Our 2020 Travel Challenge

Something that Ryan and I have always loved to do is travel. We took our first trip as a couple in 2014 and we’ve gone somewhere every year since then (usually multiple places)! I recognize how blessed we are to have our health and jobs that allow us to travel and the means necessary to see new places. We are so lucky to be able to travel as much as we do!

When we took our first road trip in January 2017, we both realized that we needed to travel and see as much of the United States and the world as we could. We felt so alive and in sync as a couple when we were traveling together. Ryan wrote about why he wanted to retire early, and our road trip was one of the catalysts for that.

2020 travel challenge

Travel Hacking.

Last year, Ryan and I started travel hacking! I’ll be honest that Ryan has taken the reins on this so his blog post shares more than I’ll explain here. BUT doing this has allowed us to prioritize traveling and earning points towards flights and hotels/rental cars.

Basically, the gist is that we are signing up for credit cards and using our normal spending (or manufactured spending) to hit the target amount that gives us the most points. Then we cancel the cards before the annual fee kicks in. Ryan has opened all the cards in his name so far, and it hasn’t affected his credit score at all! He shares this in his post, but it’s def something that you need to keep track of to make sure you don’t get hit with any extra charges or overspend the amount you need. Overall though, it has been awesome for us and we’ve gotten so many points already!

The Challenge.

Our friends Thomas and Tiffani write a travel blog. Last year, they challenged themselves to travel at least one long weekend a month for an entire year. When we met up with them at the end of 2019 (at the OU vs. Texas game– pictured above!), their stories inspired us to want to do the same thing! We started planning on Google docs and decided to make this challenge a reality.

OU vs. texas texas state fair

Where We’re Going.

At the start of the year, we had trips planned up until May. We also scheduled trips for September and October as well. We currently don’t have anything set in stone for May, June, July, August, November, or December. Which is exciting! We have some ideas but we still have to decide where we want to go with is the part that’s the most fun.

In this post, I really just wanted to share that we were going to be doing this fun 2020 Travel Challenge and let you know what we have planned so far for this year! Each month I want to do an update post with pics and a little recap of where we decided to go too so you guys can stay in the loop. I’ll post the January and February recaps soon!

January — NYC

Thomas and Tiffani invited us along on their NYC trip for Tiffani’s birthday! We were blessed with an amazingly warm weekend in the city so it made the trip SO amazing and worth it. We took the train up from Philly which was nice too. No driving or trying to find parking in the city for us!

February — Pensacola, FL

We went to Pensacola over President’s Day weekend to see my brother play baseball! They ended up playing a double-header on Saturday because it rained all day Sunday. Which was honestly a huge bummer considering we got a hotel right on the beach and we couldn’t utilize it! It wasn’t super warm either so it’s not like we would’ve gone swimming, but we do love sunshine!

March — Charlottesville, VA

Since this could potentially be my brother’s last year playing UVA baseball, I wanted to make sure we got down to Charlottesville to see him play at least once. It’s about a 4-5 hour drive down there so it’s not terrible! But getting to see him play is priceless and I love the Charlottesville area!

April — Seattle, WA + Portland, OR

I am SO hype for this trip over spring break! The only place on the west coast we’ve been is California. So excited to see two new cities and states! I’ve heard amazing things about Portland so I can’t wait. I already have Powell’s Books on my radar and can’t wait to spend hours there. If you have any recs let me know!

September — West Point, NY

Ryan wanted to see Oklahoma play Army in West Point so that’s where we’re heading in September!

October — Dallas, TX

Heading back to the OU vs. Texas game in Dallas which we’re so excited about! This is one of our fav annual trips.

Where else should we go?

los angeles travel

Do you have any ideas for us May-August? What about November or December? I love hearing about the places you’ve visited and loved so let me know if there’s somewhere we should definitely go this year! I would like to head back to the LA area at least once this year and it would be awesome to go on a ~relaxing~ vacation type of trip too. Send me any recs you have!

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