The day before leaving for our European cruise, we were having some bubbles at The Mercer Kitchen with a friend who had just moved to New York. My partner and I were explaining our competition quest to visit all 50 states, with one of The Partner’s unvisited states was Alaska. Our friend, knowing we were going to be in Seattle a month later, calmly suggested: “Why don’t…
Last month I described how I am flying around the world with the caveat, “for now!” I tell you, having Executive Platinum status with American Airlines is a curse…free award ticket changes have me constantly checking for different award tickets for my trip. A new option for the third portion of the trip, from Budapest to Austin, has recently become available. Currently, I’m booked to fly from…
In 2014, I traveled more than in previous years. I easily requalified for American Airlines’ top tier Executive Platinum status and I burned a ton of miles for a European trip in 2014 and a round-the-world trip in 2015. The blog reached a new milestone — 100 posts — and my blog was featured in Million Mile Secrets’ Friday Interview Series. As for flights, I took 145 domestic…
I previously wrote about how I’m returning to SouthEast Asia in 2015. While the primary purpose of this trip is to serve as a guest instructor in an annual field course that is held on a remote Indonesian island, I figured since I was half-way around the world I would do some exploring. With this in mind, I had two goals: Visit places I have not been to. Fly around…
I have a friend that is a flight attendant for Virgin America. As a result, I get to see in my Facebook feed some of his experiences while working. This afternoon, my friend posted a link to an article with the comment, “Please share this with your friends. It’ll make my life a LOT easier.” The article included 12 things that, contrary to popular belief, a flight attendant…
I get distracted easily. So easily that I wrote a post about it. One day recently, while trying to be productive, I got sidetracked. I must have killed a couple hours on my beloved BuzzFeed. There I found an interesting article about travel facts. Some interesting items from the article: My friend, let’s call her Mary, once told her husband, “I’m tired of experiences; I want…
One thing you may or may not know about me is that I studied in Indonesia when I was in college. It’s true. I spent two summers studying monkeys in a jungle on a remote Indonesian off the southwest coast of Java. These experiences changed me for several reasons, which I wrote about in a previous issue of InFluential Magazine. But overall, this experience helped…
