Travel

12 Days In The South Of France: Days 9-12 Heat Wave In Paris

– Posted in: Travel

After four full days in Provence and just under four days in Lyon, we had a 10+ hour road trip for our final stop in Paris. We were scheduled to spend our final days in Tours in the Loire Valley, but changed to Paris because of the heat wave. Temperatures were projected to exceed 100-degrees each day, and the Loire Valley activities would be mainly outdoors. In addition, our AirBNB [...]

12 Days In The South Of France: Days 5-8 In Provence

– Posted in: Travel

After just under four days in Lyon, we hit the road for our next stop in Aix-en-Provence. We picked this region because lavender is in season June through August. As it turns out, sunflowers also bloom in July and August, so we would get to see both! We did see some impressive sunflower fields along the way, but as the drive was several hours, we didn’t stop for photo opportunities. [...]

12 Days In The South Of France: Days 1-4

– Posted in: Travel

We have been to Paris once before for a few days, but exploring the rest of France was high on my bucket list. Thanks to the flexibility that FIRE affords, we were able to jump on a ticket sale and ended up paying just over $600 per Paris/ NY round-trip ticket in July! We scheduled 12 days in total to go around the French Alps region, the lavender fields of [...]

Pittsburgh Road Trip – Driving 1,100 Miles To Buy A Shirt

– Posted in: Travel
scenic view of rivers and pittsburgh area

Not one week after returning from a six-day, 3111-mile road trip, we spent Saturday thru Monday of Memorial Day Weekend on another thousand-mile journey, essentially to buy a shirt! Our youngest enters college this fall and only made her enrollment decision after we had already visited the school. She wanted some branded shirts to wear for her final weeks of high school to show off her college. We were scheduled [...]

Donuts, Diners and Driving 1500 Miles To Fargo, North Dakota

– Posted in: Travel

We go a little bit crazy with our road trips. We bought a new car in December 2016 and have already put 88,000 miles on it! Even crazier, I don’t drive, so Scott has driven the entire 88,000 miles all by himself. Last week, we spent six days on a road trip from New York City to Fargo, ND for the Fargo marathon (Scott’s 16th state in his quest to [...]

Travel 2019 – Can We Fly to Europe for $99?

– Posted in: Travel
close up view of airplane in the sky, from below

I wrote previously about how 2019 is going to be a big travel year for us, after our younger child goes off to college in August. One of our trips is expected to be to Spain, Portugal and France in September and October, and we are starting now to think about an itinerary. Our intent is to 'slow travel' and stay at reasonably priced AirBNB's off the beaten path, so [...]

Travel 2019 – Kicking Off A Big Year

– Posted in: Travel

2019 will be a major transition year for us. After 23 years of raising two kids, our younger child goes off to college in August. Caroline and I have had the year 2019 circled on our proverbial calendar for a loooong time. We've always been interested in travel but never really had the luxury of doing it, partially because my full time corporate career didn't leave a lot of room [...]

Our Weekend in Portland and Brunswick Maine

– Posted in: Travel

I recently wrote about how I go about finding the best AirBNB unit for a trip, when planning to visit Portland. Well, that trip finally came around this past weekend, so that I could run the Maine Marathon. Sidenote - the Maine Marathon is a great race. Super friendly people, beautiful course, and we lucked out with some great weather. My race wasn't great because I've dealt with recent injuries [...]

Houston – The Rest Of Our Trip

– Posted in: Travel

We were in Houston because Caroline was a featured speaker at the AAJA conference. Since she spent time each day at sessions of the conference, and I spent time working on my own things, we didn't have time to fully get out and explore, but we did find the time to do something interesting every day. We explored the Japanese Garden, caught a game at Minute Maid Park, and enjoyed a great local restaurant.

England Holiday – Our Seven Day Itinerary And Highlights

– Posted in: Travel

Last year, Caroline and I took a trip to England with our younger daughter over her spring break. We've been wanting to take a trip to Europe for quite some time, with the intent of exploring some countryside and sights outside the big cities and looking forward to going at our own pace and interest by renting a car and driving around. We settled on England because Manchester is where [...]

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