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Everything you need to know about visiting Chichen Everything you need to know about visiting Chichen Itza, one of the 7 Wonders of the World (SAVE + SHARE this post).

Chichen Itza is 2.5 hours from Cancun, 2 hours from Playa del Carmen, and 90 minutes from both Tulum and Merida.

You can get here by renting a car, booking a private tour on Airbnb Experiences like we did, coming on a tour bus or for budget travelers taking the ADO bus. 

Most tours from Cancun are all day long, leaving as early as 7/8 am and as late as 9 pm drop off. This is because you’ll visit cenotes outside of Chichen Itza and the town of Valladolid. Since we only had 4 days in Cancun we didn’t want to spend a full day on the road but also really wanted to visit so booking private transportation allowed us to skip all the other stops and just go there and back. We were picked up at 9 and back at the hotel by 4 so we could have a relaxing evening.

Current admission is $533 Mexican pesos for adults, $80 for kids 3-12 and free for kids under 3. That’s about $30 US for adults and $5 for kids.

Once inside there is the main attraction that everyone comes to see but there are also other Mayan dwellings and a cenote. I recommend coming with a guide or hiring an official guide once on site so they can give you information on the history.

Have you been to any of the 7 Wonders? If so, which one(s)?

Hubby and I climbed the Great Wall of China together in 2007, Jordyn, James and I have been to the Colosseum in Rome, the girls and I have been to Petra and we all visited Machu Picchu, Christ the Redeemer, Chichen Itza and the Great Pyramids of Giza together!

#chichenitza #7wondersoftheworld
Today is the last day of school and I could not be Today is the last day of school and I could not be more proud of Jordyn! Look at all those awards she racked up at her end of the year ceremony. She’s reading 3 grade levels above hers, was only 9 points away from a perfect score on her state reading test and made the Honor Roll every quarter of the year. It’s time to celebrate, let summer begin!!!
We’ve been to 34 states and while we haven’t v We’ve been to 34 states and while we haven’t visited them all yet these are 4 states you should consider visiting this summer. (SAVE + SHARE this list for inspo)

📍Idaho- Last year we explored Southern Idaho and it blew us away. City of Rocks National Reserve, Kayak to Shoshone Falls, white water rafting, and walking behind Perrine Coulee Waterfall are musts!

📍Alaska- We visited the South East part of Alaska, Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan and WOW talk about stunning. You’ll love exploring ice caves, walking on glaciers, canoeing through ice bergs, seeing the volcano and hopefully spotting some bears!

📍Utah- From the famous national parks like Zion and Bryce to the lesser known areas like Kanab, Utah is stunning. You can’t miss sand boarding through Coral Pink Sand Dunes and ATVing through the gorgeous landscape.

📍California- Where else can you surf and ski/snowboard in the same day? California has the most national parks in any state so you know the beauty is beyond amazing. Having lived there for 3 years I’ve explored so many cities and there is something for everyone!!

Would you like me to share my website link for our itineraries for each of these trips in stories? Have you been to any of these? Which state intrigues you the most from this list? What city/state would you like to see us cover?

#visittheusa #bucketlisttrip #travellingwithkids
We have been traveling with our girls since they w We have been traveling with our girls since they were 6 weeks old. Is traveling with kids always easy? Nope! Are there added costs to traveling with kids? Yes! But having status with World of Hyatt has helped elevate our travels, making things a little easier and saving us money, here’s how (SAVE + SHARE this post).

1. Being a family of 4 standard hotel rooms can be kind of cramped. Having status with World of Hyatt means we’re eligible for free upgrades when available including suites as a Globalist.

2. Eating out for breakfast everyday on a vacation starts to add up really quickly. As a Globalist we get free breakfast for 2 adults and 2 children.

3. At hotels with club access Globalists also get free access which includes drinks and snacks, the perfect way to hold kids over until dinner without spending money.

4. I don’t know who decided 9 or 10am was a good time for check-out, hello we’re on vacation, we want to sleep in! Having status with World of Hyatt means you qualify for late check out at 2pm or 4pm depending on your level of status. So whether you sleep in, hit the pool or use the other amenities at the hotel you can enjoy a little longer. It especially helps us when we have flights later in the day.

