Thanks for visiting my travel blog! I document and share the travel adventures that my husband, Dom, and I have here. I also run a more general blog called todaywithjess.com if you’re interested in book recommendations, recipes, Peloton / wellness, and other posts.

How we started traveling

Dom and I did a little traveling in the first few years we were together – we went to Destin (FL), Las Vegas, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Disney World / Universal Orlando; we also went to Thailand with a group of friends. Traveling was something we really enjoyed but wasn’t something I ever thought would become such a big part of our lives – long term / frequent travel wasn’t something we really ever thought about before COVID because we both worked office jobs. I think we both just assumed we’d save up our PTO and go on a few trips a year when we could.

At the beginning of COVID, we went on a few small trips to get out of the house – we visited Disney World when it reopened and also spent a long weekend in Charleston, SC. By the beginning of 2021, it was clear COVID wasn’t going anywhere so Dom suggested we take advantage of being able to work remotely while it lasted since neither of us had been called back to our physical offices yet. We booked a month-long trip to Salt Lake City in the spring of 2021. That trip really changed everything for us because we realized how much we enjoy staying in one place for a while and exploring the area.

Our travel preferences

Transportation

We drive for most of our longer trips, but when we do shorter trips we like to fly out of regional airports (less driving and cheaper parking) and we prefer to fly with Allegiant. We’ve had pretty good luck with them – flight delays have typically only been on bad weather days, and of our probably 20+ Allegiant flights, we’ve only had once flight get cancelled (seemingly because not enough crew members were available when COVID numbers were high). We’re lucky to get good rates on rental cars through Dom’s job – a lot of large companies have deals with rental car companies for discounted daily rates. We always avoid checking a bag if we can – the lines for checking bags at regional airports can be insane because they don’t always have enough employees working on that side of security.

Lodging

We book our long-term stays with Airbnb. We spend hours reading reviews and checking amenity lists to make sure the Internet has worked for other people who are working remotely, and to make sure there will be two spaces for us to work – ideally a desk and a table in separate rooms for when we both have calls. We try to find places within walking distance of coffee shops, grocery stores, some restaurants, etc. We also almost exclusively book through Superhosts or rental companies; the more info that hosts have on their bookings, the better experience we have had.

For shorter trips, we typically book hotels with IHG because we have their credit card and they have a fantastic rewards structure – they’re the hotel company that owns brands like Holiday Inn, Candlewood Suites, Hotel Indigo, and Kimpton. We prefer to stay with Kimpton and Hotel Indigo – two of IHG’s luxury brands. We also recently got the Marriott card, but use it more as a back-up so we can get as much out of the IHG card as possible.

More about AMMM:

I started this blog in 2020 as a Disney travel blog, but as we started traveling more I transitioned to posting about all of our trips. AM are the initials of my last name (A) and Dom’s last name (M).

My posts cover pretty much anything we do – hikes, restaurants, sight-seeing, and lodging.

More About Us:

• We have a house in Central Illinois and live there when we aren’t traveling
• We work in insurance as actuaries
• When we travel, we do as much hiking as we can and try out as many coffee shops as we can fit in
• We’re vegetarian – so no meat, but we eat eggs and dairy
• We recently bought a Tesla, so we try that out on some of our closer trips. Otherwise we take our Jeep