Over the years, we have been incredibly fortunate in our travels, logging over 860,000 miles in the air and spending a cumulative 278 days traveling the globe. Whether we are enjoying fresh Vietnamese passion fruit in Tam Coc, grabbing seafood at The Freshy Fish in Playa del Carmen, or settling into our balcony for a cruise out of Galveston, we are constantly asked...
For us, cruising has become one of our favorite ways to travel—not because it’s flashy or trendy, but because when it’s done right, cruising offers something increasingly rare: real rest paired with real value. And here’s our hot take (earned the hard way): 7-night or longer cruises are where cruising truly shines. Short cruises can be fun. Longer cruises can be...
As we plan for our next MSC Cruise, I thought I would share how we’ve valued the various upgrade options there are. How We Got Here We have figured out how to maximize cruise travel through casino status matches, and used a recent day trip to Atlantic City to obtain status with Rivers Casino Atlantic City, which included the benefit of a free MSC cruise...
Even in composing a title for this post, I was riddled with guilt for all the things I’ve said about timeshares in the past (see this.) But I’ve come to realize that, as I’ve thought about sharing our story, it’s one that I feel will give an explanation as to why it was a great deal for us. So while we are ecstatic about our purchase, and had a really good...
Cruise Line: Carnival Celebration Itinerary: Eastern Caribbean (Grand Turk, Amber Cove, Nassau the Bahamas, Celebration Key) Date: October 19 – 26, 2025 After cruising on Royal Caribbean, Holland America, and MSC over the past 12 months, we were a bit hesitant to cruise on the line generally described as “Walmart of the Seas”. But, it was (yet...
In today’s world, media portrayal quickly become the assummed state of any broad category, whether it be politics, groups, individuals, or in this case, countries. We love the country of Mexico, have visited often for stays measured in weeks versus days, and recently purchased a vacation & retirement home there. But regardless of how effusive we are of our...
There’s this funny thing that happens when you decide, very intentionally, to build a life around travel. People clap for you. They tell you how lucky you are. They say things like, “Wow, I wish we could do that!” And hey — we get it. We are grateful. We know this life is a privilege, a choice, and honestly? A whole lot of work behind the scenes that most folks never...
As travel bloggers who lives and breathes points and miles, I’ll be the first to say this: award-search websites and apps have completely changed the game. What used to take hours of clicking through airline sites, guessing at availability, and scribbling notes now takes minutes—sometimes seconds. But like anything in the travel-hacking world, these tools are...
For a long time, airline status felt like a badge of honor. Gold. Platinum. Priority everything. As travel vloggers, we lived in airports, racked up miles the old-fashioned way, and enjoyed the perks that came with it. But over the past few years, something fundamental shifted—both in how airlines define “loyalty” and in how we choose to travel. Airlines quietly...
And you should be too.