Inspiration, Travel

What’s This All About?

July 5, 2019 / Leave a comment

Howdy! My name in Sean, and I’ll be the primary poster on this site.  “What is this whole thing about?” you might ask.  Well my plan is to cover the travels that our family of four goes on.  My wife, Vicky, and I really love to travel and haven’t let the addition of two kids slow us down.  If anything, we’ve gotten more adventurous in our destinations over time.  We have two kids: a 4-year-old boy, Daniel, and a 5-month-old girl, Elizabeth.  See our About Us page for more details.

I know that some people like to split up and travel separately from their kids or on trips with part of the family (i.e. only parents, one parent-one child, etc.).  This isn’t something we do much, and usually only on short trips. I can’t really picture travel without our kids very much . Obviously, that could change, and I’ll write about that if/when it happens. 

I like to think of us as pretty traditional travelers:

  • We don’t try to go on super adventurous trips (maybe when the kids are older)
  • We stay in normal hotels not rentals or super low budget places (though a rental is a possibility if it makes sense)
  • I try to plan trips where we can see a few different areas
  • And we generally see the main tourist attractions in a place  

I love travel planning.  I tell my family that is how you can tell I’m excited about a trip, I can’t stop researching it and looking up options months ahead of time.  As a result of this, travel hacking is probably a natural product.  Vicky wasn’t too sure about the credit cards and the points programs and was honestly a little worried about it when I first talked to her about it.  Luckily, she is amazing and trusts me, and was open to see what I could do.  When I booked us roundtrip business class tickets to Europe for only a few hundred dollars, she was pretty much sold.  At this point, she just wants me to tell her which card to use when, and occasionally asks to make sure I have it under control. 

I’m really a beginner in the travel hacking world, so I’ll be giving the how’s and why’s of our reward bookings for our trips to explain how I’ve gone about it.  Honestly, to me it seems straight forward, but then I try to explain it and realize it’s more involved than I think.  When friends have asked about it, I give a quick intro then realize I’ll have to explain more, and it quickly peters out.  I’m also an Engineer and have a stereotypical Engineer’s love for spreadsheets and running comparisons.  So, it can get involved. 

The plan at the start of this site, is to cover any recent/new travel plans.  How we decide where to go, what to do, and how we are going to travel.  I’ll give details into how we use any points we use as well as any tricks we find along the way. 

We recently returned from a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, and that trip really solidified my plan to start this site and share this information.  So, the first several posts will be all about that trip.  How we spent $143 on the flights, and the hotels for 2 nights in Los Angeles, 7 nights in Kailua-Kona, and 2 nights in Hilo were all covered with points.  We had an amazing time in the island and already want to return and visit other islands as well. 

A major reason for this site is to discuss how we are doing this travel with two small kids along.  What obstacles do we run into (stroller accessibility for instance)?  What are the benefits (plane boarding benefits)?  What are the just plain basic things that you might not realize and could affect your family travel (hotel room with a great view but overlooks the hotel bar with live music till midnight).

After the series of posts on Hawaii is complete, there will most likely be a series of posts over past trips we have taken.  These will not be as in depth, just because they were longer ago, and the details will be less immediate in our memories.  To give an idea of what we have done in the five years that we have been married:

  • 2015 – Boston and Cape Cod
  • 2016 – Road trip from Texas to Chicago
  • 2016 – Disney World and First Disney Cruise to the Bahamas
  • 2017 – Las Vegas (no kids)
  • 2017 – Carnival Cruise to Alaska
  • 2017 – Seattle trip for Coldplay Concert (no kids)
  • 2017 – New York City
  • 2018 – Second Disney Cruise to the Bahamas
  • 2018 – Europe trip to Paris, London, Barcelona, Rome, and a Disney Mediterranean Cruise
  • 2018 – Dallas Cowboys game vs. the Eagles (GO COWBOYS!!) (no kids)
  • 2018 – Disneyland and Legoland, California
  • 2019 – Hawaii trip (Part 1, 2)
  • 2019 – Another cruise?? Maybe
  • 2020 – Orlando for Spring Break

I discovered travel hacking in early 2017 and pretty much every trip after the Alaska cruise has had some aspect of rewards involved.  As you can see it really allowed us to up our travel and we have stayed within our same basic budget.  For scheduling, I will point out that although our son is not yet 5 and in public school, my wife is an elementary school teacher, so we must plan around school breaks quite a bit.  This will be even more a factor as our kids get older and are in classes as well, so this will be the reality of our scheduling for the foreseeable future.