5. After paying for our hotel room we hate having added fees. Thankfully when you have Globalist status with World of Hyatt resort fees are waived on free night awards and/or eligible rates.

6. Free hotel nights! There is nothing like booking a hotel and not paying a penny! Having joined World of Hyatt we rack up points (on more than just stays) and the higher your status, the more points you earn to get free stays faster.

7. As World of Hyatt members we even earn American Airlines miles on our Hyatt stays, getting us free flights faster to save even more money!

From being more comfortable to finding more ways to earn, you’re missing out if you haven’t joined World of Hyatt!

@hyatt #HyattPartner
4 Ways to Redeem Points at Hyatt Hotels & 7 Ways t 4 Ways to Redeem Points at Hyatt Hotels & 7 Ways to Earn World of Hyatt Points & (SAVE + SHARE):

Ways to Redeem
1. Redeem points for rooms at Hyatt hotels. There’s nothing like experiencing luxury without the cost, so glad I could redeem Hyatt points for this stay with one of the best views of Tokyo.

2. Redeem points to cover your meal at participating restaurants at Hyatt hotels.

3. Redeem Hyatt points to cover your spa treatment at participating spas at Hyatt hotels. 

4. Redeem points through World of Hyatt FIND experiences. With over 200 experiences like cooking classes, tastings, & walking tours there are so many activities to choose from!

Ways to Earn
1. Are you an elite member with American Airlines? If so, you can earn 1 Hyatt point for every $1 spent on AA flights. These are in addition to the normal miles you’ll earn on American, just sign into your AA account & link your World of Hyatt account.

2. Rent a car through Avis & can earn 500 Hyatt points per rental. Just provide your Hyatt membership number when making the reservation & use AWD code K817700.

3. Book a FIND experience by World of Hyatt and earn 10 points per $1 spent. Hyatt offers over 200 experiences such as culinary classes with celebrity chefs, hot air balloon ride in Arizona, guided bike tour over the Golden Gate bridge and more.

4. Even if you aren’t staying at a Hyatt property, if you eat at the hotel restaurant or book a spa treatment you can earn 5 points per $1 spent. We actually ate at a Hyatt restaurant in Kyoto & even though we weren’t staying there I gave my World of Hyatt number & received points!

5. Earn points on everyday spending with a World of Hyatt credit card: 2 points per $1 spent on restaurants, airline tickets, local transit, rideshares, & gym memberships plus earn 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.

6. Transfer points earned on other credit cards who partner with Hyatt such like Chase Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, Freedom Unlimited & Freedom Flex. 

7. Book a cruise with Lindblad Expeditions & earn 5 points per $1 spent.

Are you doing any of these?

📍Andaz Tokyo

@hyatt #HyattPartner
If you visit Lisbon or any mainland city in Portug If you visit Lisbon or any mainland city in Portugal I highly recommend adding a trip to Madeira! It’s an island off the coast of Portugal, actually closer to Africa than Portugal. Here’s how I spent 6 days in Madeira (Save + Share this post):

🇵🇹Day 1: Pool day at my hotel (NEXT Hotel) for most of the day and then I went running up the crazy hills of Madeira to see Funchal by foot.

🇵🇹Day 2: I explored the NW part of the island visiting Seixal Beach, Ponto Moniz, Fanal Forest and Ilheus da Ribeira da Janela.

🇵🇹Day 3: I went on a sidecar adventure where I explored Valley of the Nuns, the Cabo Girão Skywalk, and the fishing town of São Pedro with @madeirasidecartours.

🇵🇹Day 4: Whale and dolphin watching tour but we only saw dolphins. In the evening I did an Airbnb Experience at a locals farm house where he cooked a great dinner where 90% of the items were picked directly from his gardens that day. He also taught us how to make poncha, a favorite local drink. The tour should already be linked in my Maderia story highlights.

