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MaK Travel, Little Elm, TX (2026)

10/15/2026

✈️ The Thunderbirds came over Huntington Beach low enough to read the paint on them.

This was the practice run, days before the show. Same jets, same airspace, same formations — and we watched it from an open stretch of sand with almost nobody on it. No gate, no wristband, no shoulder-to-shoulder crowd.

The rehearsal is one of the most underrated things in travel, and it is free.

What is worth knowing if you want to do this:

🗓️ Teams arrive and rehearse before show weekend. Those practice runs happen over the same water, and you can stand on any public stretch of sand and watch.
🏖️ Go on a weekday. On show days the beach and the parking fill before most people have had coffee. Earlier in the week you walk up and park like it is any other day.
🏨 The ocean side of the street is the whole game. The right hotel puts the flight line in your window and your balcony becomes the grandstand you did not pay for.
🔭 Bring more lens than you think you need. These were shot from the sand and the jets still come in closer than any photo makes them look.
👂 Watch for the quiet. The smoke goes on before you hear anything — sound arrives late, so follow the trail, not the noise.

📩 Picking the week, picking the side of the building, and knowing which rooms actually face the water — that is the part we handle for people, and it is the difference between watching an airshow and watching it from your own balcony. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or send us a message

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/14/2026

First cruise? Do these 4 things before your bags arrive 🚢
1) Get onboard and get oriented
2) Find one "wow" so you know the ship
3) Scout a unique spot for photos later
4) Be on deck for sail-away

We're Katie and Michael, and we do cruises, Disney and Hawaii. Follow for more ship tips, or plan your trip at travelwithmak.com.

🎵 Happy Song by Frank Schroeter (filmmusic.io)

10/13/2026

🍫 Every single piece of this is chocolate. The box. The lid. The Pentagon printed on the lid.

This was waiting in the room at The Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City over Labor Day weekend — a slate plate hand-painted red, white and blue, a white chocolate star, a gold-dusted sphere, and a chocolate box with three bonbons under a lid printed with the Pentagon.

That is what a luxury stay actually comes down to. Not the thread count. The details somebody thought about before you ever walked in.

What is worth knowing before you book one:

🗓️ Hotels do this for occasions they know about. Anniversary, birthday, first trip somewhere, a proposal — if nobody tells them, nothing happens. Telling them costs nothing and almost nobody does it.
🏨 The room category matters more than the name on the building. The same hotel can be a standard room facing the parking garage or a suite with the city in the window.
✉️ Ask what a property actually does before you book. "Welcome amenity" means a bowl of fruit at one hotel and this at another.
🙏 If you get something like this, tell the staff and not only the camera. Somebody in a pastry kitchen spent real time on it.

📩 Which property, which room, and what to tell them before you arrive — that is the part we handle for people, and it is most of the difference between a nice stay and one you still talk about. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or send us a message

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/12/2026

🐟 Nobody tells you how close they get.

This is Stingray Beach in Cozumel. The water is shallow enough to stand up in and there are dozens of stingrays in it. You do not chase them — you hold still and they come to you.

The part actually worth planning around: this was the MORNING half of one port day. That same afternoon we were half an hour inland swimming inside a cenote, and we were back on board with hours to spare. A Cozumel port day is long enough for both halves, and most people spend all of it on one lounge chair.

Four things we would tell anyone doing this one:

🤿 Bring your own mask if you own one. A mask that actually seals is most of the experience.
📷 Whatever camera goes in the water with you, expect everything to come back orange in the shallows. Ours did — these clips are color corrected.
👣 Shuffle your feet instead of stepping. That is how you avoid putting a foot down on one.
⏱️ Do the water half first. Salt and a damp swimsuit for the rest of the afternoon beats doing it the other way around.

Harmony of the Seas, Cozumel. The cenote half of this exact same day is on the page too — the two posts are one day, split down the middle.

We plan cruise port days for people all the time: which excursion to book ahead, which one you can walk up to, and how much you can honestly fit between all aboard times without spending the whole day watching the clock. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or send us a message

10/11/2026

🌊 Half an hour from the cruise pier in Cozumel, there is a cave full of fresh water that you are allowed to swim in.

Almost nobody on our ship saw it. They booked a beach club, which is a fine way to spend a day — we did one too. But the beach is the thing you can get on any island. This is not.

