Field notes
The Journal.
The looser side of the operation — travel hacking, traveling with kids, and the dispatches that don't fit a field report. Everything we're figuring out, written down.
With Kids · 5 min
Road to Hana with kids: what to stop for, what to skip
Everyone does the Road to Hana in a day and comes back fried. We did it the other way — slept in Hana, drove back slow — and these are the stops that actually earned the pull-over with an 8 and a 10-year-old.
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Why We TravelWhy we travel
We're not travel agents. We're two people who got obsessed with planning the kind of trips we wished someone had planned for us — and we'd rather hand you the real list than keep it to ourselves.
With KidsOne day in New Orleans with kids: the exact plan
We had one full day in New Orleans with an 8 and a 10-year-old, and we didn't waste an hour of it. Here's the walk, beignets to dinner, in the order we'd run it again.
Travel HackingHow we flew the family to Maui on 28,900 points each
Four round-trip tickets to Hawaii over Thanksgiving would have run us thousands. We paid 28,900 points a person — and the trick was booking American's flights through a partner you'd never think to use. Here's the exact play.
Travel HackingHow we flew the family to Europe on points
Four seats to Italy is a brutal cash fare. On points it's a rounding error. Here's the actual play we ran — the cards, the transfer partners, and the sweet spot most people never find.
With KidsTraveling with an 8 and a 10-year-old: what actually works
People ask if it's worth it to drag little kids across the world. Eighteen years in, it's the whole point. Here's what we've learned about pacing, food, and not melting down by day three.
Travel HackingThe email that's gotten us a hotel suite almost every time
It costs nothing, takes four minutes, and has a higher hit rate than any points trick we know. Before every stay, I send the hotel one short, genuine note — and we've ended up in suites in New York, Paris, New Orleans, Jackson Hole and Maui. Here's the exact email.
Travel HackingWhy we never cash our points in through the portal
The single most expensive mistake people make with points is the easy button: redeeming them through the bank's travel portal. Same points, a fraction of the value. Here's the math that changed how we book everything.
Travel HackingHow we banked a dozen-plus free hotel nights in one year
Marriott is the program we work hardest, and the easiest one to explain. Time the cards right and the math hits fifteen free nights in a single year — plus the status that gets you the late checkout and the upgrade. Here's exactly how it stacks.
Why We TravelDon't let the planning eat the trip
We love the points game. But there's a trap inside it — the hours you can pour into saving forty dollars on a flight you might not even take. The rule that saved us from our own spreadsheet.
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