海角大神

Several years ago, I picked up one of those tourism guides for Iowa, similar to the ones that many states put out to attract travelers to their state. I live in central Iowa, of course, so everything mentioned in that guide was within three hours of my house.

About four days and a lot of page-flipping later, I ended up marking about 200 things to see in Iowa with my family.

The items I marked were a mix of things, from obviously tourist-y places like the above depicted 鈥淔ield of Dreams鈥� to state parks and community festivals. I marked such things as the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend and Ledges State Park in Boone. I noted the Neil Smith Trail and the Lewis and Clark Trail.

The things I marked in the guide were mostly free things.聽We wouldn鈥檛 have to travel too far to see them, and we could pack a sack lunch and make a day out of the trip to the location.聽

Alternately, it wouldn鈥檛 be hard to plan a weekend around these things, where we visit a community festival and camp at a state park in one corner of the state. (In fact, we鈥檝e done this.)

This guide has led us to countless little day trips or afternoon excursions from our home, let alone weekend trips. We鈥檝e discovered and explored lots of things, from Devonian-era fossil gorges to beautiful lakes and streams.

It鈥檚 all been virtually free, and it鈥檚 filled many days with fun.

How can you get started doing this? The first thing to do is to聽get a tourism guide from your state聽as well as聽a guide to the state parks in your state.聽Find out what鈥檚 close to you.

Sure, 80% of it won鈥檛 seem interesting, but if you find even a few things that you want to visit, you鈥檙e going to have a good time, likely at a low cost.

We usually plan a day around things that aren鈥檛 incredibly close to our location.聽We pack up a lunch, some snacks, and perhaps even a second meal聽and depart. Our only cost outside the house is the gas, and for the amount of enjoyment we get out of the trip, the $10 we spend on gas is a nice price. The activity is usually free and the food is as inexpensive as can be.

You don鈥檛 have to travel to see and enjoy wonderful things. They鈥檙e sometimes close enough that you can drive there in an hour or two. You just have to look for them.

This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available聽at Amazon聽and at bookstores everywhere.