My Heart Says "GO" my Bank Account Says "NO"

In 12th grade my high school took us to Europe for about 3 weeks (yes, be shocked, yes I went to a private school, Yes, I know I

was lucky). We went to 8 different countries, and saw all of the Europe highlights. The minute I saw the Tower of London I knew I wanted to continue to travel. Through the course of that trip I was able to see places that I never knew were more magical in person. Unfortunately, when I got home I was hit with the truth; traveling is not as easy as just getting on a plane with your classmates and following the Bible teacher from place to place.

After coming home I went to college for 2 years then heard of this missionary organization that let you live in Hawaii for 3 months then live abroad for 3 months. SCORE, I got to travel and call it a mission trip. I went to Hawaii and then was told I would be going to Cambodia. Apparently my Christian high school didn't focus on geography because I was sure that was going to Africa, until a quick google search told me I was in fact going to Southeast Asia. It was amazing, hard and fulfilling all at once. After that I fell in love with missions work and spent the next few years leading trips to Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, and within the US. I saw amazing places and experienced part of the world I never thought I could. The only thing was I never really got to travel just for fun.

Whenever I got a break I would go visit my friend in London, try to see more of Europe, I would go down to Mexico and explore and try to get out as much as possible but quickly realized that working in youth ministry was not the kind of job that paid for a traveler's lifestyle. I had to figure out how to see the world and afford it. That is what led to my love of researching travel and booking good deals. Since then I have learned how to work every system: frequent flyer miles, credit card points, Orbitz rewards, Priceline express deals and the list goes on. I have learned what days to book on, what days to travel on, and how to "hack the system". Eventually I hope to turn this into a travel planning business, but for now I just want to share my tricks with people, and hear theirs in return. Hope you enjoy and then we can all travel while scoring the best deals possible.