🇵🇹Day 5: I toured the SE part of the island visiting Ponta do Garajau, Monte Palace, and ended the day at the most beautiful views from Pico do Arieiro (the shots of me on the clouds).

🇵🇹Day 6: I watched the sunrise from Miradouro Ponto do Rosto and then did an 8 mile hike of Levado do Caldeirão Verde. After the hike I relaxed at the pool!

If you want photos taken in Madeira I recommend @robframing.

Honestly Madeira was everything and I don’t see it dropping out of my top 5 international destinations anytime soon.
Last summer we spent 5 days in Lisbon and here’s Last summer we spent 5 days in Lisbon and here’s our itinerary (SAVE + SHARE this post):

Day 1: Self-guided tour of Belem Tower and TukTuk tour of Lisbon with @Just_Tour_It 

Day 2: Tile making class with @_Art.of.Azulejos_ and Pastel de Nata Baking Class we booked on Airbnb Experiences

Day 3: Walked around Lisbon on our own visiting the Alfama neighborhood, Bica Elevator for an infamous Lisbon tram ride, went to see the Pink Street and self-guided tour of Jeronimos Monastery.

Day 4: Had a picnic by the park in front of The Ponte 25 de Abril which looks like the Golden Gate Bridge followed by lunch at Cafe In for a really fancy seafood meal. Spent the afternoon at the Quake Museum which is a must, one of the best museums we’ve been to.

Day 5: Day trip to Sintra where we visited Peña Palace, Quinta da Regaleria and Monserrat Oalace. We had lunch at Incomum and loved it!

Our itinerary was pretty laid back so we had lots of free time each day to just walk around exploring which I think Lisbon is perfect for. 

Where are you headed this summer?

P.S. You can check out my Lisbon story highlights for more and my Lisbon guide if you tap my profile. (Guides has all my posts on a particular destination all in one place so they’re easy to review 🤗.)

The Traveling Child

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How Do We Afford to Travel So Much?

December 28, 2017      Affording Travel

This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Please see our disclosure policy for more information. All opinions are my own.

Two of the questions I am asked most is “What do we do for a living?” and “How do we afford to travel so much?” and while I do respond to these inquires individually I have been avoiding writing a post on it. The reason is because I know how things can come across over the internet and I never want anyone to misconstrue my words or take them the wrong way. With that said, I feel it’s time to address these questions, but before I begin please know I don’t mean to come off in a condescending way or offend anyone. This is my families truth and I don’t expect anyone else to live the way we do but this is how we manage to travel “so much”.

Family standing in front of the Notre Dame in Paris

What We Do for a Living

Both my husband and I work regular full-time M-F, 8-5 desk jobs. I work in HR as a recruiter and my husband works in sales. We are very blessed to both be gainfully employed but we are not rich by any means. We are able to afford to travel by having a dedicated travel savings account, strict budgets, only purchasing flight deals, and using credit card sign-up bonuses and airline miles to get flights/hotels for free.

How We Afford to Travel

Dedicated Vacation Savings Account

The number one way we afford to travel is with a dedicated vacation savings account for travel. Each month we set aside an established amount to go into our travel fund, that way when a flight deal comes up we have the cash to pay for it.

Strict Budgets

In order to have money to put in our travel savings account we have very strict budgets. We sacrifice and made some serious changes in our lifestyles because we love to travel and made the conscious effort to choose travel over things we personally deem less important.

You know what you spend the most on and where your family can cut back. That could be your weekly nail or hair appointment, daily Starbucks run, designer bags or taking public transportation instead of cabs.

To keep track of our budgeting we use mint.com. Mint allows you to set budgets, goals, and see how you are staying within budget and how close you are to reaching your savings goals.

We gave up cable to save money to travel

We nixed our expensive cable bill and only have internet with Netflix and Hulu. We never got to watch live t.v. anyway due to cooking dinner, bathing the kids, reading them stories etc. so it just made sense for us to cut the cord and put those savings (about $100/month) towards travel.