A cenote is a sinkhole where the limestone roof collapsed and exposed the fresh groundwater underneath. The Yucatán is built on thousands of them. The ceiling comes down in stalactites that took centuries each, and the water underneath is so still it mirrors them. Until somebody jumps in.

How the day actually went:
🚙 Jeep convoy off the pier — you drive it yourself, in a line
🌴 About thirty minutes of jungle road inland
🕳️ A sign that just says CENOTE and a dirt car park
🪜 Steps down into the dark, and then it opens up
🏊 Fresh water, colder than you expect — and there is a ledge you can jump off
⛴️ Back at the ship with hours to spare before all-aboard

What to know before you book it:
Port days are roughly eight hours. One excursion inland still leaves you most of an afternoon, so this is not an either/or with the beach.
Bring water shoes. The steps are wet limestone and they are slick.
No sunscreen before you swim — most cenotes ask you to rinse it off, because the whole system is closed and connected.
Book it before you sail. These run small and they fill.

📩 Which excursion in which port, what is worth the money, and what you can honestly skip — that is the part we sort out for people before they ever get on the ship. Costs you nothing extra. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or DM us "CRUISE"

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/10/2026

🍣 The best thing we ate on Maui was a plate of ahi north of Lahaina.

Miso Phat Sushi. We drove out for dinner and would do it again tomorrow.

⚠️ Read this part before you go, because it is where people get it wrong:
The address says Lahaina. The restaurant is NOT in Lahaina town — it sits north of it, in Kahana, on Lower Honoapiʻilani Road. Put the street address in your map, not the word "Lahaina," or you will end up in the wrong place entirely.

There are other sushi spots on the island using this same name. They appear to run independently of each other. We are talking about the Kahana one, and that is the one we are recommending.

What to order:
🐟 The ahi. That is the whole reason to drive out. Cut thick, dressed lightly, and it does not need anything else.
🐙 Octopus — it was sitting out on the counter.
🌿 Edamame while you wait, because you will wait.
🍱 The rolls are genuinely very good, but they are not the reason you came.

What to know:
No reservations. First come, first served, so go early or go late and expect a wait at peak.
Open daily, 11:30 AM to 9:00 PM.
It is small. Plan for it to be busy.

📩 West Maui is full of places that are worth a drive and places that only look like it, and the difference is the sort of thing we sort out for people — which night to go where, what to book ahead, and what you can just walk into. Costs you nothing extra. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or DM us "MAUI"

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/09/2026

🌋 Everybody drives up Haleakalā for the sunrise. Almost everybody drives back down twenty minutes later.

They are leaving before the good part. The sunrise is the famous thing. The crater is the actual thing, and in daylight you get it nearly to yourself.

What is up there once the crowd goes:

⛰️ The summit at 10,023 feet, standing above the cloud layer
🔭 Haleakalā Observatory — the cluster of white domes along the ridge
🪶 Chukars that walk right past your boots like you are not there
🌿 Silverswords — ʻāhinahina — which grow on this volcano and nowhere else on earth
🏜️ A crater roughly seven miles across that looks like another planet
🌑 Cinder cones on the floor of it that are hundreds of feet tall and read as bumps
🥾 A trail that goes down into it, where the ground stops being rock and turns to ash

🪿 Keep your eyes open for the nēnē, the Hawaiian goose and the state bird. It is endemic, it was down to a few dozen birds in the 1950s, and Haleakalā is one of the places it was brought back. We looked all day and never saw one — that is the honest version.

What to know before you go:
Sunrise entry needs a reservation, released sixty days out, and it sells out. Daytime entry does not — you can drive up mid-morning and walk straight in.
The trail down into the crater is the one people underestimate. It is easy going down and brutal coming back, because you are climbing at ten thousand feet where there is a third less oxygen. Turn around earlier than you think you should.
Expect the thirties at the summit at sunrise — winter-coat cold — and pleasant by mid-morning. Bring layers you can take off, because the beach at the bottom of that road is thirty degrees warmer.
Do not touch the silverswords or walk off-trail near them. The roots sit just under the surface and a footstep kills the plant.

📩 Maui is a week of things that each have a catch — a reservation window, a tide, a road that closes, a permit released sixty days out. Sorting which day gets which thing, in what order, is the part we do. Costs you nothing extra. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or DM us "MAUI"

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/08/2026

🛣️ PART 4 OF 4 — past Hana, where almost nobody goes.

