Travel More 4 Less

10/15/2026

I was going to write a post gushing about free walking tours.

I was going to..but every time I think about my experience with free walking tours, I feel conflicted.

When I think about booking one, I am excited and scroll through a site with the different options.

Then I think about the suggested tip of between 10 and 20 dollars per person, and try to weigh the walking tour against going to a museum or a club with a $15 cover or something like that wonder if it is really the best use of my limited funds and limited time on a trip.

Then, if I decide to go-I book it and get excited again. Because meeting people! And learning!

Then I go to The Square (because the meeting place is so often The Square) and start to feel awkward. Will we find our group? Will we find the right group? Will there be a group? I feel shy and then finally make the approach and then suffer through the small talk.

And then the tour starts, and I am over the moon! Honestly, few things make me happier than being on a tour. Learning local context. Getting the silly jokes. Hearing personal stories. Sharing with other tour goers. I always end up asking the most questions and soaking up so much info.

I am always so happy that I went on the tour.

And then we go to a new city and the process starts again!

So my advice? Push through any weirdness you might have. Go on the tour.

You will probably have fun. And if you aren’t having fun, it is perfectly okay to bow out. Just let the guide know if you can, because they try to keep track of everyone in their group.

A good tour can be a highlight of a trip, even if you are incredibly shy and awkward!

10/14/2026

"I can never stay mad at Paris."

We had a rough morning on the last day of our trip. Lots of stupid commuting as we tried to visit a nearby town and could not get the buses and trains to work in our favor.

I suggested we give up and spend our last day in Paris (heartbreak I know!)

And just to show us that we were on the right track, we step out of the Metro station and are confronted by the gorgeous Saint Eustache.

Our rule in Europe: if we see a church and it is open, we go in.

We entered the church and almost immediately a woman picked up a microphone, apologized for the interruption but announced there would be a free English speaking tour in 5 minutes!

We were the only two (plus one of her colleagues who is working on her English so that she may also give tours soon), so we basically got a private 40-minute tour of this beautiful church, learning all about the architecture and history of the church and surrounding community.

That is the sort of serendipity that makes it impossible for me to stay made at Paris.

10/12/2026

Flight diversions and delays are happening quite often these days. Here is how we handled a rough start to a trip that included being dropped in a brand new city, in a foreign country-after midnight.

Have you ever had your flight diverted? My flight was diverted to a city I had never heard of, in a foreign country. At midnight. Here's what I did next.

10/11/2026

Got my own row!

I spend a lot of time in travel groups on Reddit. A common thread is: "I boarded a flight and someone was in the seat I paid for!" and every time this is posted, there are many comments of the same basic experience.

Well, I have the opposite story to share!

I rarely pay for a seat on the plane, unless we are flying overnight. Otherwise, I don't care. Sure I love a window seat, but I can cope with a middle seat if needed.

Last month, we were flying Wizz Air from Romania to Paris. Of course we didn't pay for seats and ended up on opposite sides of the plane. I ended up with a middle seat.

After a few minutes, my window seat seatmate showed up. He asked me if I would like to switch with his girlfriend so they can sit together.

I am already in the middle seat, so there is nothing worse and they want to sit together, so I agree. She has an aisle seat two rows up. Great, aisle seat!

I settle into my new seat. After the plane takes off, the woman in the window seats gets up and leaves. The woman in the middle seat moves over. Great, more elbow room!

Then her husband comes down the aisle and sits in the middle seat. Sad, but no worse than before.

Then they both get up and leave! And I had the whole row to myself.

And that is how I went from middle seat to an entire row to myself without stealing anyone else's seat. 🤣

I thought about telling Pete of my good fortune and having him move up, but he already had some seat confusion and I knew that by the time I got the row, he would be settled in and would not want to move. So I moved myself to the window, stretched out, and napped.

10/10/2026

I am a little bit obsessed with playground equipment in former soviet places.

10/04/2026

I spent the weekend locally, using some fun credit card perks and benefits.

On Friday, we enjoyed dinner and a show.

I had a $100 gift certificate for Bamboo Sushi that I bought in 2025 using my Amex Resy credit. It takes us forever to go out to dinner!

I used my Chase Sapphire Reserve card's StubHub credit to grab two tickets to see Water for Elephants through Broadway in Portland. I didn't take any pics inside because we were running late, so enjoy the fountain and the crow that are across the street from the theater.

On Saturday, we showed our Bank of America cards to gain free admission to the Portland Japanese Garden. The first full weekend of each month, all sorts of institutions across the US are free through Bank of America's Museums on Us program. It is good with any BoA debit or credit card.

So were these free or prepaid credits? I want to start a break-even tracking sheet. Stay tuned for that! But in the meantime, I will do some back-of-the-envelope math.

