Category Archives: Trip Planning

Our Final Trip of 2013

Trip Planning, ,

Screen Shot 2013-12-20 at 1.30.42 AMAfter going away for Thanksgiving, I thought that we were done with our travels for 2013. However I just couldn’t resist, so I booked us one last short trip. We’ll be leaving this afternoon.

We were originally thinking of a couple of options, one being El Salvador and the other being a week in Texas to visit Dallas and Austin. However, I wasn’t off during the full winter break so we settled on visiting just one city in Texas: Dallas.

We’ll be visiting Dallas for the first time and have lots of ideas for things to do. It will finally be  nice to get out of the airport and experience a little bit of Texas firsthand. If the flight times weren’t an issue we probably would’ve picked Austin for this trip but based on what I’ve read so far, there seems to be some great things to see and experience in Dallas.

Trip Planning:

Continue reading Our Final Trip of 2013 →

Our Upcoming Thanksgiving Plans

Trip Planning, , ,

Screen Shot 2013-11-27 at 1.44.29 AM

Last year, we had a not so typical Thanksgiving. Kim and I started out early by running in a 5 mile “Turkey Trot” in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. For dinner rather than stick to traditional holiday food we had Turkish food for turkey day!

This year we’ll be taking a little trip for Thanksgiving. We’re not heading anywhere glamorous or too exciting but we’ll be squeezing in an extra trip this year regardless.

Continue reading Our Upcoming Thanksgiving Plans →

Progress In Planning: We’re Heading To Germany For Oktoberfest

Travel with kids, Trip Planning

GermanyMapI rarely re-visit countries that I’ve already been to but there is one place that I’ve been wanting to head back to for quite some time.

I went to Germany with one of my brother’s years back after finding a great fare. We paid $267 round trip to fly from Newark to Cologne. I was off of work and Kim wasn’t (she didn’t even want to go to Germany) so I went with my brother for a week. We visited Munich and Cologne and had a great time. We ate at a different beer hall every night and I hoped to return some day to get to experience Oktoberfest.

While looking over my work schedule last year the dates of Oktoberfest worked for me but Kim wasn’t off so I’d have to wait for another time. Also, I couldn’t leave her at home for a week with Lucas being only 9 months old.

I decided to look into the possibility of heading to Oktoberfest this year and things seemed to fall perfectly into place.

Continue reading Progress In Planning: We’re Heading To Germany For Oktoberfest →

We’re Heading To the Balkans

Trip Planning, Uncategorized

balkansOur last trip of the summer starts tonight with a late flight to Europe. We’ll be visiting a region that neither Kim nor I have ever been to. This should make for a very interesting trip.

When looking into trip ideas I like to fill in parts of the world that are missing from my travel map. In my opinion, I feel that I’m a pretty well- rounded traveler but there are still some big holes on my travel resume like mainland China, India & Antarctica, just to name a few.

With this trip Kim and I will get to experience and learn about an area that we’ve both wanted to visit for quite some time. Well be visiting the Balkans!

The Balkans are made up of around ten countries, many being a part of the former Yugoslavia. 

We’ll be visiting four of these countries, although one is a disputed territory and only recognized by 95 UN member states. 

Countries We’ll Be Visiting:

  • Serbia
  • Macedonia
  • Kosovo (disputed territory)
  • Albania

Trip Planning: Continue reading We’re Heading To the Balkans →

Mini-Trip: We’re Going To Minnesota

Trip Planning
a map with a location pin

We’re back from Japan less than 2 weeks and are just about ready to take off on our next trip. This trip is a very quick one. We leave early this morning and will be back home in NY by Sunday afternoon.

We’re heading to Minnesota for the weekend and some of you might wonder why.
We are going for a few reasons:

  1. Juicy Lucy’s– I’ve been wanting to try these stuffed cheese burgers where they were invented since seeing them on TV.
  2. Radisson Blu Mall of America– When I heard that the second Radisson Blu in the U.S. would be opening in MN, I had to make it a point to check it out.
  3. The Minnesota Twins– I want to visit every Major League Baseball stadium in the country. I have a long way to go but this will knock one more off the list.