Everybody drives to Hana. Almost everybody turns around there. The far side of the island is the part nobody tells you about, and it was the best three hours of the day.

⛽ 3:12 — Hana has one gas station, and it was $6.48 a gallon
🔴 3:24 — Koki Beach, ten minutes past town. The sand is red
🪵 3:31 — driftwood, red cliffs, and almost nobody on it
🌺 3:45 — Mōkae Cove. A sacred place. Read the sign before you walk in
🍌 4:21 — back in town, where the fruit stand IS the town
🐴 5:09 — the long way back around the top of the island
🪂 6:09 — we pulled over for the sunset. So did the paragliders
🌅 6:21 — the whole north shore, lit up
🍣 7:18 — Paia Fish Market. Seared ahi, and we had earned it

What to know before you go:
Past Hana the road narrows, roughens and goes single lane in places. Some rental agreements do not cover that stretch, so check yours before you commit to it.
Fill up in Hana even at that price. There is nothing past it until you are most of the way back around.
Give the far side three hours, not one. Koki and Hāmoa are about a mile apart and both are worth stopping for.
Coming back around the top takes longer than the map suggests. We finished in the dark, and we would do it again.

📩 The reason this day worked is the order. Which stop at which hour, which side of the island for the light, and where you eat at the end of it so you are not driving hungry. That is the part we do. Costs you nothing extra. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or DM us "HANA"

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/07/2026

🖤 PART 3 OF 4 — the black sand beach, and the one thing you have to book before you leave home.

Waiʻānapanapa State Park is the stop everybody puts on the list and about half of them get turned away from. Non-resident entry is timed. You reserve a window, you show up inside it, and it sells out. Ours was 12:30 — booked weeks before we ever got in the car.

⏱️ 12:40 — one more waterfall, straight off the road
🌊 12:52 — the coast turns black
🎟️ 1:10 — the entrance. This is the gate you need the reservation for
🏖️ 1:29 — the cove. That water colour is not a filter
🕳️ 1:32 — there is a lava tube in the cliff, and you walk through it
🌅 1:33 — it comes out the other side, at the sea
🪨 1:37 — the sand is ground-up lava. Warm, coarse, and it stains your feet
🌊 1:51 — the lava does not stop at the waterline
🦀 2:10 — look down

What to know before you go:
The beach itself is small and it fills up. The lava tube and the sea arch are a two-minute walk from the sand and most people never leave the beach to find them.
Wear something on your feet. Black sand holds heat and the lava rock is sharp.
Give it two hours, not forty minutes. We were there an hour and a half and left things unseen.

📩 The reservation is the part people miss, and it is exactly the sort of thing we handle — which day, which window, and what else has to be booked the same week so the whole trip actually fits together. Costs you nothing extra. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or DM us "HANA"

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

10/06/2026

🌿 PART 2 OF 4 — the trail. Two miles in, four hundred feet up.

The Pipiwai Trail starts at the Kīpahulu side of Haleakalā National Park, and most people only know it for the bamboo. The bamboo is forty minutes in. Here is everything before it, in order.

⏱️ 9:26 — Makahiku Falls from the overlook. Half a mile from the car.
🌳 9:33 — a banyan you walk underneath. You will stop. Everyone stops.
🥾 9:34 — paved for about ten minutes, and then it is not.
💧 9:37 — stream crossings, pools, and the sound changes.
🌉 9:47 — the swinging bridge over the gorge. There is no way around it.
⛰️ 9:52 — roots and rock, uphill, for twenty minutes. This is the part nobody photographs.
🎋 10:00 — the bamboo boardwalk. In wind it knocks like wood chimes.
💦 10:15 — Waimoku Falls. Four hundred feet straight down a wall.

Four miles round trip, about three hours if you stop. Wear real shoes — half the trail is wet rock. Go early: we started at 9 and had the bridge to ourselves; by the time we came down it was a queue.

Park entry is timed at Kīpahulu and it is separate from the Haleakalā summit reservation. Book it before you drive, because you will not get signal on the road.

📩 This is the kind of thing we sort out before you go — which day, which order, what you have to reserve and what you can walk up to. Costs you nothing extra. Often cheaper than booking direct.

👉 travelwithmak.com or DM us "HANA"

— cruises, Disney & Hawaii 🚢🏰🌺

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