Travel Is Cheaper Than Divorce
"Travel is cheaper than divorce, I should know. My wife and I were at the door to it." - David Packer
In this podcast I share some of the places, experiences and moments that changed the dynamics of not only my marriage but also the relationship with my kids. Travel was a big key of growing together, becoming stronger as a family and truly saving my marriage with my wife.
I share with you, how you can gain and travel using points and other rewards programs to see and explore some of the most amazing places in the world. In this podcast I share some of the lessons both good and bad, that have guided me and my family as we have navigated the growth and expansion of a family unit.
TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE... when you do it smart. In this podcast I give the tips and tricks I have used and the secrets I teach others of using rewards & point programs to maximize the dollars you are already spending to create some unforgettable memories with your family.
Travel Is Cheaper Than Divorce
Reconnecting Through Affordable Travel: Revitalizing Marriage and Family Bonds
Can maintaining a healthy marriage be more challenging than divorce?
In this episode David Packer shares his personal story of navigating the pressures of work, family life, and the unique trials of being foster parents. David faced unbalanced responsibilities and a lack of communication that nearly led him and his wife into a parallel marriage—an emotionally cold coexistence that many couples face silently.
Learn how they recognized each other's stress signals, instituted regular date nights, and used travel as our secret weapon to reconnect and rejuvenate their relationship, creating a loving and supportive family environment in the process.
Discover how David's financial hardships turned into opportunities for luxurious yet affordable travel, transforming their marriage and family life. David shares how finding a system for cost-effective getaways alleviated our marital strain, allowing them to create lasting memories and strengthen their family bonds without resorting to therapy.
Tune in for practical tips on enhancing your relationship and family life through the joy and spontaneity of travel, and see how these simple changes can reshape your life and perspectives for the better.
You are listening to. Travel is Cheaper than Divorce. This podcast for all those who may be struggling with their spouse or their children and the relationship with them. We help give you tips and tricks by using travel as the means to be able to help your relationships with your family. I'll provide those tricks and other ways to help travel with little or no cost. So let's get into it. You know I am here to help you.
Speaker 1:I have been through a journey unto myself that I think that everybody needs to go with me on themselves. There have been too many people I have observed in my own life who don't know where to go. Now what I'm talking about is families. I'm talking about men and also women and really those who try to do their best for their children and their family but don't seem to be able to get anywhere, doesn't speak to their spouse anymore, except for to get the logistics done around their children or around their own marriage, where they don't really have a marriage anymore. It's more like a roommate situation with children. They have decided that they are not going to have a divorce for the sake of the children, so they live in what my wife and I call a parallel marriage, never crossing paths. I speak to this because this is something that has happened in my life and it's something that is fundamentally I would not allow in my life. I'm a child of divorce. After years and years of being in a marriage myself, I had no idea how much that divorce affected my family and what really affected me as a head of the family, the breadwinner of the family, and how that affected my spouse and my whole children. Because of the divorce, it put me in a place where I felt like I needed to control everything, including the emotions of my spouse. Not a possible thing, for all those men out there Just want to try to tell you you can't control your spouse's emotions. You can only do what you can to help, guide them and lead them, but not control them. This all came to a head I want to say was been over 10, 11 years ago.
Speaker 1:My spouse and I were both foster parents. We've been foster parents at this point probably for six months or so, and I come home from work. She's stressed out and because she is stressed out and I don't understand it, I don't understand why she's so stressed out. She didn't have to go to work that day. I'm the one stressed out I'm the one building a business from scratch, I'm the one trying to provide for this family.
Speaker 1:In retrospect, that's such a selfish mentality, but that's retrospect. That wasn't the time. But that's retrospect. That wasn't the time. We were in danger and we were actually on the path to become a parallel marriage, which, in my opinion actually, the more and more I think about it is worse than divorce.
