Reporter

Marla Jo Fisher

Marla Jo Fisher was a workaholic hard news reporter before she adopted two children from foster care at age 46, picked up a scruffy dog along the way and somehow managed to keep them all alive, at least so far. She now writes the Frumpy Middle-Age Mom humor column that appears in the Orange County Register weekly. Due to her status as the cheapest person alive, she also writes about deals and bargains for the Register, including her Cheapo Travel column which also runs in newspapers around the country. When she's not having a nervous breakdown, she's usually traveling somewhere cheaply and writing about it.

Visitors look up at the El Capitan monolith in the Yosemite National Park in California on June 4, 2015. (MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)

You can visit any national park for free on June 19

June 12, 2025 at 1:53 p.m.

In celebration of Juneteenth, the NPS is offering free admission to all its parks.

FILE – The baptistery designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet is pictured as French President Emmanuel Macron visits the restored interiors of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024 in Paris. (Christophe Petit Tesson/Pool via AP, File)

Travel: What it’s like now inside beloved Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral

June 4, 2025 at 1:54 p.m.

The inside of the cathedral now glows with oatmeal-colored walls and cavernous vaulted ceilings.

This August 5, 2015 photo shows tourists walking out to Glacier Point with a background view of Half Dome at Yosemite National Park. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Get into all national parks for free on April 19

April 12, 2025 at 6:26 a.m.

You might be shocked to learn this, but these freebie days are really, really popular.

Memoir by travel guru Rick Steves of his epic trip as a 23-year-old in 1978. (Photo courtesy of Rick Steves Europe)

Rick Steves’s new travel memoir examines wild times on the ‘hippie trail’

March 6, 2025 at 9:04 a.m.

Steves and his friend travel mostly by local buses, including an epic journey from Istanbul to Tehran that he described as three miserable days in a bus driven by a...

Giraffe in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where the world’s tallest animals roam. (Maurizio De Mattei/Dreamstime/TNS)

Heading out on a South African safari, then looking for wine and penguins

February 14, 2025 at 12:37 p.m.

"After a few minutes, you get used to the zebras."

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Here’s when you can visit all national parks for free in 2025

January 20, 2025 at 11:05 a.m.

I recommend going before the crack of dawn, because these free days are popular and you'll find lots of people on the most visited trails.

Nile cruise boats line up alongside each other during stops to visit temples along the route from Luxor to Aswan. Cruisers then must step from boat to boat to reach the shore, where they find large crowds also trying to see the temples. People who don’t want to go through this can simply drive the same route in a taxi, stopping as they please, rather than taking the cruise. Taken March 2023. (Photo by Marla Jo Fisher/SCNG)

17 tips for having a great cruise down the Nile River in Egypt

January 16, 2025 at 12:46 p.m.

Prepare yourself emotionally for the crowds, because most if not all of the Nile boats cruising the same route stop at these temples at the exact same time.

At this writing, Antoine’s is offering a $24 luncheon with two courses, available Monday through Friday. Choices include swordfish and butternut squash soup or roasted beet salad. (William Morgan/Dreamstime/TNS)

How to eat great food in New Orleans without going broke

November 20, 2024 at 11:51 a.m.

You don't have to splurge to feast on fine cuisine in the Crescent City.

A woman dressed as Mexico’s iconic “Catrina” awaits the start of the Grand Procession of the Catrinas, part of upcoming Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017. The figure of a skeleton wearing an elegant broad-brimmed hat was first done as a satirical engraving by artist Jose Guadalupe Posada sometime between 1910 and his death in 1913.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

The best places to go in Mexico to celebrate Day of the Dead

October 29, 2024 at 1:29 p.m.

The southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and the island town of Patzcuaro are the most legendary for their ancient and colorful traditions.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JULY 04: Sphere lights up for the first time in celebration of Independence Day on July 04, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 366-foot-tall, 516-foot-wide venue, the largest spherical structure on Earth, features an Exosphere with a 580,000-square-foot display, the largest LED screen in the world, and is expected to open later in 2023. on July 04, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Greg Doherty/Getty Images)

Travel: What it’s like to see a concert inside the Sphere in Las Vegas

July 24, 2024 at 1:30 p.m.

The inside of the glowing orb along The Strip is as amazing as the outside.

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