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ONLY FOUR MORE DAYS (!!!) until my round-the-world summer vacation with my friend Rosio! We’re heading to 8 countries in two weeks (gotta maximize that annual leave), and booked our flights and accommodations using a mix of loyalty points and money. We ended up with a nearly $37,000 trip for 2 that was booked with about 600,000 points and roughly $2,000. I’m so excited, and I want to share bit about the plan and how we booked it.Read More →

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February is clearly the best month of the year (how could it be otherwise when it signals my entrance into the world?) and every year I try to make sure my birthday provides an occasion for everyone to recognize February’s awesomeness. This year’s flu season actually loosened its grip on me long enough to allow me to properly celebrate, so I headed off to Portland, Oregon. Originally, I didn’t plan to do much for my birthday, but then I remembered I now have the power of Southwest’s Companion Pass* at my disposal, and I couldn’t miss the chance to use it. Helloooo short getaway!Read More →

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The Perfect Accommodations There are many things in life to which I sometimes arrive very late (dinners, nearly all TV shows, most entries on Urban Dictionary…), but a hotel reservation is not one of those things – a late hotel reservation can mean spending hundreds of dollars that I could otherwise be using to eat delicious foods, or it could mean compromising on what I want out of my hotel stay. Neither is an acceptable outcome when both can be prevented. The two biggest expenses of most trips are flights and lodging. If you can control these costs, then the overall cost of your tripRead More →

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“How can you afford to travel so much?” If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me this question, I could probably fund another trip somewhere. So far in 2017, I’ve been on 3 international and 12 domestic trips. I also have a full-time office job at which, contrary to popular belief, I actually do appear regularly. No, I am not a secret heiress, I don’t have a ton of extra income collecting dust in a bank vault, no sugar daddy in sight and I’ve never won the lottery. Read More →