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
Building Stronger Bonds Through Vacation Experiences
What if the key to reducing family stress and strengthening your relationships was as simple as changing your holiday traditions?
Join us as I uncover how swapping material gifts for memorable travel experiences can transform your family dynamics. From feeling trapped in a spacious home to discovering the immense joy of family vacations, I share my personal journey of turning Christmas celebrations into unforgettable adventures.
Imagine the excitement on your children's faces as they unwrap the details of their next big trip instead of toys. Hear about our cherished moments, like the thrill of announcing a surprise cruise or the delight of exploring Universal Studios together.
In this episode, I also explore how selecting the right accommodations can make or break your family trip, ensuring that the focus remains on creating precious memories rather than stress. I delve into the broader impacts of travel on mental health, discussing how stepping out of familiar surroundings can provide much-needed perspective on life's everyday pressures.
Reflect with me on how travel has been a stress-reliever for our family, and consider how it might help you and yours.
Don't miss out on these insights that could inspire a happier, more connected family life.
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 will provide those tricks and other ways to help travel with little or no cost. So let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Everybody has different family dynamics, but one thing is common between all families, including mine, is family stress, so much so that you might feel suffocated and choked down, choking, choking inside your own home. I know you probably feel that way. I know nearly everybody feels that way. I told you in the first episode a little bit about my family and our journey and where we're at now, but that is not to say that we do not have family stress still At this point in my life. I have three teenagers at home. Well, I used to have three. I have three teenagers. Now I have two teenagers at home, but just because the oldest is 18 doesn't mean he's still not a teenager. And and there can be real stress, real true stress that goes on. And it doesn't matter how big your house is or how small your house is. You see, this is something that I had to deal with in my life, and I feel that is a part of a story. That that has been going on in my whole life is that I felt like the more I can provide you you probably feel this way as well the more I can provide for my children, the happier that they'll be. And so I've gradually as most do when they're working gradually increased the square footage of my home. That's good, I think that's good, but the feeling of suffocation didn't go away until I started to travel more. I started to travel more. You can be in a 1,000 square foot apartment or a 4,000 square foot home. If you feel suffocated in one place, you can be suffocated in another. That feeling never went away for the longest time.
Speaker 1:I remember our first Christmas trip. This is something that my wife and I decided to do. My wife actually was the one who came to me two years before I decided to implement it, because I resisted it for a while, because that's not how Christmas is and that is to take the money we normally spend on Christmas and funnel that money to travel. This is actually before I even discovered the system I spoke about in the first episode. So so I resisted there for a while, until we were cleaning out our playroom at the time and realizing that the toys or electronics or whatever that we bought our kid six months ago because this was the middle of summer at Christmas, were hardly being played with, or some of them were literally broken already. Now that drives me, at least, insane. Maybe it drives you insane too. It drove me insane because the money that I put down, the hard work that I put in to get the money to buy these toys it doesn't matter and they broke them or they don't use them anymore. What was the point? So we were cleaning out this room and I was so upset and, as a good wife would sometimes, she says to I told you so, I told you so, and from then on, we decided to take christmas trips instead of christmas presents.
Speaker 1:The holidays are a really, really hard time around my household. Uh. This is uh because my wife is estranged from her family and there have been a lot of difficulties on my side of the family too, and this makes it difficult, and also because of the pressure that it seems like the system has pushing down on us to say we have to do this, this, this and this for Christmas, and it makes the holiday less about what it's actually supposed to be about and more stressful than it needs to be. So I want to use that, I want to tell you a story about that, about Christmas, because that is although because that is an area in people's lives I've noticed or observed that there is a lot of family stress around, a lot of family stress around christmas. I don't, we don't really feel that way as much anymore. I'm trying to emphasize as much as I can I'm going to tell you a story about this that travel does change a lot of things. You're not suffocated. It's really funny too, because you go from your, let's say, a 2000 or 3000 square foot home into a 900 square foot hotel room and you feel freer. That's how I felt, and again, I'll tell you a little bit of story about that in just a moment. But let me tell you a story about one Christmas we had two Christmases ago. You got to understand that when we started doing this traveling a lot more and traveling for Christmas and after I learned the system that we taught I talked about in the first episode, where you can travel for little or no cost, that we were able to do more and more and more traveling. Of course, at that point, once I discovered how to do it, there's hold this whole other world that my kids are excited to almost anger that we won't tell them where we're going on our Christmas trip until Christmas, so one year. So let me set up the scene for you. I think it's important for you to feel this.
