About

Hi there. I'm Chris.

People always wonder how my family travels so much.

One of life's biggest sources of enjoyment can be traveling to remote corners of the world. At least that's the way I see it. Growing up in a small town, I figured that there was little chance that I'd leave the US, other than that time my family crossed the border to Niagara Falls when I was in high school. I took a school trip to Arizona and a trip to the Daytona 500 in my early 20s, but other than that, I'd rarely been more than 250 miles from home in the intervening years. I liked traveling, but I figured that's what rich people did.

This changed when I got married. Up to this point, I'd never flown. The only planes that I'd been in were housed firmly on the ground at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. My new wife and I decided to spend a week in Cancun for our honeymoon. It was a blast to spend a few days in a foreign country. I'll also admit that I was pretty terrified as our plane soared above the Gulf of Mexico.

This was pretty much the LAST time I'd pay full price for a vacation.

Shortly after my return, a new co-worker told me that he'd been to Hawaii. I'm not sure that I knew anyone else who'd been to Hawaii at that point (I lived a pretty sheltered life), so I thought this was pretty wild. Then he told me something that really caught my ear. He'd basically gone FOR FREE. Needless to say, I was intrigued. He'd used a Marriott Rewards travel package and told me how a couple of credit card bonuses had helped him on his way.

I promptly started to work on my own trip to Hawaii and had enough points for a week in a hotel after about three years. The trip took place in 2005. Since then, I've been to Europe on multiple occasions, Mexico again, Aruba, and numerous places within the US at a discount--sometimes a very hefty discount. Since people are always asking how I'm able to go to all of these cool places, I figured I'd share my methods in one spot.

You don't have to be rich. You don't have to have rich relatives paying for your trip. As long as you have a very unimpressive middle-class income and good credit, it should be possible to take a nice vacation every year or two as long as your work schedule permits.

I hope you enjoy and learn.

I've visited Prague (and other European cities) with points and miles.