We cook instead of eating out to save money to travel

Another way we save for travel is by cooking most meals at home. One year I looked at our credit cards’ year in review and was like, but how did we spend $5,000 eating out?! $5,000 is just $13.69/day which doesn’t seem like a lot when your meal is just $14 but over time it adds up and we’ve never spent $5,000 on a vacation so that’s more than enough for a trip. I’d be lying if I said we never eat out but we keep it to a minimum. We try to cook or eat leftovers at least 6 nights a week and bring our lunch to work every day.

​When we don’t cook, we try to limit it to ordering take out, 1 or 2 large pizzas is much cheaper than the 4 of us dining at a restaurant. I have definitely hit my friends with the “sorry I maxed out my eating out budget for the month already buy y’all can come over and we can cook and chill.”

Related: 6 Tips on Planning Affordable Vacations

We car pool to work to save money to travel

I work in downtown Miami which not only means you’ll be sitting in traffic for at least an hour but it means filling up my gas tank once a week and spending a crap ton on tolls. Instead, I choose to park my car at the Park N Ride and take the 95 Express Bus to work. It’s a coach bus with wifi and power outlets and since my job subsidizes our pass it’s only $47.50/month for unlimited rides. Since I don’t have to drive 40miles a day roundtrip to work I only fill up my tank once a month. Plus I get to do all my blogging on my commute and the nightmare traffic doesn’t bother me as much since I’m not behind the wheel. My husband carpools to work and because of this receives benefits from the city for doing so, including free tolls in the 95 Express Lane.

We choose experiences over material items to save money to travel

In our household we choose experiences over material items. For us this means choosing to travel over purchasing designer items, expensive gifts, and hosting extravagant events. We shop sales, purchase for our needs over wants, and put whatever is left into our travel savings account.

While both the girls had small 1st birthday parties at home, we haven’t thrown them another one. Instead we spend the money we would have on the party on trips like Jordyn’s 2nd birthday where we visited Barbados. She is obsessed with the beach and she even got to go snorkeling for the first time.

For Christmas we get them things that they need and avoid expensive toys that will likely only keep them entertained for a short period of time. This is not to say we don’t buy our kids toys at all just that we feel there are only but so many toys a child needs so we limit those purchases.

You know best what you spend a lot of money on and where you can cut back. That could be your daily cup of Starbucks coffee, spending a lot on alcohol at bars, or any other spending you can reduce.

We Use Credit Card Sign-Up Bonuses to Pay for Travel

This year we were able to use points from credit card sign-up bonuses to pay for our flights to Thailand, our hotel in Chiang Mai, half of our flights to Amsterdam, and 2 of our flights to Cuba. I only suggest using credit card sign-up bonuses to assist with getting flights for free if you will 100% pay your monthly balance off in full each month. If you can’t, the bonus will not be worth it as you will end up paying interest on your purchases, canceling out the benefits of the bonus.

The key to meeting the minimum spend on travel credit cards it to line up obtaining a new card with a big purchase you have to make or by making sure your everyday purchases will meet the minimum spend. For us, just by being a family of 4, it’s usually pretty easy to hit the minimum spend on new credit cards with our every day purchases with all of our monthly expenses. We charge everything including gas, internet, groceries, daycare, activities, home supplies, baby supplies, and so forth. You typically have 3-4 months to meet a $3,000 spend to receive the bonus points plus you will end points on the charges made. Travel credit cards typically offer 2-3 points/miles for every dollar spent on dining and travel and 1 point/mile for all other charges.

When we got the Chase Sapphire Reserve at the end of last year when we needed to purchase something for our home. This earned us 100,000 miles at the sign-up bonus which equals to $1500 towards travel when redeeming your miles on the Chase Sapphire Reserve Ultimate Rewards website. That $1500 paid for our flights to Thailand after we snagged a flight deal on Qatar Airways from Miami.

I also signed up for the Delta Skymiles AMEX when their sign up bonus was 60,000 miles. When booking flights directly on delta.com and using your Delta Skymiles AMEX to purchase eligible flights, every 5,000 Skymiles gets you $50 off your flight. Delta had a sale from Miami to Amsterdam for $400 but with our 60,000 miles we got $600 off our flights for a grand total of $673 for all 4 of us to travel roundtrip.