Speaker 1:Maybe not on the kids, because a two-parent household is very important. But you don't think your kids can feel that. Oh, they can feel that, because I did, and I know my children could too. So here's where we were, and we were dangerously close to that. She was overly stressed. I was too, but just in different manners. Because, again in retrospect, I'm coming home to her workplace and I say I want to stay in the house because I've been gone all day. Maybe you can relate to that. That's how I felt.
Speaker 1:But she, that's her workplace. She was a stay-at-home mom at the time. Maybe your wife isn't a stay-at-home mom, but what if she comes home from her work and she still cooks, she still does the laundry? Now she has two workplaces she has the workplace where she's at working and she has home where she also works, because she wants to take care of you and she wants to take care of the kids. So she comes to me one day, stressed out, as she normally is because of all the things.
Speaker 1:If anybody who's out there who has been foster parents know that these children come with baggage like baggage, like over the limit on an airplane baggage I mean we're talking lots of baggage and so she was dealing with a lot of stuff at home and I didn't see it as much. She told me, but I didn't see it. There's a difference between actually hearing it from your spouse and actually seeing it. I didn't see it as much, she told me, but I didn't see it. There's a difference between actually hearing it from your spouse and actually seeing it, and I didn't see it. You can call it fate, you can call it the universe, you can call it the Holy Spirit for me.
Speaker 1:But something sparked me in this conversation I had with her and she said to me I just need to get out. She wasn't talking about out of the house, because years and years I mean even years before this, two or three years before that we were sitting in a church and somebody one of our leaders said if you're not taking your spouse on a date and you think you can't afford it, I promise you that taking your wife on a date night once a week is cheaper than hiring a divorce attorney. You notice? That's part of what the title of this podcast is. It had an impact on me. We started going on date nights once a week, even though at the time I didn't feel like there's no way we could afford that. So when she came to me at that time and said, well, you need to get out she wasn't talking about out of the house I knew what she was talking about. She was talking about out of the house. I knew what she was talking about. She was talking about getting out of the area. She was talking about travel.
Speaker 1:At this point in my life, I should also mention that when I was young, we didn't travel a lot At all. Really, our traveling consists of traveling from California to Utah to visit relatives. That was our travel. Now, california is an interesting place. However, you can go to a beach and go to Disneyland. So I mean, it's not like I was lacking options. Parents did take the Sequoia and other things like that, but did we really get out of the area. No, we were always in the area. Now the area was a lot more abundant than some areas. Again, california has a lot of things to explore. We went to Sequoia National Park and Yosemite and other things like that, but those were all in the area. She was talking about getting out of the area.
Speaker 1:Now I have been in the financial industry at this not at that point, but at this point where I'm talking to you now for about 15 years. I have a mind that works like a spreadsheet. I'm always thinking about numbers. It feels like Budgets, numbers, whatever. So when she tells me this, I'm like there is no friggin way. I don't even know how to do that. We don't have the money. And who's going to watch these kids? And if anybody's ever been in the foster care system, you can't just hire a babysitter To watch your foster kids. State doesn't particularly love that for a myriad of reasons and licensing and liability and other things I don't need to get into. But so this felt like an impossibility.
Speaker 1:But I saw the desperation in her eyes. I saw the desperation in her eyes and the desperation was real. So I did what I've always been good at, I still am good at, I feel and I researched, I got on and I just researched and researched and researched some more, sometimes into the late nights because she needed me to spend time with her and the family. When am I going to do that? When I get home? Can I do it during my workday At some point in my life?
Speaker 1:Again, at this point I'm building a business and if anybody's ever built a business, it sometimes takes 12, 13, 14 hours a day to build a business. It's ridiculous sometimes how many hours you have to spend at the top of your business. This is why it drives me insane as a side when people say, oh, business owners, they have it real well, they only have to work three, six hours or seven hours. No, I'm not sorry About like 20 hours a week and everything's right. Yeah, after they work 60 hours for like four or five years, they're reaping the benefits. That's neither here nor there, but that's kind of life in general.
