You asked, I answered: How do you decide where to go?

I get asked so many questions via dms and in person. Traveling is deemed as a complicated task and people always wonder why I do it, how I do it, and more importantly how I afford it on a teacher's salary.  So, I decided to take the questions that I'm asked and turn them into posts. First up .... "How do you decide where to go?"

Recently I was at the airport preparing to take a flight to Seattle when my niece asked me "Auntie, why would you go to Seattle?" Before I could answer, she followed up this question with another one "Auntie, like, how do you find these places to go?"

So that brings me to my first question post "How do you decide where to go? 

To answer this, I must go back in time to when I was a little girl.  I had dreams of being a traveler. I would write down all these places that I wanted to go.... Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, Paris. I never thought I would go but I always kept the list .... mentally. When I finally became an adult and I started to travel I transferred that list from my memories to paper in a notebook. I also wrote down things that I wanted to experience like seeing a WNBA game or swimming with the dolphin. 

Swimming with dolphins in Jamaica

I wrote all these things down in a notebook and once I started traveling, I started marking things off the list. When I travel, I use a plethora of different platforms. I'm going to blog about this later too; how to travel on a budget because a lot of people ask me about that too. One of the platforms that I use is called Scotts Cheap Flights (now called GOING 😒).  I receive daily emails about flights that are on sale. If something from my list pops up, I book the flight. For example, I got an email saying that they had a round trip plane ticket to Egypt from Miami for $500. I booked that thing so fast. 

Same thing happened a couple of months later.  I received an email saying tickets Kenya were on sale for $700. Once again, I jumped on it because this was a steal! Normally it's like $1600 to go to Kenya. 

Me at Giraffe Manor in Kenya

Once I go somewhere, you would think my list would get smaller as I'm achieving all of these things because I've been to so many places on my list and I've experienced so many things on my list. But nooooo. Here's the thing about traveling...... The more you go out in the world, the more you want to see! The more you want to do. 

So, while I'm traveling, I'll write down something else that I would like to do and add it to my list. Or I will think of a new place and will write it down. I just keep adding stuff because a lot of the things that I added as a child, have been fulfilled.  So, my list never dwindles down ... if anything it keeps expanding. I have enough items to last me a lifetime. And so, the cycle continues ... I add to the list and whenever something comes on sale, I check to see if it's on my list. And if it's on my list, then I go. 

So, to answer my niece, Seattle is on my list because of the space needle, its proximity to Alaska and just because 🤷. Seattle is normally pretty pricey from Florida, but this summer they had a major sale. So I jumped on that bad boy. I also noticed that an experience (see the Las Vegas Aces) lined up with going to Seattle so I was able to mark off 2 states, 2 cities and 2 experiences with one trip. I ended going from Orlando to Seattle to Phoenix back to Orlando for $300. Can you say STEAL!

Me at the Las Vegas Aces game 

So yeah, that is how I decide where I'm going to go. I highly advise everyone, regardless of age, to make a list of places that you would like to travel to. My daughter is only 10 years old, and she already has a list ... and she has marked off several spots. If you would like to join Scott's Cheap Flights (now GOING 😒) here is my referral code . It's $50 for the year but it's totally worth it. 

Now what will you add to your list?