The Delta Skymiles AMEX’ current special earns you 50,000 Bonus Miles after you spend $2,000 or more in purchases with your new Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership and a $50 statement credit after you make a Delta purchase with your new Card within your first 3 months. Earn an additional 10,000 bonus miles after you make an additional $1,000 in purchases within your first 6 months. The $95 annual fee is waived the first year. To get this deal sign up here. (Delta is not a sponsor of this post but it’s a good deal.)

We get 2-3 new credit cards per year to offset the costs of our travels. As we are sure to pay off your credit card balance in full each month this hasn’t negatively affected our credit. One thing you don’t want to have is a ton of annual fees on credit cards every year so if the card we have applied for has an annual fee we downgrade the card to the no annual fee version prior to the annual fee for the next year kicking in. If there isn’t a lower version of the card we determine if the benefits are worth the fee and if not we cancel the card. These are just our experiences and of course you need to know your credit and your circumstances to know if this is a viable option for you but it has saved us over $3,000 on travel this year.

If you aren’t good with paying your balance in full please stay away from travel credit cards as the interest fees will outweigh the benefits of earning miles.

Related: 12 Ways to Earn Miles Without Flying

We Only Book Flight Deals and We Are Flexible With Dates

We are able to afford travel by only purchasing flight deals. Instead of picking where and when we want to go somewhere we let flight deals dictate where we will go. Skyscanner is our favorite website! It allows you to enter dates you can travel, your home airport, and then will tell you the cheapest places you can do during that time. It also work where you enter your home airport and where you want to go and it will tell you the cheapest dates to travel there. They have a free app you can download here.

My husband has always wanted to go to Amsterdam so when a flight deal came up on Delta airlines I thought it would be a great surprise birthday trip for him. My husbands birthday is in July but the flight deal was only valid for travel from August-October. The deal was for $400RT from MIA to AMS and we would end up being there 3 weeks after my husbands birthday. Our options were to pay $400RT per person or pay $1200RT per person just to be there on his actual birthday.

Yes that would have been nice but saving $800 per ticket was way better. To top it off if you have the Delta Skymiles AMEX some flights are eligible to get $50 off your flight for every 5,000 skymiles you have. As I got the Delta AMEX earlier in the year and satisfied the spend to earn the sign-up bonus of 60,000 Skymiles we got $600 off  the 3 tickets we had to buy. Instead of paying $1200 we spent $673 ($73 for the taxes for Kennedy’s lap infant ticket) for our family of 4 to visit Amsterdam.

Domestic flight deals have been as low as $80RT from NYC/MIA to Chicago, $48RT from MIA to ATL, $130RT from PHL to LAX and more.

Our maximum spend for international flights is $500RT per person but most deals we book cap out at $450.  We got a flight deal to the Barbados for $175RT on JetBlue and visited Cartagena, Colombia for $183RT and we have only gone over our max twice. These were for a flight to Australia for $580 and the recent flight deal we purchased to Kenya for $550. As Australia is typically $1500+ this was still an amazing deal and we will be in Kenya during the summer to witness the great migration so $50 over was worth it.

Read This!: Best Websites for Flight Deals

We Fly Budget Airlines

Say what you want about airlines like Spirit but they have afforded our family the opportunity to travel frequently. From getting $100 round trip flights to Denver for our family ski trip to saving $600 over the next airline for our flights to Costa Rica Spirit always holds us down. Plus we never pay for bags and save $168over online prices just buy buying our flights at the airport. Read all the details on maximizing savings where flying Spirit here.

We Use Frequent Flier Miles to Pay for Flights

As we only book flight deals we aren’t airline loyal however, we still have frequent flier accounts with multiple airlines. Airlines belong to alliances so you can pool are your points from airlines in one alliance to one specific airline that you find yourself flying more often. As an example on our recent trip to Europe we flew Virgin Atlantic there and Air France back- they are both apart of Skyteam and so is Delta Airlines. Since we fly Delta the most out of those 3 I had all our miles earned from those flights added to our Delta Skymiles account balance. The three alliances are Skyteam, OneWorld, and Star Alliance.