Speaker 1:And that's what I'm going to talk about in a way is because I spent hours and hours in research, because my goal at first was Googling or researching cheap places to travel around where we lived at the time, and I stumbled onto something, something I didn't expect, but something went kind of with my whole entire mentality of spreadsheets and numbers and all the things that I have been my whole life. I stumbled upon it Because, again, the problem with the traveling thing at that point wasn't that I didn't necessarily want to do it Although there was part of that too, because I'm building a business hard to get away but it was really because I didn't know how the heck we were going to afford it. But it was really because I didn't know how the heck we were going to afford it. It's interesting, even though, because I have had experiences going on trips quote unquote with my family at this point, at that point I should say back then where the memories were worse than if we stayed home Because we traveled in the cheapest way possible. I'm talking back of the plane worst hotel, if you can't sleep at night because your hotel bed sucks and everybody around you is being loud and everybody you got. You got people who are probably doing drugs outside your room, whatever. Is that traveling or is that just relocating into a different spot and making things worse? So anyways. So I knew I didn't want to travel like that. That just makes things worse.
Speaker 1:And so now I'm in this spot. I have no money I shouldn't say no money. I don't have disposable income for travel. We did have a house, we had food on the table, so we weren't in that bad of a situation, although I have had moments in my life where we had none of that too, where we didn't know where our next meal was going to come from. That has happened more than I would like to admit, but I'm admitting, so that so there we are. There we are. There's where I'm sitting.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to find the cheapest way to travel, but not the cheapest way to travel if that makes sense. I'm trying to find a cheap destination, essentially, but not to sit in the back of the plane. If we were going to take a plane, depending Might have to drive right, because plane travel is more expensive than driving right. No, but we will talk about that at a different time. I think, in fact I know, that airlines are actually cheaper than driving, sometimes Way cheaper, in fact, no cost. That airlines are actually cheaper than driving, sometimes way cheaper, in fact, no cost, except for maybe like six bucks or something, because there's a, like a government fee that's imposed because that's where we live, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So we got to a point where I got to a point, I should say, where I'm like OK, I got to find cheap places to travel. So that's why I went and started researching. That was the genesis of what I was trying to do, and then I stumbled upon something that again, like I said earlier, worked right in with my career, which worked right in with how I think and also how to solve a problem that I was actually kind of trying to solve, but I was trying to solve in the way that I knew, which is trying to find cheap places to travel. And this is the crux of it. I found, essentially, throughout all my research, a way to travel in luxury for little to no cost.
Speaker 1:So let me saying that, let me just tell you what this has done, because I want to talk to the people who are struggling in their marriage, because that's where I was at Long nights of my wife crying, my children being stressed, our whole entire family falling apart, memories of the stress just essentially overtaking my entire family. Whereas I said earlier, parallel marriage was a real possibility, possibly even divorce. The one thing that I feared in my life because of what happened to me was happening. Part of that was also because, as I said earlier, I was trying to control a lot, control the situation, control her ability to make that decision, in a way and the exact opposite was happening. So just by her saying that night I need to get out, it changed everything, everything. Our bonds with our children are stronger and I have plenty of stories to tell you about that. My marriage with my spouse stronger Not perfect, stronger, in fact.
Speaker 1:Another thing I could tell you is that, because of the system that I stumbled upon and researched for I mean years, I mean years I'm still learning in a lot of ways, because this is the kind of system, the kind of thing that continually moves and changes, which is what I love about it. Because of the system I stumbled upon, my wife and I can just get away into a hotel because we just feel like it one day, and it could cost us literally nothing. Not only that, but we can get into. I traveled to Phoenix recently, in fact about a month ago from this recording date and when I traveled there, we stayed in a hotel and they upgrade us to a suite for the same cost as a regular room. Did I just look pretty that day? No, it had nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the things that I built around me that allows for things like that. It allows for more room, and my spouse was with me.
