home and spg

home via

We're home! Isn't it beautiful? This is San Luis Obispo, California, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the coast, and it's a paradise I'm lucky enough to call home.

I started this blog in 2008, and I've never gone this long (almost four months!) without posting anything, but we basically didn't have internet in Taipei for the month June (it only worked late at night at our airbnb), and then were backpacking around China for July and August with what felt like dial-up internet access in the hotels (plus no access to google, Facebook, etc.). Then, we came home to a dirty, messy, cluttered house (thanks, renters) and have been unpacking, organizing, and cleaning from the end of August until the end of September (and we're still not done).

So, long story short: sorry to have been MIA for so long. Blogging for fun definitely takes a backseat to all of the other needs and to-do items. But we're back!

And we're very happy to be home. I promised in my last post to talk about how we non-6-figure-salary folks are able to travel around the world in relative luxury. First and most obviously, we spend less time in places like Basel, Switzerland (hello, supermarket sushi for 50 Swiss francs) and more time in places like Tanzania and Indonesia. But we aren't just slumming it in India and China, either. We've spent time in Japan and London, too, where price tags are eye-widening.

Here are the four things we do to make travel affordable:



1. Pay for everything with hotel- and flight-reward credit cards. 
The two credit cards we chose were the SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) American Express and the United Airlines Visa. For every vendor that accepts American Express, we use our SPG AmEx and use those points to pay for hotels. For every vendor that only accepts Visa/Mastercard, we use our United Visa and use those points to pay for our flights. The absolute must here is to pay off the bill every month, as I'm definitely not advocating credit card debt. (And we weren't able to do this while we were living in Germany last year, but if you live almost anywhere else (where credit cards are widely accepted), this is a great option for free travel. Before we left, we were even able to pay for our daycare with our SPG card!)

2. Most importantly, take advantage of the new card bonus. 
When you sign up for an SPG American Express, you get 25,000 bonus points right off the bat, which is worth at least hundreds of dollars in hotel stays. You can apply here. For the United Visa, you can get 40,000 miles when you sign up, free checked baggage (1st bag free for you and another passenger traveling with you, which at $25 per bag can be up to $100 for a round-trip flight), and priority boarding. Plus, you get two free passes for the United Lounge, which has been really nice (especially in crowded airports, as you get some space to relax and snacks, too). More information here.

3. Consider how you can use minimal points to maximize travel experiences.
We plan our trips with SPG hotels in mind because the range in the point cost is huge. We stayed in Indonesia in a five-star hotel for just 2000 points a night, whereas we had to pay 20,000 points for a run-of-the-mill hotel in downtown LA. Accordingly, we've gone to almost all of the places where SPG hotels are amazing and only cost 2000-4000 points a night, and it's been so worth it. Some of the best are this Sheraton (pictured below) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, with the amazing Prambanan and Borobudur temples nearby, Le Méridiens in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, Thailand, the ITCs near the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, as well as in Mumbai (with scrumptious breakfast buffets!), and countless options throughout China. As you can imagine, staying for free in upscale hotels and resorts makes your travel experience a lot nicer.

4. Buy flights through skyscanner.net and hotels through hotels.com.
These are the sites we use because skyscanner finds the cheapest flights and hotels.com gives you free nights. It isn't always the best value to use miles if you can find cheap airline tickets, and SPG has nice hotels in many places, but not everywhere, so we don't always use miles and points to pay for travel. I will usually check hotel reviews on tripadvisor and then book on hotels.com. I always compare prices for hotels, though, so only buy through hotels.com if the price is comparable. They price match, too, so I've been able to book on, say, booking.com, with a lower price, then get hotels.com to match it. So, I get the lower price and still get free nights.

That's it. It isn't that complicated, but travel is important to us, so we make it a priority. Plus, with little kids, we don't go out at night to bars or clubs or concerts, etc, we rarely eat out, and we aren't shoppers that enjoy just buying stuff. So, most of our available funds go towards travel.

People have asked us often over the years how we've been able to afford traveling as much as we do, and I've been meaning to write this for a while now. I hope it helps you get out and enjoy our beautiful world.