Pre-Ireland: Part 3 - General Tips

So my first post was full of prose, and my second a rambling of the ins and outs of applying for the visa. Here are some of my own personal tips that you can take or dismiss as you please.

1. Don't pay for your flight
   I got my flight TO Ireland for free. Once I got back from NOLA and decided I wanted to travel, the very first thing I did (before even deciding what I wanted to do) was apply for a travel credit card. I already had a checking account and a credit card with Chase, so I naturally applied for their Chase Sapphire travel credit card. As it turns out, it's one of the best travel credit cards.
   
   They offer a signup bonus of 50,000 points (which was only 40,000 when I signed up - bummer!) that you receive upon spending $4000 on the card within the first 3 months. Now, if you're not the kind of person who is good with having available credit (i.e. you spend up to your limit frivolously), then this might not be a great idea for you. But my method with credit cards is to treat them like debit cards - I only spend as much as I have in my checking account, and I only use them for purchases I was going to make anyway. Also: I pay off my balance at the end of every billing cycle, so I never pay interest. I literally just accumulate points and earn free money from using my credit card when I otherwise would have used a debit card.
   
   And spending $4000 may seem like a lot within 3 months, but luckily for me my apartment complex lets you pay rent online with a card. They charge a $17 fee for that (as opposed to paying directly from a checking/savings account) but I did the math and paying that $17 fee 3 times was worth the hundreds I saved on my flight. I also paid for EVERYTHING - even my parking meter fees - on my card. Meeting that minimum was actually pretty easy with that setup. So by the time I was ready to buy my ticket into Ireland, I had almost 60,000 points (which translates to roughly a $575 plane ticket) to use toward travel. So I got my ticket literally for free, and I still have leftover points to use on future flights. Also, there are no fees for using your card with foreign currency - so you can even continue to use your card in Europe and accumulate these points and then use them toward return flights. The only stipulation with the Chase Sapphire card is that after the first year, the card costs $95 anually. But again - if you add up the 3 $17 rent fees I had, and add them to several years of paying $95 for this card that I intend to use for a while, the card pays for itself if you use it correctly. So get a free flight! Even if you only use it for 11 months and then cancel before the $95 annual fee kicks in - do that! You seriously make out here.
   
   
   
2. Workaway.info
   This is a site I've had my eye on for years, but I never had any reason to use it until I knew I would be traveling. This website is similar in concept to WWOOF - except it offers a much broader variety of work and the site is international. With WWOOF, each site is country-specific and requires different memberships. Workaway is worldwide. THIS ISN'T TO SAY WWOOFING ISN'T AWESOME, THOUGH. It's just less versatile. But anyway - this site puts you in contact with people all over the world who are looking to host travelers and give them free room and board in exchange for ~25-30 hours of work per week. The work varies from simple house cleaning, to child care, to farm work, to hotel work. And so much more. So unless you lead an extravagant life, and spend lots of money every week, these setups should cover your basic expenses entirely. They are not ways to simply get free room and board - you MUST work and treat these hosts as you would any employer (unless they're shitty people and they mistreat you - then get the hell out of there and find a better host). But within hours of getting my visa approved in theory, I signed up for the website and contacted a couple who owns a B&B - and I'm set up to stay with them for 6 months starting in July. I have a few months between getting into Ireland and staying with them to figure out what I want to do - but because of this site, I've secured housing and food for half of my stay in Ireland. It would depend on the host - but some of them may even be okay with you taking on additional paid employment during your stay if it didn't interfere with the work they expect from you. So this is a way to travel Ireland (or the world), get to know the locals, experience daily life, and still get by with secure housing.
3.  Shampoo bars
   Alright - I still have to figure out how exactly I'm supposed to pack a year in a foreign country into one suitcase, but one thing I realized is that my massive mane of hair (yes I have that much) cannot lug around massive bottles of shampoo. I learned of LUSH shampoo bars - which are essentially like bars of soap that you use on your hair - that last for up to 80 washes and are super travel-friendly. I bought some and tried them out at my apartment and they work pretty well (the conditioner bars, however, did not - but like I said I have a lot of hair so maybe that's why). Packing lightly is going to be very important if you intend to move around within the country, as I do. Thankfully, Ireland is pretty temperate and I won't need 2 different wardrobes for the seasons like I do here in Ohio - but so far I've only really narrowed it down to: 10 PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR - YES. 10 PAIRS OF SHOES - NO. But toiletries are a way to start - you don't need a huge bottle of shampoo when these bars are available (and you intend to move around a lot, like I do).

So that's all I have for tonight, guys. I'll post more if I think of more, but I had to split one night's worth of thoughts into 3 posts for all of our sanities' sakes, so I hope you all got something out of these. Happy travels!