After college, my biggest goal is to work for a travel magazine. NatGeo’s Traveler and Travel + Leisure are the biggest names that come to mind, but I’d be fine with any travel magazine.

Any except for Budget Travel.

Not to say that I look down on couponers or extreme penny-pinchers, but I had always assumed that if you want to do something cool, you have to pay a large price. That is, until I became a poor college student that still wanted to do cool stuff and had a group of friends that were planning a road trip to Branson, Mo. Inspired by Rachel Ray’s “40 Dollars A Day” and terrified of spending all my money at once, I did something I thought I would never, in my entire life, do: I went to Branson for an entire weekend with only $40 in my pocket.

Sadly, due to my less-than-ideal budget, I did have to say no to a few things like coffee and those cute little license plates with your name printed on them. Likewise, though, my budget did force me and my friends into doing some things I’m sure we otherwise never would have done.

For example, we talked to the crazy owners of the toy museum who threw toys at us. Literally, a screaming stuffed monkey nearly hit me. In retrospect, it was probably because we couldn’t pay for the museum and only lingered around the gift shop, but it was still funny.

We also went through a mirror maze as a cheap alternative to a wax museum. I highly recommend mirror mazes if you’re in a large group, because nothing is better that watching your friends scare themselves multiple times with their own reflection.

What really made this trip memorable, though, is what we did last. For the people that have been to Branson, obviously you have to see a show at least once. Unfortunately, most of the shows were way over my budget, yet we were determined to go see one. After extensive research and much asking around, we finally found a show for just $8.50.

Pulling into the building, we realized this could either be the greatest moment of our lives or the worst. Not only was the building practically falling apart, but it was also painted a very, very happy yellow color with a huge rainbow spanning the roof, and “Waltzing Waters,” the name of the show, in bright blue. We went in and sat down in these 18th century theatre seats that have a funny way of reclining.

The theater went pitch black. Suddenly, old symphony music started and fountains of water shot up from the stage and a “dance” show, illuminated by different colored lights, came on.

This went on for 40 minutes.

Luckily, the symphony music played all the latest hits, like “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and “Turkey in the Straw.” Sadly, that delightful show ended much too soon, and we headed back to Columbia not long after.

Now that I’ve done some budget traveling of my own, I can definitely see how much fun it can actually be, as well as how you can discover things so weird and off the beaten path simply because you can’t buy anything over $10. Although budget traveling may not be my preferred way of doing things, I have learned a lot by trying it, and who knows? Maybe Budget Travel really is in my future.

Oh, and I arrived back in CoMo with $15 left over. What a bargain!