Hi Reader!

How are you? I’m writing to you from the road (Passenger Princess for the time-being 👸🏻) as we’re making our way up to Seattle. Forgive me for any typos as I’m typing on my phone and will do a quick copy & paste into this email template once we reach our hotel around midnight.

It’s going to be a busy couple weeks over here, then I’ll be ready to settle in for a productive fall and winter. Let’s jump right into this week’s updates :)

Adventures

Since we’ll be on the road for at least two weeks, I’m finding ways to save some 💰 without getting myself into another Booger Hotel situation. I wanted to share a couple apps that have saved me money on two of the main expenses of road trip travel: gas and food.

Upside is an app that finds gas stations with discounts available and displayed in the app. You can search within an area and you’ll see the final price you’ll pay per gallon. It even shows discounts for some restaurants and grocery stores. Just remember to activate the offer in the app before paying! Use code APRIL9387 for an extra 15 cents/gallon off your first purchase 🎁

I love this old film photo from when I was driving the van down from Seattle to LA. (Old license plate 😌)

Franki is an app I just started using that saves me money on food. Anytime I’m going out to eat, I check the Franki app to see if the restaurant I’m going to has rewards I can activate. Paying with a connected card automatically earns me a percentage of my purchase back. Franki also has bonus “gigs” that can win you up to $15 in bonuses for submitting short videos of your dining experiences. Since the app is still pretty new, it seems easy to win gigs as there aren’t many entries. Signing up through my link will give you a boosted cash back reward of 10% for your first month 👀

For accommodations, I’ve previously shared my love for Hotels.com and HotelTonight (specifically the mobile app -- Use code 'apbaldock' for $25 off your first booking!), in this newsletter. I hope all these tools make travel more affordable for you! More money saved = more money to spend on future trips. 😆

Shoutouts

My shoutout this week goes to Jordan of @lostwithjordan! I came his account recently in the comments section of another account I follow and have been loving seeing his adventures ever since.

We bonded over our love for solo travel and I’m learning so much from his posts, especially around affordable travel! His content is different from many other travel creators because it’s sprinkled with educational and motivational nuggets of wisdom. Definitely check out his page for some travel inspiration and more!

Munchies

We have been fully embracing ✨ girl dinner ✨ on our lazy days when we don’t feel like cooking or aren’t super hungry.

If you’re not familiar, think of 💅 girl dinner 💅 like a charcuterie board meal — but you can add whatever you want. In our household, we usually include charcuterie classics like fancy crackers, olives (for my boyfriend), and pickles (for me). My favorite are the sweet and spicy pickle chips, in particular the ones from Mt. Olive and Famous Dave’s. We buy a huge jar of the latter from Costco and I snack a couple nearly every time I visit the fridge.

Finish your plate with any other veggies, dips, a leftover slice of pizza, some noodles, and dessert and you’ve got yourself a 💁🏻‍♀️ girl dinner. 💁🏻‍♀️

On My Mind

Many of my friends in the content creation world are going through major burnout right now. I think it’s a combination of being gogogo during the busy, peak outdoor season of summer and seeing growth slow as fewer people are searching for this type of content as the weather cools.

Periods of low engagement are definitely discouraging, but I like to take advantage of them to experiment with my content and post things that might not perform as well or are outside my normal formats. If I don’t find ways to make the downswings of work more fun, I’d be beating myself up something outside of my control.

Quitting when something gets hard is so much easier than pushing through. It takes just one moment to throw in the towel and give up forever. Sure, you can always go back and “un-quit,” but you’ll have lost the momentum and this can be especially true in social media. Sticking with something requires showing up day after day after day. It’s this never-ending need to choose “yes” to putting in the work that makes quitting so attractive.

Although I’ve been feeling the slump recently, I’m savoring this time to slow down and work on making even better content with the luxury of fewer eyes on it.

Reading

The first book I read this week was Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan, which is a collection of poems. The funny thing about this book is that I remember enjoying it and breezed through it in a day, but upon reflection a few days later, I could barely remember anything else about it or its contents.

Maybe it was my fault for going through the book so quickly, or maybe this modern style of poetry didn’t hit a core nerve the way I’ve come to expect from emotional works. Either way, I think it’s one that many people will like, even non-poetry buffs such as myself. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

My second book was High Conflict by Amanda Ripley, which teaches us about the type of conflict that usually involves two opposing parties that refuse to see eye-to-eye. Examples she gives are political extremists in the US, clashes between feuding gangs in Chicago, and couples going through divorce.

This book doesn’t present many techniques that can be used to resolve these “high conflicts” because the premise is really pretty simple: actively listen to your conflict partner and find common goals. Easier said than done. I enjoyed the examples Ridley gave throughout and they made me feel like there’s hope, even if the most combative of clashes. I give it 4 out of 5. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Check out all my book reviews on Goodreads if you want to see what else I've been reading!

Everything Else

I’m planning to make a switcheroo to the format of this email for the 25th issue. We’re on #22 right now!

I thought it would be fun to give a little more insight into the person behind the newsletter and share 25 facts about myself. I promise they’ll be more interesting than my favorite color or lucky number.

I’m hoping we discover some similarities beyond our appreciation of nature and adventure — it would be so cool to read any fun facts you'd like to share about yourself!

I’m going to start compiling my list, so stay tuned 🤗

I'll see you here next week with an exciting backpacking adventure to share. Have a great week! :)

Happy adventuring,

💚A