What has inspired you to continue traveling the way you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n My husband and I are part-time travelers with full-time, non-travel related jobs.\u00a0 For me, having a trip planned and to look forward to is how I get through the workday.<\/p>\n Where have you gone and where are you hoping to go?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve been to Belgium, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, England, France, Gibraltar, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, Vatican City, and many states in the United States.\u00a0 My list of places I would like to go is endless.\u00a0 Some of my current wish list countries are India, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Turkey, and many more.<\/p>\n Do you have any tips on how to efficiently budget your vacation time to make the most out of your trips?<\/strong><\/p>\n I try to plan our trips over weekends and sometimes holidays in order to spend as many days on vacation as possible using as few days off as possible.\u00a0 For instance, in December we are going to New Orleans, leaving Christmas day and returning New Year\u2019s Day.\u00a0 It will be an eight-day trip but we only have to take three days off of work.<\/p>\n How far in advance do you plan your trips and how detailed is your planning (or how spontaneous is your trip)?<\/strong><\/p>\n To me, the most important thing about getting the most out of a vacation is planning.\u00a0 I do a lot of research, usually for months before we travel, and create very detailed itineraries.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t room for spontaneity.\u00a0 If we learn about something we have to see or experience, we\u2019ll rearrange our schedule or skip something not as important.\u00a0 But having a plan means you will always have something to do if something better doesn\u2019t come up.\u00a0 I have actually eavesdropped on conversations while we have been traveling of people who are relaying a fabulous experience that they just happened to stumble upon while wandering around without a plan.\u00a0 The thing is, we experienced that same experience plus five other fabulous things on the same day because I had researched and learned about these experiences.<\/p>\n How do you decide where to go?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our travel plans are almost always dictated by airfare.\u00a0 Since we pretty much want to go everywhere, I keep my eyes open for airfare deals.\u00a0 When I find an airfare deal that is too good to refuse, that\u2019s where we go.<\/p>\n How do you travel around?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our transportation all depends on our destination.\u00a0 If we are in cities I prefer to use public transportation.\u00a0 I absolutely love metro systems, something we don\u2019t have in San Diego.\u00a0 In fact, public transportation in San Diego leaves a lot to be desired, so I always love visiting a city with fabulous public transportation.\u00a0 I love train travel for getting between cities.\u00a0 But if we are going to explore a country thoroughly, it\u2019s always fun to do so in a rental car.\u00a0 For instance we recently took a Denmark road trip<\/a>, which allowed us to see a lot of Denmark\u2019s beautiful countryside and visit some sites we would have missed otherwise.<\/p>\n What have you learned about yourself through your trips?<\/strong><\/p>\n For being such a nervous person, I have learned that I\u2019m pretty adventurous.\u00a0 Life has always stressed me out and made me nervous, even as a little kid.\u00a0 When I first started traveling it made me extremely nervous.\u00a0 I would be terrified while in line at the airport that we would miss our flight or get delayed.\u00a0 Then I\u2019d worry about maneuvering through a new city in a new country.\u00a0 I still get nervous, but travel has made me much braver, and the benefits and joys of travel far outweigh the worries.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also found I\u2019m more likely to do adventurous things while traveling then while at home.\u00a0 As an example, I\u2019ve never had a huge desire to go rock climbing as it sounded difficult (I have no upper body strength) and kind of scary, but that\u2019s one of the popular activities in Thailand, so I went rock climbing in Thailand<\/a> and had the greatest time.<\/p>\n What’s the most surprising place you’ve been so far and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n Lots of destinations have been surprising, but perhaps the most surprising place we\u2019ve been was Belize because I fell in love with it much more than I anticipated.\u00a0 Belize is such a fascinating country with so many mind blowing Mayan ruins.\u00a0 It\u2019s such a poor country and can be quite a shock at first, but the people seem to be quite content with their lives as is.\u00a0 They just seem to need less than we think we do.\u00a0 I was also surprised by the food.\u00a0 I have never had fresher food as I had in Belize because it is too expensive to import anything, so all the food is fresh and local.<\/p>\n How did you determine your budget for your trip?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our trips seem to cost about the same.\u00a0 Airfare might be cheap but hotels are a little more or vice versa.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really create a budget for our trips, but I know what I\u2019m comfortable spending.\u00a0 What is most important is that I can pay for the entire trip right away.\u00a0 I pay for everything using credit cards to earn miles, but I never carry a balance on those credit cards.\u00a0 If we can\u2019t afford to pay for the trip, we aren\u2019t going to go.<\/p>\n What’s the craziest story you have from your travels so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n My crazy stories are more short stories.\u00a0 We usually have good luck on our trips, mostly because of all the planning that goes into them ahead of time. \u00a0One of the weirdest experiences we had happened recently when we were coming back from Baja.\u00a0 In order to skip standing in line for three hours to cross back into the United States, we paid $5 to take a shuttle in a special lane that would drop us off at the door to passport control without standing in line.\u00a0 It still ended up taking three hours, but at least we were sitting.\u00a0 What was crazy about the experience was that the line was at a standstill for almost two hours and our driver actually left the van and was nowhere to be seen for those two hours.\u00a0 A couple people left the van to try their luck walking across.\u00a0 Then someone entered our van and told us for $5 we could move to another van farther up in line, which half of the passengers did.\u00a0 We were just sitting there looking at each other, wondering if this was a scam and what we should do.\u00a0 The line moved up a little and someone from another car had to get in our van and move it up in line since our driver was MIA.\u00a0 Then some people from a van farther back were brought forward to our van.\u00a0 Finally our driver came back when the line started to move again.\u00a0 We made it across the border and back home, but that was one of the oddest experiences ever.\u00a0 Only in Tijuana.<\/p>\n Do you have any advice for other travelers?<\/strong><\/p>\n Do some research!\u00a0 I understand wanting to live like a local, but you can do that and also visit the awesome places that are unique to the destination.\u00a0 You never know when or if you\u2019ll make it back, so act like you\u2019ll never be there again.\u00a0 As part-time travelers, we don\u2019t have the luxury to travel slowly and make discoveries along the way.\u00a0 Our time is limited and we need to make the most of that limited time.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve seen people waiting in lines that will last for hours or being turned away when tickets are sold out while we sailed on by with tickets purchased ahead of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Katherine Belarmino and her husband Romeo are part-time travelers who travel as much as possible with limited vacation time. Through careful planning they’re able to efficiently see the world while holding down full time jobs. Their travel style, which includes shorter, action-packed trips, allows them to make the most of the limited time they have. By specifically allocating their vacation time for travel, they’re able to maximize a traditional employment vacation schedule and still follow their passion for travel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[896,94,895,897],"class_list":["post-7603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-stories","tag-denmark","tag-thailand","tag-travel-planning","tag-vacation-time","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-18 00:28:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7603"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11917,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7603\/revisions\/11917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Katherine](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Katherine-and-Romeo-in-Denmark-850x566.jpg\")
![\"Rock](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Rock-Climbing-in-Thailand-Led-to-This-View-850x488.jpg\")
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Vatican-Line-Bypassed-By-Prepurchasing-Tickets-284x400.jpg\")