This past Sunday was a big day around here at the Michael W Travels Headquarters.

While I’m not big on celebrating birthdays, it was a big deal for the #1 little guy in my life. Lucas Miles W. turned 3 over the weekend and we had 3 days of celebration!

Lucas has really grown a lot in the past year. He is still just about as friendly as ever and is doing great in school. (We got a glowing report about him after his birthday party!) It’s fun seeing Lucas make friends, develop his own interests and really just grow as a person.

It’s probably time to stop the bragging and talk about what we love to talk about the most around here- travel!

In this post I’ll reflect a bit on Lucas’ year in travel and his first year of flying in his own seat. (Check out his 2nd birthday post to find out about his first year traveling/ flying as a lap baby here.)

Lucas hasn’t held us back from seeing the world and is more a part of our trips than ever. He listens, comments and talks about our trips at times (and has even commented during free city walking tours), remembers some of the places we’ve been and seems to really enjoy flying and exploring new places.

We still stay mainly in budget accommodations like guest houses & hostels while mixing in nicer stays thanks to our points. With Lucas needing his own seat, our miles can go much quicker. An easy way to extend our miles is to try as much as possible to fly in coach. (Not exactly a problem since the majority of our flights always have been in the back.) In 2014 we only flew 2 of our flights in business class.

So, where has Lucas been in 2014? Lucas visited 9 new countries and 6 new U.S. states. (Find out about our 2014 travels here.)

Don’t forget to check the bottom of this post for photos from each of the countries we visited last year.

Countries Visited: (listed in order/ age visited)

1. Norway- 24 months old
2. Italy (2X)- 25 months old
3. Liechtenstein- 25 months old
4. Switzerland- 25 months old
5. Malta- 27 months old
6. Dominican Republic- 29 months old
7. Romania- 31 months old
8. Bulgaria- 31 months old
9. Jamaica- 35 months old

At the close of 2014 (and before turning 3), Lucas has visited 20 countries. (If you count Kosovo, then he’s been to 21.)

States Visited: (listed in order visited)

1. Georgia
2. Missouri
3. Kansas
4. Iowa
5. Nebraska
6. Oklahoma

With 6 new states visited last year, Lucas has now been to 19 U.S. states in total. (We also took a few short road trips to states that Lucas has been to in previous years.)

Lucas’ flight stats for 2014: Lucas sat in his own seat in 2014 since the lap baby cut-off is 2 years old. At this point it would be quite hard to have him sit on one of our laps, even if it was allowed.

Lucas flew 34 segments for 49,534 miles which took 4 days 19:50.

Breaking down the segments:

By Class:

• Economy: 32 flights- 94.1%
• Business Class: 2 flights- 5.9%

Class by distance:

• Economy: 44,737- 90.3%
• Business Class: 4,797- 9.7%

I want to wish Lucas a very happy birthday once again! It’s been a great year all around.

Check out some photos from our international trips in 2014:

I’m looking forward to a busy 2015 in terms of travel.

The way it’s looking, we might be taking fewer trips this year, but we should be traveling greater distances (to some great destinations).

‘Til next year!