Progress In Planning: We’re Heading To Japan

Japan, Trip Planning
a red circle on a white background
We’ll be leaving on our next international trip a week from today and we’re almost finished planning all of the details. The funny thing is that we first booked our flight back in December and then made some (free) changes to our itinerary in February. Since then, we hadn’t done anything towards planning this trip up until two weeks ago.
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Our destination is Japan, a country that we’ve considered visiting for years now. We’ve been to Tokyo’s Narita Airport two times but never got to step outside. Some might consider this a visit but we definitely don’t.
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We were very close to booking a trip to Japan in 2011. Our options for Spring Break came down to Chile or Japan. Japan always seemed to be a distant second choice though. The possibilities of visiting Easter Island and Patagonia were too hard to pass up so Chile won.
The main reason we were considering Japan was the very fair mileage redemption option to book the flight to get us there..
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Our Upcoming Memorial Day Weekend Trip: Milwaukee, WI

Trip Planning
a map of a city

We’ll be flying to Milwaukee for Memorial Day Weekend tonight.

Some of you might be wondering- Why Milwaukee?
I was looking to fly somewhere relatively close (and direct) on Southwest Airlines. At a little over 2.5 hours away Milwaukee seemed like a good choice. Other places under consideration were Detroit (Kim did not want to go) and Omaha (connecting flights made the flights too long for such a short weekend).

Visiting Milwaukee was appealing to me for a few reasons.
I’ll get to:

  1. Visit a new state- Wisconsin Continue reading Our Upcoming Memorial Day Weekend Trip: Milwaukee, WI →

Altering Our New Orleans Plans- We’re Heading to BAcon

Trip Planning, , ,
a group of bacon strips
image found in google search

In late January I wrote about a trip being planned to New Orleans. Kim and I were pretty excited to be heading there. I got to visit N.O. years back for work but didn’t get to explore too much and this would be Kim’s first time.

About a week after I wrote my post I got an invite by e-mail to a very interesting event taking place in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The event is called BAcon or BoardingArea Conference.

Well you might ask- What is BoardingArea?
BoardingArea is a travel blog aggregator site which hosts some of the best frequent flyer blogs all in one place. I check many of the BoardingArea blogs on a daily basis to find out what’s going on in the points & miles world.

Continue reading Altering Our New Orleans Plans- We’re Heading to BAcon →

Progress in Planning: Our Next Big Trip- Russia

Travel with kids, Trip Planning
a red white and blue flag
image found in google search

People always ask me if I have a list of countries I’d like to visit. While I don’t actually keep a physical list, I frequently make mental notes of places that I really want to visit. Russia has long been among the of top places that I’d like to visit.

Over the years I have mentioned going to Russia to Kim many times. She’s never been too interested. In late November lots of cheap fares to Russia started making their rounds online. I was seeing some great pricing from Airfare Watchdog and The Flight Deal being reported through their e-mails and Twitter.

I decided to first look into availability and then ask Kim if she’d like to head over to Russia for Spring break in late March. To my surprise, Kim said yes! She was curious about the weather and which cities we would visit and was happy with the plan.

For our trip to Russia we will have 8 days (not including getting there/ back) to explore and wander around. We will be spending four nights in Moscow and four in Saint Petersburg.

The weather will be chilly with the average temperature during the day in the mid- high 30’s in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. I really enjoy visiting Europe during the winter and think the weather will be comfortable for sightseeing and beneficial in another way.
There should be little to no tourists around which should make visiting the sites really enjoyable.

a map of the world
created with mapquest

Progress in Planning: New Orleans- May 2013

Trip Planning
a map of a cityLast month I wrote about jetBlue’s True Blue program and the limited ways to extend the expiration date of the miles in your account. In the post I also mentioned how I decided to spend the bulk of my True Blue points towards a trip to New Orleans.
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I was in New Orleans years back but didn’t get to see or do much. I flew through New Orleans to get to Mississippi. I was working on a story during my previous career working in television- news. My only experiences and memories of New Orleans were checking out Bourbon Street and eating some beignets at Cafe Du Monde. I’ve been wanting to go back for some time now and am looking forward to experiencing the city with Kim and Lucas.

 Continue reading Progress in Planning: New Orleans- May 2013 →