from just one restored sugar mill at Betty’s Hope, all the mills are in ruins or have fallen apart completely. Betty’s Hope was a sugar plantation in the centre of the island with two mills and produced more sugar than any other mill on the island. One of the mills was fully restored in the late twentieth century and has working sails and original sugar processing machinery, although not originally from Betty’s Hope. It was run by the Codrington family from the early seventeenth century who introduced some innovative techniques for processing the sugar cane. Helped by the constantly blowing trade winds the mill could produce over five thousand gallons of syrup a year. The sugar syrup was processed into sugar crystals to be sent to Europe and the molasses was used to make the famous Antiguan rum.

There is also a Visitor’s Centre, housed in the old cotton store , with maps, pictures and information on the history of the Codringtons and Betty’s Hope. Here you’ll be able to find out more about the history of sugar in Antigua and how the sugar cane was processed into sugar crystals and rum.

If it’s culture that you’re interested in, you’ll surely want to begin your Austrian journey in Vienna, home of fantastic architecture and the seat of the Baroque musical movement. Composers like Bach and Mozart spent their days in Vienna, writing symphonies and drinking in cafes along the city’s busy pedestrian thoroughfares. Viennese architecture is one of the high points of a visit here, where buildings range from the grandiose Hofburg Imperial Palace to the looming Gothic St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

On the other side of the country, Salzburg is a quaint town known for its boutique shopping and mountainous scenery. The birthplace of Mozart, you will find no shortage of references to this classical composer in Salzburg, where you can even visit Mozart’s birthplace and explore a museum with his violins and pieces of music. No trip to Salzburg would be complete without a climb up to the impressive Hohensalzburg Fortress. This giant fort is located on a hilltop overlooking Salzburg and is Europe’s largest medieval fortress.

Austria is also an amazing country in which to escape the bustle of city life. With the Alps mountain range running through the country’s western corridor, there is no shortage of outdoor sports and alpine enjoyment to be had here. Pristine lakes are joined by snow-capped peaks that make for amazing hikes during the summer, while winter provides some of the best skiing and snow sports in Europe.

Wine-lovers will also enjoy sampling the finest of Austria’s vintner traditions. Along the Danube River Valley in Upper Austria you can explore tiny, undiscovered wine towns where grapes grow in in rows along the lush riverbanks. After a day’s drive, you’ll certainly want to stop into a heuriger, or wine tavern, to sample some of the local vintages.

Austria is a truly beautiful country and one that many tourists disregard, making it a wonderful vacation destination where you’ll find few crowds, fantastic weather and a plethora of activities to keep just about everyone happy.