Speaker 1:Under our Christmas tree every Christmas there is a manila envelope, standard manila envelope. Inside the manila envelope are printed pages on different activities and different things and the destination where we're going on our Christmas trip. Now let me back up for a second to say this Our Christmas trips are rarely at Christmas. We just call it a Christmas trip because that's our gift at Christmas to our family. Sometimes our trips are in April the next year and in one year because of the pandemic we actually had to push it all the way back to like October of the next year, which means then the next Christmas trip or the reveal was only three months away from our last trip and they had to wait quite a while. But can't help the pandemic sometimes. But that manila envelope we tape because we have teenagers who like to try to sneak in. You know is the most anticipated gift underneath that tree and literally the. The manila envelope and the papers inside probably cost me less than five bucks, but that is the most impactful envelope and that's inside probably cost me less than five bucks, but that is the most impactful envelope and that's the most impactful present under that tree.
Speaker 1:Now, earlier I said I replaced the presence, uh, with with the trip and you're saying there's more presence. Yeah, I do actually put other presents under the tree that are wrapped. These presents all have to do with the trip and they're usually very cheap. There's not nothing for them to play with. One year we took our kids to Washington DC and we gave them 3D puzzles of the Capitol, for example. But you see, that's the fun of it. That is the fun of it.
Speaker 1:So I'm just trying to set a scene for you, because the fun of it for my children is is they get really, really upset and they really want to know where we're going so bad. I have never seen that kind of anticipation about any other present under the tree ever. They love it. It is so much fun for them. Kind of, like I said, they get kind of angry because they won't tell them where we're going. Well, side note, my spouse has a tendency to point out and it is true, uh, she doesn't even have to point out, it is actually true. My children have said it too. Is my kids always get me to give them clues and give them clues and give them clues because I so want to tell them. As a parent, I'm anticipating telling them and so sometimes I figure it out before they even open the gift. But hopefully you're able to hold out better than I have been able to. But do you understand that the holiday season has been a stressful, stressful time for all families because of the whole? I need to go out and shop. That's a lot of it, guys. I didn't anticipate in this episode talking about this Christmas thing that we did, but it's just an example of a point of family stress. So, anyways, let me set the scene for you. There's a scene. So my kids are over the moon excited Every 25th of December to open that one envelope.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have pictures, I have memories, I have videos of them opening a manila envelope that they are most excited about, so much so that my kids all stand up together to open it together and then they just fan out the papers that are inside the one year that we took our kids on a cruise, and that's inside that manila envelope, were papers about the ship. I had a picture of the you know the inside of the ship and I circled the staterooms that we were in and other things about the ship and I circled the state rooms that we were in it and other other things about the ship itself, the activities, the restaurants and so on, the destinations and so forth. Guys, these are tender memories, see. The thing is it's memories like those that the stresses of life don't really seem to matter anymore. That's the power of it all. So they open up this and I still, even to this day.
Speaker 1:Now this was years ago, exactly the tail end of the pandemic, so it must have been December of 20, it might even been December of 20. It might even been December of 21. I could still hear my daughter's voice. She's my second child, she is now 16. I remember the scene perfectly. In my living room we had the camera on her, in fact, and we still have that video and I haven't rewatched it. It's in my head. Rewatch it.
Speaker 1:I'm rewatching it now and it brings a bit of tears to my eyes to realize that she opened that envelope. And it may sound silly, I don't know, maybe it doesn't to you you, she opened that envelope and she screamed a cruise, like it was like the happiest thing, because, you know, it's one of those things when you have a teenage girl like I did, do still, but did back then as well just the way she is, this is what. This is one of the things I knew she would want. She was the one that we were thinking of when we came to this trip and again, that may not mean a lot to you I guess it's one of those things that are in the moment, but you've got to realize that how she felt could be felt miles away. She was extremely happy could be felt miles away. She was extremely happy At that moment, and other moments like that, the stresses just melt. It doesn't matter. None of the rest of it matters. I've been giving my kids Christmas gifts up to that point for at that point probably 14 to 15 years they have never cared that much. I have never heard that kind of excitement in their voice, except for when they open these manila envelopes.
