In early October, Aaron and I were fortunate to be able to take another mini-vacation together without our girls. We headed to Budapest for a long weekend. Yes, you read that right, a long weekend, in Budapest, from the US. In retrospect, it was kind of crazy, but it was so completely worth it! We were actually just talking about it recentely and we both agreed that there was not one thing that we regretted about that trip, which for us is kind of shocking as we usually have at least a small regret. I’m going to chalk it up to my expert planning skills ;)

So, why Budapest? In May, I noticed that one of our favorite music artists, Lindsey Stirling, was playing a European tour and had a show on October 7 in Budapest. Jokingly, I messaged Aaron, “Hey! We should go to Budapest in October to see Lindsey Stirling in concert.” To my utter bewilderment, Aaron replied, “Sure! Let’s go.” Actually, I wasn’t completely bewildered at that point. He usually says yes to my hairbrained travel suggestion, but then logic usually wins out and the plans fall flat. What did astonish me was the message from him two days later saying “I’ve made an executive decision, we’re going to Budapest in October for the Lindsey Stirling concert. Get flights and buy the tickets today.” Due to vacation time restrictions, we could only spare a few days. And that is how we ended up in Budapest for a long weekend.

We tried out something new this trip - we booked a split itinerary in an effort to save a little bit of money. Flights to Budapest from New Orleans were stupid expensive on Delta. But, they were significantly cheaper out of JFK. So I booked us on one itinerary that was JFK > Budapest, and one itinerary that was New Orleans > JFK. I was terrified for MONTHS that we would miss a connection somewhere and be out thousands of dollars trying to get either there or back. I booked a looooong layover in JFK (like, 7 hous long!) as insurance that if our outbound flight from NOLA was delayed, we would still have plenty of time to get to JFK and not miss our transatlantic flight. The same was true on the home-bound journey. I am relieved to say, all our flights worked out and we had zero issues! I don’t know if I would book a trip like this all the time, especially with young kids in tow, but for two people traveling with only carry-ons, it was a great way to save a few hundred bucks. And, it’s a more legal way to save on airfare than skiplagging that won’t get you blacklisted on an airline.

After 24 hours of travel there, we had 2.5 days in Budapest. We fit in two walking tours, a wine tasting, a cooking class, a massage and visit to a thermal bath, and of course, the concert! It was a whirlwind, we were exhausted (but thankfully not actually jet lagged), but I would totally do it all over again.

Did I mention we did all this to celebrate our 8th anniversary? No? Because we did. Go big or go home, right?!