Speaker 1:We traveled together to a conference and it was an amazing experience. The conference was okay Just kidding, the conference was great, but the hotel room was great. The time we spent together was wonderful. Could that have happened in a regular room? Sure, but what does it make it feel like when you have more room, literally? So what I stumbled upon, ultimately, was a way to build memories, build relationships, build your relationship with your spouse.
Speaker 1:I built the relationship with my spouse that I've always wanted by just getting away, by traveling. We haven't been to therapy. We haven't been to couples therapy. We haven't been to, you know, the local religious leader to try to fix our marriage and our family. We didn't tell the kids they better get in line or else we didn't tell the kids we have to go on all these sports adventures. You got to play sports so we can get away.
Speaker 1:By the way, that's not getting away. In my experience, I've seen this. My brother tends to. Well, he has. He isn't anymore at this moment he actually has cancer, but before he used to go isn't anymore at this moment he actually has cancer but before he used to go travel with sports all the time and that's how they traveled. That's them, that's fine.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying that that isn't travel. That's not what I'm talking about. There is travel and there's traveling I don't know pick a term but that's not traveling. That's not how I see traveling. You're not building memories when you're sitting on a sideline. It could also be an analogy for life that you're sitting on a sideline, but that's a different story.
Speaker 1:But how I have felt since then, since the very moment my family started traveling, it has changed everything. It has changed the way we do Christmas. It's changed the way that we look at. I'm always looking at the next place to go. When we finish a trip, my next thing is let's go find the next place to go. I'm not at the place now in my life, but this is where I'd like to get to, where I don't even I work, where I travel. In other words, I take my laptop with me and I can work on the beach. Because if some of you were working from home, why can't you work from the beach? Why can't you work from a luxury hotel with your family. Why can't you work on a bullet train in Japan? Why the location's relevant if you're working from home and that changes your work too, by the way, it could make it a lot funner.
Speaker 1:I have worked in a lot of the destinations my wife and I have traveled to, but the result of all of this all those who are listening is this changed everything in the relationship with my family, and it can be done with little or no cost. Like I said before, that's what the biggest deal is here Is I could actually do something about it at that moment, when I thought it was completely impossible. It's not impossible. So here's what I want. Here's what I want for you, as if you were sitting in the room right now. I want you to have a better relationship with your family. I want you to be able to get away. I want you to be able to experience a world that is out there, that most people don't realize is out there. But at the end of this episode, I want to say this there are a couple of things I know you can do right now. Go to your spouse, give them a hug that you may not have given them, for you know, some people I know haven't given their spouse a hug for years. Right, give them a big hug and say where would you like to go in this world If we were to get out of this house and get out of this area and go anywhere?
Speaker 1:Where would that be? Where would you want to go? Or another thing you could do is rekindle memories from before you married your spouse, because you had passion for each other. It doesn't usually happen, unless it's an arranged marriage. There's not passion there. There's passion in your marriage. There's passion in your relationship. There was passion in your relationship at least. Where was that passion? Well, we traveled a lot back then oh, what a shock. Or we got away a lot more, we had a lot more fun together. We can't have that fun with the kids in the house. Agreed, agreed, get away from the children.
Speaker 1:So the second thing I would say is go through your memories with your spouse. Then that might kindle a place where you could go, places you could go, revisit places where you dated, because maybe you don't live in even that area anymore. So my final thought, my final thing to you, is love your family, because love is everything. Love is literally everything, and if you feel like you've fallen out of love. This may be the solution for you. You have been listening to. Travel is Cheaper Than Divorce. With me, your host, david Packer, please connect with us on our YouTube channel at Travel Point Pros. There you will learn many tips and tricks on how to use points and miles to travel in luxury for little to no cost. Remember to like and subscribe and comment on any of the videos that you find helpful to you. Thank you for listening.