Speaker 1:Travel can be stressful, though, if I were to be frank, if I were to be frank, but it's a different kind of stress. It's not the destination that's stressful, it's just getting there that's stressful. But there are many ways, frankly, to decrease that stress. First of all, as I alluded in the first episode, staying in a hotel that actually fits you, that is, not one that you feel like your family is in danger, could help. One of the hotels we stayed at when we went to, we went to um, this is our first. I believe this was our first Christmas trip. This is what I started talking about before. I wanted to set the scene for you. On the other thing, our very first Christmas trip was to Orlando. We went to Universal Studios. Um, this wasn't our very first trip trip, but this is our first Christmas trip. This Christmas trip to Orlando, we stayed in a hotel that was big enough to accommodate us and it was nice enough, with pools and other things all around that we could enjoy. We could enjoy. We didn't have to take the stress with us into that hotel room.
Speaker 1:To be very frank with you, though, all right, I want to tell you one more memory in a second on this trip. My daughter would kill me, but you don't know her name, so I guess it doesn't matter, right? But uh, anyway, we weren't in that hotel room a lot anyways, but we were in a place where we felt safe and the stress, the stress, the normal stress you have with kids, the normal stress of life, just wasn't there, it didn't really come with us. Some of our great I'm just going to tell you the story because some of our great I got much going to tell you the story because some of our greatest memories have happened on trips, some of our funniest memories. I'm going to tell you this story because it is the last time I've heard my wife laugh that I mean, that was the first time I've heard her laugh as hard as she did that she literally couldn't breathe. My wife has suffered with depression most of her life and so that was a big deal when we, as a family, hear her laugh like that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, so, being it was Orlando, and sometimes it rains and there were some water rides and other things, we all had ponchos. We all had, uh, you know, ponchos to protect our clothing from the rain, um, or the water raids, or whatever. Well, our, my youngest daughter, my youngest daughter, she had a red poncho and we went on a ride in Universal Studios where she lost her red poncho. These are fairly nice ponchos that we had and so on our way out of the park we said to her she needs to go to Lost and Found and see if they found her poncho. Now I don't to this day and we still don't know. She needs to go to Lost and Found and see if they found her poncho. Now I don't to this day and we still don't know, because she doesn't know what got in her head that she said what she said to that person at the Lost and Found. Now I wasn't in the room at the time. This was communicated to me by my wife afterwards, when she could breathe again after she was laughing so hard. Once she could breathe again after she was laughing so hard.
Speaker 1:But we we and she was fairly young at the time but we want, we always try to teach our kids to be able to talk to people and and do it themselves, so they're not always relying on us, and that's important, I think, for independence purposes. But so she goes into the lost and found. I'll only tell you this story because these are the kind of memories you don't get when you're just sitting in your house on different phones. That's where the stress is lying. A lot of it is that there's no memories. All your memories your kids are going to remember is how stressed out you are, unless you're doing things like this.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, she walks into the lost and found and she talks to this gentleman into the lost and found and she talks to this gentleman at the lost and found desk and she says in her voice now you got to realize she's a very she's not very young, but she's young enough. So she has a voice like this. I'm going to imitate her, but she says so, she, this is her exact words. Hello, I've lost my tampon. It's a red one. It was so funny. I don't know where she got the word tampon to this day. My wife busted and the guy behind the counter thought the whole thing was a big old fat joke. But it wasn't. She literally thought she didn't know what that meant. So funny, oh my gosh. So it's memories like that I mean laughing like that, loving like that. Those are the things that melt stress in a family.
Speaker 1:So if you've traveled before, I want you to really think about the stress that melted when you were traveling. Now, if you're like me or like I was, and you weren't traveling hardly at all, I want you to think about the stresses that could be eliminated in your life by having memories like that one or like others that I've mentioned. I want you to know, like I know, that although stress never runs away although when you get back to your house you may still have the to-dos and the stressors in your life, they don't seem as big and strong. Every time I return from a trip, I feel refreshed, like I can finally battle the world. So think about that, think about the stresses in your life that may not even matter, because we do have stresses in our life that really don't matter. It puts things in perspective.
Speaker 1:So can you think of stressors in your life that you can put in perspective, that you could maybe even fully eliminate if you just got away and got out of your stuffy house? No matter how big, no matter how small, it doesn't matter. It matters what you feel inside. That's how it has been for me. So I want you to think about that. What stresses can be eliminated? Or, if you've traveled, what stresses have been eliminated or put in perspective as I've traveled? That is just my experience 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.