[Recapping our trip, 197 days in] On Sunday, November 20, we flew from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh (or Saigon) was the third time in our travels to have the incredible opportunity to see family as we traveled; Charley’s cousin Emma currently lives there, working as a music teacher […]
[Recapping our trip, 184 days in] On Monday, November 7, we took a nice business class flight on Thai Airways from Taipei, Taiwan to Chiang Mai, Thailand (with a connection in Bangkok, of course). By transferring some Chase UR Points to the Singapore Airlines program, we used only 27,500 Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles per person, a real […]
[Recapping our trip, 179 days in] The day after Charley’s birthday, on Thursday, October 27, we headed to Taipei, Taiwan. I’ve visited China several times before, but this was my first time to Taiwan, officially the “Republic of China.” (This often confuses people; note that China is formally the “People’s Republic of China.”) We actually took […]
[Recapping our trip, 168 days in] After a very meaningful experience in Seoul, we headed to China on Sunday, October 23. After seeing friends in San Sebastian and Krakow, and family in Germany and Seoul, this was going to be our fifth chance to see people we knew. We decided to take the better part of […]
[Recapping our trip, 164 days in] We arrived in Seoul on Sunday, October 16, fresh off a flight from Busan. (Naturally, we used Chase Ultimate Rewards points, transferred to Korean Air, to give ourselves a nice free business class trip for the short flight north.) Far and away, Seoul has been the emotional climax of our […]
On Tuesday, October 13, we left Osaka for Busan, South Korea, our second country in Asia. Charley has visited Seoul a few different times, and we wanted to be sure on this trip that we had the chance to visit a Korean city other than Seoul. Our time in Busan was really fun, the real highlights […]
On Sunday, October 9, we finished our time in the north of Japan and headed down to the second largest city in Japan, Osaka. We spent some of our time there relaxing, working on the blog at the time and seeing what the city has to offer. Overall, we really liked it, and we were really […]
After an incredibly luxurious flight there, we arrived in Tokyo on Sunday, October 2, and headed to our hotel, the Park Hyatt. While this hotel normally runs over $700 per night, remember that if you open the Hyatt credit card by Chase and meet a minimum spending requirement, you’ll receive a welcome gift of two […]
After an INCREDIBLE four and a half months, at last the time came to leave Europe and head onward to the Middle East for a few days before going to spend time in Asia. Thanks to some American Airlines AAdvantage miles, we had an incredible experience in Qatar Airways business class, and arrived in Oman […]
On Tuesday September 20, we were finished with our stint in Ukraine and headed to Poland for the last destination on the European portion of our draft itinerary. Flights back to Europe were surprisingly expensive, but we remembered that LOT Polish Airlines are a member of Star Alliance, and a relatively small 30,000 United miles […]