The American Express card had a $695 annual fee when I used the credit to get the gift certificate on Resy (it is now $895!). However, my cards fee runs from very end of December, so by the time I got to this credit, the card fee had already been paid for through other perks like the $200 airline credit, the $20-$25 monthly digital credit, $75 Lululemon credits, and $300 hotel credits. So at that point in the year, the annual fee was paid for and the $100 gift certificate was a free credit. Our dinner including tip was less than $100, so no money out of pocket.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve has a $795 annual fee and I am still working towards the break even point on that. The StubHub credit is $150 twice a year. We used most of the credit on Mariners tickets (which we ended up selling). The Water for Elephants tickets were $46 for two people. I booked through Paze, so I think I also got $10 back, so real cost for the tickets were $36 for two. Some other credits on this card that will work towards my break even point:
$300 annual travel credit which I have used for a car rental, flights, and train tickets
$300 annual dining credits
$500 off an IHG property when I stack the $250 hotel credit and the current $250 IHG credit.

Even if I don't value those are 100%, those 3 credits will eventually cover the whole $795 annual fee with some left over and I can consider Stubhub credits an added perk. (fuzzy me math)

And as far as the Garden admission, that is just a 100% free perk and it can be used with any BoA credit or debt card, no fee required.

Our only truly out-of-pocket expenses for the weekend were parking. We parked near the restaurant and the lot was $10 for the evening. Unfortunately we didn't leave enough time to walk to the theater, so we had to spend another $8 on a garage close by. And then we scored a spot directly ext to the crosswalk to the Japanese Garden, 2 hours for $5. Bringing our dinner, touring Broadway performance, and Japanese garden visit to just $23.

09/14/2026

Last weekend we were getting free Dunkin coffee in Baltimore. Today we were grabbing coffee at the train station in Bucharest on the way to see castles. I like this part of being an adult.

09/08/2026

A mindset post on how embracing travel as a hobby instead of an infrequent event can lead to better travel.

Is travel a hobby? I think it is and once you start thinking of it as a hobby or a lifestyle, you can shift your perspective travel more affordable and fun

09/07/2026

I have been traveling as a hobby for 5 years. When I first started, I was nervous about timing and we would usually get to the airport 2-3 hours early and then go to the gate. Well, that is how I would want it to go. It didn't usually work out and I would be stressed about it the whole time.

Since 2021, Pete and I have taken between 7 and 14 trips per year, sometimes involving flights between cities. So, while we are not at weekly business travel level of experience, we are getting pretty good at it and my stress levels about times before flights has dramatically lessened. I will give you an example from yesterday.

We went to Baltimore for the weekend and were flying home. Flight was at 4:35 PM. We decided we would have breakfast, wander the inner harbor, take the bus to the George Peabody Library, and then take the light rail to the airport.

We had a good morning and caught the train that both Google and the train stop's electronic sign said was going to BWI. But the train only went to Camden Yards and we had to hop off and wait another 25 minutes for the train to the airport.

This was fine overall. Pete got horrific motion sickness, but we got to the airport by about 3 pm, so an hour and 5 minutes before boarding. We knew that the trek between the gates and the train stop was about 15-20 minutes, so it was likely the same in reverse. And we needed to get through security. So we are already pretty tight by arriving at 3 pm for 4:05 boarding, right?

And Pete really needed about 5 or 10 minutes to recover from the motion sickness. So we need to hustle right??

But here's the thing. We hadn't had lunch yet. Southwest doesn't serve meals on board and it would be a long time until dinner (5 1/2 hour flight). My plan had been that we would grab lunch in the lounge when we got there.

I looked up the location of the lounge and found out it is D terminal and we were flying out of B. To get between D and B, you have to exit the secure area and go through security a second time.

Our first thought was that we didn’t have time. But we were standing in front of security for D, so we didn’t have to backtrack to get there. I mentioned that to Pete and also that we would need to do security twice. He pointed out that there wasn’t any line at security.

So off we went. Into D-terminal. Wait list at the lounge. OK, We got on the wait list at 12:15 pm. And got a message that the wait was 20-25 minutes. But sometimes they are shorter, so we went to sit down and wait.

12:27 pm, we were in! It is a small lounge with no hot food (or limited hot food). But we got some drinks, salad stuff, and a really delicious lemon pudding parfait. Restorative.

And then it was 3:45 pm. We had a 15 minute walk between terminals, weren’t sure how far down our gate was, and had to go through security. And our flight was boarding at 4:05. But we were in group 7, so I was still feeling okay!

Got over to security 2, precheck, no line-my bags cleared, Pete’s luggage got snagged on his tiny airport-safe multitool. This happens sometimes. He explained the tool and got it back. Now we had 5 minutes to get to our gate. I was feeling completely relived and like we absolutely needed to hurry at the same time.

But we still had an unresolved food issue. The lounge food was not lunch and it was 4 pm and we still hadn’t had lunch. We have A LOT of Dunkin’ money thanks to the Paze credits, and I suggested if we had time and saw a Dunkin, we could grab some sandwiches for the plane.

There is a Dunkin’ near our gate!! But there is a bit of a line and boarding is supposed to start now! I told Pete to wait in line and I would see how things looked.

The previous flight was still disembarking, so we had plenty of time. We got our sandwiches and some munchkins for the home crew, got to our gate, had time to rearrange our bags a bit, and were still the first ones in line for our boarding group. And our sandwiches were still warm by the time drink service came around.

It was a bit chaotic, but totally worth it, at least for us. I still appreciate getting to an airport early enough to relax, but traveling with only a small bag, having pre-check, and doing this as frequently as we have has definitely eased my stress about it.

Pictures from our morning pre-flight sightseeing.