Hungry for Adventurez

I love supporting local small businesses as much as possible, but sometimes during a trip, your wallet just needs a break. This is doubly true if you have a whole family to entertain! Here are 10 free activities you can do in the Des Moines metro area, sorted by type.  If you want more information on free or low-budget activities in Iowa, check out my article about Waterloo-Cedar Falls and Dubuque .  Free Markets in Des Moines Des Moines Downtown Farmers Market The Des Moines Downtown Farmers Market is truly a gem! Experience city blocks of food and art vendors, live music, and good old Saturday morning fun! The best part, is you don't have to buy anything to enjoy the vibes.  Learn more here .  Live Music and Farmers Market in Valley Junction Not in town on a Saturday? No problem! The Neighborhood of Valley Junction, west of downtown Des Moines, has a bustling Thursday market on summer evenings, featuring a rotating selection of live music of all genres.  ...

Aldi is my absolute favorite grocery store, especially for cheap and lazy camping food. It’s easy to put together shelf stable meals that are actually pretty healthy and require almost no prep work. As an added bonus, Aldi also has decent outdoors equipment in the “Aldi Finds” aisle, but we will save that for a different post. For this post I will be assuming you have a camp stove , such as a jet boil, available.  Lazy Camping Food #1: Favorite Cheese, Fruit, and Crackers No cooking necessary, yet somehow super luxurious. I like to get a wheel of Cammebert or Brie, which I slice up and eat cold with strawberries, peaches or apples, and a sleeve of crackers. It's perfect for a mid hike meal or snack. It's the ultimate lazy food, but also kind of feels luxurious. Plus, rich cheeses are a great food for when you are are on longer, active trips. This is because cheese contains calorie-dense fats.  Camembert cheese, 7 oz: $4.19 Strawberries, 1 lb: $2.19 Crackers, 7 oz: $2.55 (...

My boyfriend and I have wanted to travel from Iowa to Colorado on the California Zephyr for a while. However, we discovered that we could only afford Amtrak coach seats, and not a roomette. We decided to take the rail trip anyway and see how it went. We came back about a week ago, and I have plenty of info to share about sleeping in Amtrak coach seats! Our Amtrak route and itinerary Since we live in Iowa, the California Zephyr is the most accessible rail route. This Amtrak route goes from Chicago to San Francisco, California. It stops along the way at large and small stations alike, including Omaha, Lincoln, Denver, and Salt Lake City. For our trip, we boarded at a small station in Osceola, Iowa, and deboarded in Denver’s Union Station. We took Amtrak home using the same stations, also in coach seats. Both trains that we took had sleeper cars at the front of the train, then the dining car, then next the observation deck/café car, and the coach cars at the end.  What is the differe...

I have been car camping with and without a cooler for a while now, using either a Prius or a Hybrid Rav4 with a bed platform. And honestly, I have come to realize that I really don’t need a cooler. Maybe my opinion would change if I was traveling full time, but for now, my mind is made up. Here is why for minimalist car camping setups, you really don’t need a cooler, even if you love meat or are trying to eat healthy.  Problems with using a traditional ice cooler Traditional coolers, such as your average Coleman cooler, use a combination of water ice or dry ice and insulation to keep food cold. This means that you will have to buy ice for each camping trip, and you might need to refill during your trip to make sure food stays at a safe temperature. While ice isn’t particularly expensive, it is an expense that should be kept in mind if you are working with a tight budget. A second problem with ice coolers is that water ice will melt into water, which has to be removed from the coole...

I wouldn’t call myself a travel expert; I’m too young, and don’t have a lot of experience with long distance travel as an adult. That being said, I am pretty good at getting a good time out of almost no money. I get my cheap thrills as a weekend warrior, getting all my cabin fever out with short trips while still saving the same amount of money and PTO for the occasional big trip. Here are my biggest tips for getting more adventure without increasing your travel budget.  Travel Regionally Travel doesn’t have to mean coast to coast flights. In fact it doesn’t have to include flights at all! Take a look at areas that you can drive to in a few hours. Chances are, there is a city, national park, or state park you haven’t explored yet. Every time you get that wanderlust, look up activities in these new places. When I do this, I limit my transportation expenses to a tank of gas or two. With my Prius that’s just $30 per tank, the equivalent of two movie tickets and a snack at the theater....