Earning miles on every flight helps with offsetting the cost of future trips. The 57,000 miles I had on my American Airlines frequent flier account (50,000 from the Citi Advantage sign-up bonus) was enough to get Jordyn and I’s flight to Grand Cayman that we will be taking next month. Only having to pay for our flights back home reduced the overall cost of our trip and is making it more affordable.

We Use Airbnb to Afford Travel

We rarely stay in hotels (we do in the Caribbean as we like to be on the beach) and typically opt to stay in vacation homes such as rentals through Airbnb. They are cheaper, give us more space for the kids to run around, and come equipped with a full kitchen allowing up to cook some meals while on vacation saving us from eating out for our entire trip. Want to try Airbnb, click here for $40 off your first stay. Nervous about booking an Airbnb? Read my 8 Tips for a Great Airbnb Experience.

Don’t be afraid to ask your Airbnb host for a discount. If you have a particular budget in mind contact your host and tell them why you love their place and if they can reduce the nightly fee a little bit to accommodate your budget. That’s the great thing about Airbnb, the home rentals are typically ran by real people/families and they are typically willing to help as long as you don’t insult them and ask for 50% off. We recently asked an Airbnb host for a discount as they charge per person and they reduced the price by $33/night to give us a discount on the per person fee for the kids. For our 3 night stay that $99 can now go towards something else.

We Only Book Cruises with Specials

In addition to only booking flight deals, you should only book a cruise when they have a special. Many cruise lines offer promotions throughout the year where kids (12 and under) sail free of the 3rd and 4th guest in a cabin sail free (regardless of age). This is the perfect time to book a vacation especially for large families who can take advantage of kids sailing free.

We Travel with Friends and Family to Make Travel Affordable

Splitting costs with others always makes things cheaper. While traveling you can save on accommodations and transportation at your destination when traveling with a group. Whether you are staying in a hotel or Airbnb splitting the cost 2-6 ways will always be cheaper than staying alone. On our recent trip to Grand Cayman it was a mommy/daughter weekend so my friend and I split the hotel room making our $200/night room only $100/night for each of us, savings we used on our activities. In Cuba we split an Airbnb among 6 friends and also shared taxis so we saved a ton on transportation as well. When we fly with friends/family we try to all land/depart at the same time to also save on transportation to/from the airport whether we share a taxi or a private shuttle. Renting a car at your destination is also cheaper if you are splitting the rental multiple ways.

This is how we afford to travel. I hope I’ve shed some light on what we do and how we are able to travel frequently as full-time working parents.

Read This!: How to Travel Frequently with a Full-Time Job

Found this post helpful? Please share it to help a fellow traveler.

The Traveling Child is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

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Comments

  1. Kimberlee West says

    December 30, 2017 at 11:21 pm

    Thank you so much for taking the time to write this blog. I love your account and viewed it only as aspirational. Something I just wouldn’t be able to do. I had no idea you and hubby also work full-time. I have two girls and the biggest gift I can possibly imagine is travel. I truly didn’t think it was possible but this is my first time jumping over to the blog from IG and your tips and insights are so helpful and practical.

    • Monet says

      December 31, 2017 at 10:56 am

      Thank you so much for appreciating it! I think a lot of people think either myself or both of us don’t work full-time and I wanted to shed light that quitting your job and selling your house or being a “digital nomad” isn’t the only way to travel. Even if you can’t do 6 trips a year like we typically do you can hopefully at least do 1 trip a year with the right budgeting and planning.
      I am so happy to hear you are feeling more confident about the possibility of giving your girls the gift of travel. Please don’t hesitate at all to reach out via DM or email with any questions you might have. Happy New Year!

