50 States by 50 Years: The Birth of a Travel Goal

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This is my custom map of all of the states I have visited so far

This is my custom map of all of the states I have visited so far!

I really like having travel goals.  It makes my constant daydreaming about far-off places a more manageable beast to control.  When I think about planning my next trip, which could be next month or 5 years from now, I have a tendency to get bogged down with all of the amazing possibilities that exist.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to visit Machu Picchu or snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef! My “bucket list” could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.  So I had this brilliant idea to narrow things down a bit. To make my wanderlust a bit more focused.  Plus, I really, really love this country of mine, and I know that there are endless places to explore and enjoy.  It would take more than an entire lifetime to fully experience each state, I do realize that.  My goal here is to tackle as much as I can (with a job, family, budget, and very full life outside of my travel obsession) in the next 10 years (yes, you can do the math, I just turned 40).

 

These are the reasons why I decided to start this blog on a cold and snowy day in Pennsylvania:

 

-          People have been telling me for years “you should write a book, start a website, become a travel agent, yadda, yadda”.  If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I would probably have about a dollar.

 

-          I read travel blogs all the time & I know that I can do justice to the genre

 

-          With my goal in mind, I hope that I can help some other hopeless wanderers along the way who are looking for ideas, inspiration and some amazing family travel moments as we all journey through the USA.  I don’t mind using my family as the guinea pig for this project!

 

-          To show how travel is accessible for all, even those on a limited budget and those with young kids.  By showing how I accumulate and use frequent flyer miles and hotel points to make our trips possible for us, I hope that others can see that this is not just a “someday in the far off future” type of dream. If I can do it, you can do it to.

 

-          To force myself out of my semi-low-tech comfort zone and to teach myself some new technological tricks so that I cannot be outsmarted by my elementary school aged children, who already know way more about things like PowerPoint than I ever have! I need to figure out how to insert things like links and photos…I think I am already in way over my head here!

 

The plan is to write about trips that have already happened, trip plans in the making, and ideas for future travel.  I also like to remember my trips once I am home, and to surround myself with things that make me and my family happy (Bringing the Memories Home).  I hope to learn more than I teach, because to me, that is what makes any experience really worthwhile.

Travel for Free: The VERY Basics

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Free Travel Basics Painting

How to Travel for Free (or Cheap)

The #1 question that people who know about our travel habit ask is….how??? They know us, so they know that we are NOT rich, do not have a trust fund & have never inherited any money.  And yet we have been able to take month-long vacations to Hawaii, go on cruises, and spend LOTS of nights in hotels each year (I haven’t tracked exactly how many, but I am starting…now!).  How do we travel for free?  Or, more accurately, for a fraction of the cost of actually paying for a vacation? The answer to the question is Miles & Points.  Of course, it is much more (and kind of less) complicated, depending on how much background knowledge you have about credit card bonuses, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs, and cheap travel tricks.  I am constantly learning new things, and using old tricks to travel for free that I have been using for many years.  My plan is to have all of the details on this blog so that you can follow them, try it yourselves, or just continue to think that we are nuts (I prefer passionate, but we are OK with being nuts too).

There are tons and tons and tons of great blogs out there that are very detailed and, some would say, like speaking another language.  As you read more and become more familiar with this whole free travel world, it starts to become easy to absorb.  My goal is to start from the beginning and write this for you, my friends who are total newbies (you know who you are) and are just branching into this world of free & cheap family travel.   I promise it is not as complicated as it may seem at first.  You only need a few things: time, an internet connection, and a good credit score.  Ready? Here we go!

Sign up for frequent traveler programs

1. You need to sign up for various frequent flyer programs (ie American Airlines, USAirways, United, Southwest, Frontier, British Airways, etc). There are a ton of them out there, so start with the ones that you actually use, keep it simple until you get more hardcore about your travel obsession.  You can sign up, for free, on each of the websites.  Each of the airlines has a cute name for their frequent flyer programs (for example, Southwest’s program is called Rapid Rewards), so just look for it on the webpage and sign up. If you need help with this part, you may actually need to stop here and rethink why you are reading this blog (except for you Mom, I will help you with this part later).

 

Use AwardWallet to keep track of all of those pesky numbers

2.  But how will I keep track of all of these numbers and passwords? I use AwardWallet to track everything.  It is free and really easy to use.  You can even put your Sephora Beauty Insider frequent shopper number in there to track your points!  Oh, and any other things that may be important to you, like groceries and gas.

 

Use them….

3.  Please, please, please, I beg of you to USE your frequent flyer numbers when you are booking your flights.  We have some family members who will remain unnamed (you know who you are & will probably never actually read this anyway) who take multiple flights per year to visit other family members on the other side of the country & they never even get miles for doing it! I cringe!

 

Rinse and Repeat…

4. Repeat the same process for the hotel programs that you use (Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, Club Carlson, IHG, etc).

Ok, I’m proud of you guys!  That was a good place to start.

See here to learn about the next step toward your new free travel hobby.

 

Sand Collection : Bringing Memories Home

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This is our collection of sand from different places we have visited.

This is our collection of sand from different places we have visited.

 Our Sand Collection:

We are almost always sad to come home from a great vacation, and we have come up with lots of different creative ideas for bringing our memories home with us and making them a part of our home.  Our house is filled with things that remind us of our travels, but we don’t like to spend a lot of money on souvenirs.  We have some shelves in our living room that are filled with our sand and seashell collections.  They make me happy every time I look at them.

This is our sand collection.  I bought the glass vases from a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  I like supporting a great organization and getting a bargain at the same time!  They were each $1.00 or less, so I consider this to be an amazing souvenir bargain. Oh, and the sand was free.

I usually have some kind of water bottle or Ziploc bag with me wherever we go, so it is easy to grab a handful of sand & then label it so I don’t forget where it came from by the time I get home.  I have even shipped sand and shells home in a flat rate box from USPS if they are really heavy (ok, this makes it not free, but still).  Once I get home, I just pour it into the current vase with space, use a Sharpie glass marker to write where it came from, and enjoy another memory from a great trip!

It is never too late to start something like this.  I wish that I had started it years ago, but I didn’t think of it until we were in Hawaii in 2012.  I am glad that I went for it & have been doing it ever since.  I expect this collection to be huge by the end of the year…

sand