Some days ago, my mommy and I were planning our trip to a religious seminar. It's an event that is held every December in Rivers state.
Initially it was just me, my siblings and my parents but now, we have children and our family got larger than before. Thus, we are more likely to incur more expenses and more stress if we do not plan carefully.
We had concluded on cooking to avoid buying food, thinking that we would be saving cost. Since we would be taking food there, we resorted to travelling with some cooking utensils and a gas cooker.
I had wanted us to travel in the most comfortable way there is for this reason, I started making plans for a car hire instead of going to the park to board a public transport.
As I planned on travelling in comfort with my family, I had some sort of realization which made me question myself, "why don't you calculate and compare the cost of buying food at the event with the cost of cooking and see which is more viable?"
Immediately, I calculated with a pen and paper. It was then I discovered that, there is no much difference between the cost of cooking and buying of food at the event. While buying food is slightly more expensive, the stress from cooking plus the constant reheating of the food, kinda like even both choices. Again, since it's an event where we ought to relax and have fun, I opted for buying of food at the event.
Furthermore, since we ain't cooking again, there will be no need for excess luggages. It'll just be our sizable traveling bags and for this reason, my mom wanted us to cancel the car hire and use public transport. According to her, it's just our bag of clothes and we ain't taking any other extra luggage so the use of public transport will be best to save cost.
The moment she brought up the suggestion with the public transport, I kicked against it because I want this trip to be one of my best yet. I needed us to have enough space in the car where the children will not feel choked from tight space. I also need to be able to stop along the way and buy those goodies on the road like roasted bush pork, tapioca, palm wine and the likes.
I need it to be a family road trip and want us to be free to chit chat and position to sleep however we want when we get bored of the road. While my mom is considering my pocket, I am consoling myself with the comfort and the good time with family.
Given my experiences with travels, the best trips are usually the ones where money is not a constraining factor. That is, you are financially prepared for the trip and as such, you will be able to explore lots of options and not settle for less because that's what you can afford.
I have shared on hive before how my road trip experience to Ghana was a nightmare. My mom had a passport for my brother and I but did not do one for my other sisters because we were not sure they would tag along because of exams.
In the end, they joined us and since they did not have passports, it would make their fare more expensive. As my mom consulted and planned with her finances, some of our religious members approached her and told her of an illegal route, citing that it would be cheaper.
In a bid to manage costs, my mom followed them. We traveled at night and that was one risky adventure. We crawled through grasses and went underneath a barbed wire fence.
We got arrested by Togolese police and God saved because thanks to my mom who identified as a Civil servant back home in Nigeria, we were released.
We slept out in the cold and the breeze from the ocean was not nice, we got hungry and shivered from the cold night too. Not to mention we were hopping from one vehicle to another and also to motorcycles. The journey was stressful plus risky and my heart goes out to all the illegal immigrants.
At a point when we illegally crossed one of the borders at an ungodly hour, we got chased by security dogs. As we ran and crawled underneath the fence to escape the vicious dogs, I sustained some injuries.
It was indeed a nightmare and after our ordeal, my mom discovered she spent more than she had bargained for. It was after that experience we started taking our time to plan for every trip before we embark.
ALL IMAGES ARE MINE
Above is my response to the Novemberinleo prompt day 2 in collaboration with the #cleanplanet community, hosted by @nwothini335.
You can participate HERE
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Hi @bipolar95! This is @ninaeatshere. Wow, you have good reasons to make sure your family can enjoy a comfortable trip, because going through so many complex situations like the ones you describe in the end is not a nice idea for traveling as a family and with little ones. I hope the rental costs aren't too high and that you can enjoy the road.
By the way, if you ever get inspired to write about your travels, you are welcome to join the WorlMapPin community, where we exchange experiences of our adventures all around the world, just pin your post to our map.
Here is a detailed Guideline for travel content posting in WorlMapPin community
We suggest you read all the rules of our community here.
For any other questions, don't hesitate to contact our team on our Discord channel.
Cheers!
Would be sure to source for the most affordable price for the car rental, currently working on it too 🙂. Thank you for your invite and would be sure to share my journey with your community as I embark 🤗❤️
That experience!!! Ewoo
That’s a total nightmare because ei. All that for because of passport?
What’s just unfair.
Bad dream o... Since that time my mother learnt a valuable lesson, my siblings and I also learnt that short cut is a death trap.