  2. Laura says

    December 31, 2017 at 5:56 am

    I love following the Travelling child on your adventures and seeing your regular deals, were a family of 5 and Travelling is a real passion though I haven’t taken the plunge to go anywhere outside of Europe yet. Your posts give me hope and determination that having a large family with some young children shouldn’t deter you of your dreams and that with the right adjustments and sacrifices anything can be achievedI am definitely working on saving more and 2018 goals are to travel more especially as I am remote working now I need to take advantage of this perk! I hope my family crosses yours one day on our travels, all the best and Happy New Year Laura x

    • Monet says

      January 8, 2018 at 3:02 pm

      Thank you so much Laura. Yes, take advantage of that remote work, I wish I had that option. It would be so lovely to cross paths in our travels, I met up with one of our followers at Disney World when we ended up being there the same day. Happy New Year!!

  3. D Sanders says

    January 2, 2018 at 12:55 pm

    As a single mom of three, this is so helpful!!! My kids are at an age now where i really want to travel with them more, I’m definitely putting these into practice.!

    • Monet says

      January 8, 2018 at 3:00 pm

      Yes!!! Single parents can make it work too with some adjustments and sacrifice!

  4. April Kitchens says

    January 2, 2018 at 2:46 pm

    Thanks for the tips. I’ve heard of having a travel savings account, but I never thought about using a frequent flyer credit card.

  5. Angelie says

    January 7, 2018 at 11:44 am

    Monet,
    I just came across your pg on IG. I must say this is a great article. I literally spent half a day yesterday looking at flyer miles credit cards, with no applications.
    I read most of the reviews, looked at the APRs and anual fees and couldn’t make a clear decision. So that’s still on hold. But your unbiased article about the cards you use are very informative and I’m actually rethinking my decision.
    P.S. although I’m not a parent, I find you inspiring.
    Keep sharing your experience and knowledge and continue to make a difference.

    • Monet says

      January 8, 2018 at 3:08 pm

      Hi Angelie,
      Thank you for your kids words. Yes, comparing credit cards can turn into an all day thing.
      Thank you so much for pointing out that you are not a parent but still find my IG/website inspiring and helpful, it means a lot!

  6. Nicky says

    January 13, 2018 at 9:07 pm

    Monet, this is probably the most helpful blog I have read in a long time! I cannot wait to implement these tips and travel like crazy this year. Thank you for always sharing your knowledge with us!

    • Monet Hambrick says

      January 22, 2018 at 8:43 am

      Thank you you for reading and letting me know it was helpful. We can all make small changes to be able to travel if it is our desire! I haven’t missed cable one bit!

  7. Kent M. says

    January 21, 2018 at 8:49 pm

    Great article and I thanks for sharing your story. My wife and I love travelling together. I came from a background where my parents didn’t have much and travelling was considered a luxury that we couldn’t afford. Now that my wife and I have good careers we can afford it. We are constantly planning our next trip. My biggest concern was when we do plan on having children that travelling may become obsolete. You’ve proven that it can be done. 🙂

    • Monet Hambrick says

      January 22, 2018 at 8:45 am

      Hi Kent! Thank you so much for your kind words. As long as you and your wife have the will, which you obviously do you can make it work!

  8. Chanel says

    February 9, 2018 at 10:43 am

    I absolutely love your IG and blog! I traveled a lot before getting married. When we got married we promised that at a minimum we would take one trip (anniversary) a year but would do more. Two years in we have taken our annual anniversary trip but after buying a house and now have a little one, I didn’t know if we would stick to our promise. I am glad I came across your blog because I WILL be making sure we stick to our promise and I look forward to now traveling with our son. I also started a mommy blog a week ago —- @motherhoodis. I hope to add some of our exciting travel to it in the future.

  9. Diana So says

    March 22, 2018 at 3:31 am

    Love these tips! I’m definitely going to incorporate them into our lifestyle more. We’re a one income family at the moment, but I know we can tweak it here and there to fit into our lifestyle.

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Hi! We’re The Hambricks

Hi! We’re The Hambricks

If kids live there, kids can visit! That's our motto and you'll often find us exploring destinations most don't find "kid friendly". We've traveled to 35 countries on 6 continents with our children since they were 10 weeks old and share tips to make it easier and affordable. But mom and dad are people too so we also write about solo travel, baecations and girlfriend getaways.

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