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Photo Source: Ellee and Instagram
Welcome to Travel Crush Tuesday!
Ellee is in the building - and this week she's showing us what it means to be a globe trotting Travel Crush. This native New Yorker has climbed the pyramids of Egypt, took her whole life in her hands on the swings in Bali, and she's still pumped for more challenging, new adventures. Read on for her tips on having magical experiences without breaking the bank, her favorite hack for buying cheap flights, and how she stays in villas without the hefty price tag.
Tell us about yourself! Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do? What inspires you to travel?
Hi, my name is Shenelle. I go by Ellee pronounced (Ellie). I’m a New Yorker born and raised. I love all things, travel, fashion and anything artsy really. But traveling is my absolute favorite hobby. If you ask anyone that knows me they’ll say oh yeah, Ellees always off on a new adventure every year. I am Trying to see as many countries as I can while I’m still on this earth. Traveling just brings me so much joy. I love just being in a new place, learning a new culture, new languages, meeting new people, learning the history of these places, & just exploring another country. I just love it all. I’m a native New Yorker, born and raised.
My family, however, came here from Jamaica. I’m first generation. I’m a manager for a fashion company. What inspired me to travel was I guess you can say my mom I remember the first time she took the family on a road trip to Disney World driving from New York to Florida. I just loved the feeling of seeing a new place and then I remember when she used to take us to Jamaica I fell in love with just boarding a plane. I loved every second of traveling even the jet lag lol. I also grew up watching the Mary Kate and Ashley tapes that they made. Those twins actually inspired me to travel. When I saw Mary Kate and Ashley go to places like Paris, London, and the Bahamas , I fell in love with the idea of exploring, and branching out further than just Jamaica or Canada.
What's the most adventurous thing you've done while traveling?
The most adventurous thing I have done, while traveling so far, was climb the pyramids of Giza. I mean, in case you guys don’t know, but you can actually go inside the pyramids of Giza. Don’t go in there if you’re claustrophobic though cause there’s no windows obviously and you’re crawling into a tight space and it was a lot of work getting to the top inside the pyramid, but it was worth it. I was tired, sweaty, and my back was sore by the time I got back down though lol.
What's the most magical travel experience you've had? Share the destination and an itinerary that others can steal.
The most magical travel experience that I’ve had was traveling to Bali, Indonesia. Just being there alone was amazing. They say it’s the island of the gods. I really do believe that. It was so peaceful there. Definitely stay in Ubud Bali in a nice villa. It's really affordable there. USD goes a long way there. Definitely go see some temples, hit up the Bali swing, even if you’re afraid of heights lol, go to the monkey forest not only will you be surrounded by tons of monkeys, but the forest is beautiful as well just remember to seal all loose objects and know that your food will be taken those monkeys are hungry lol. Also, don’t look the monkeys in the eye, they don’t like that. I also got to see elephants up close and personal for the first time and it was amazing. I got to bath them, feed them, and hug them. It was the best experience of my travel life so far.
If you had a free ticket to go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
If I had a free ticket, I would definitely like to go somewhere that I’ve never been, but I also would like to go back to Bali because it was so beautiful and peaceful there. I wanted to stay longer i plan to go back and stay longer, but if I had to choose a place that I’ve never been to before, I would say Kenya I’ve always wanted to go to Kenya it looks beautiful, and who wouldn’t want to go to the motherlands I want to explore all of Africa, but Kenya is at the top of my list. I would love to go on a Safari there and eat breakfast with giraffes.
What's a travel hack that everyone should know about but not enough people do? What are the benefits of this hack?
A travel hack that I think everyone should know about is there are certain days of the week where plane tickets are lower. I think it depends on the airline, but sometimes plane ticket prices drop lower Tuesday or Wednesday morning and then certain airlines sometimes the price is lower on Saturday or Sunday. You just have to do research before booking the flights.
Also, from what I’ve been told, and from my experience and research flying out on a weekday instead of a weekend is cheaper as well . I tend to use Google flights to check on the pricing of the plane fare that I want but I do it from a private web browser because if they see you constantly searching in the search engine for the specific plane ticket, they will hike up the price because they know that you’re interested in buying it. Also, not every country is going to have the same regulations as your country. If you’re staying in an Airbnb, hotels, or villas some of them do not have smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors, a travel hack for this is you can buy a portable one on Amazon for around 20 bucks better safe than sorry.
Is there anything related to travel that we didn't ask you about that you'd love to share?
Yes, I’m really big on traveling on a budget. I believe that you don’t have to break the Bank in order to see the world, you just have to know how to manage your money better and budget yourself. A lot of places are definitely affordable to travel to. When I tell people that my flight and Villa alone for Bali was under $1000 they didn’t believe me but it’s true. You can be on a budget and still travel the world, all you have to do is do your research, plan, budget, save, and enjoy your life.
Where else can folks find you?
I’m usually on social media daily, always on Instagram but I’m also on TikTok and YouTube and even Twitter all the same handles (@elleeegirl). YouTube is just (Elleegirl) though.
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