As much as I hate the word “babymoon” (like, what does that even mean?) I’m totally not against the idea of a babymoon (which, in case you’re not familiar, is a little trip you take with your spouse before the tiny babe comes and upends your whole life.  — It’s a positive upending, just to be clear.)

We’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and take a little trip to New Orleans before I’m officially on the no-fly list.  KC and I had some money to Southwest, courtesy of giving up our seats on one of our flights over Memorial Day weekend (we made almost $900!) which was set to expire basically on my due date.  Plus, we have a credit card which earns us United miles (it’s amazing — we’ve both flown to Europe twice in the last 2 years alone just on miles!)  We figured we’re a ways away from heading back overseas now that I’m incubating a tiny human, so we opted to use our points to book our hotel stay in NOLA.  Overall, it’s turning out to be quite the affordable adventure, which is awesome because now we can spend all our hard-earned money on important things like beignets, fancy dinners, and beignets.  Even though I can’t really partake in the fun nightlife in NOLA, I’m really excited to have some time to just relax and soak up a new city (I’ve actually been once before, but it was a very short trip for a work conference, so I didn’t really get to experience much of the city).

KC and I have made traveling a priority in our life together.  I caught the travel bug the first time I headed to Europe in 2003 (I’ve been overseas 6 times in the last 11 years as a result) and worked hard to convince KC to scrimp and save up for a big trip that we finally took together in late 2012.  Since that 2012 trip, KC has been fully on board with my travel addiction, and is always quick to support the argument of, “That isn’t that expensive for a flight/hotel/trip/whatever,” or “We’ve got this many miles on our card — where are we going and when?”

A few things we’ve learned over the years are to take advantage of vacation time and PTO through work.  While many people let their days build and build and only take a few hours here and there for sick days, appointments, etc., we opt to take a chunk of time at least once every year or two and get away.  We also make sure to be flexible in the dates and months we travel (did you know it’s cheapest to fly in the middle of the week?), so we’ll often take two weeks for Europe going Tuesday-Tuesday or Wednesday-Wednesday.  And the two times we’ve gone to Europe have been during the off-season in November and May. (PS: Christmastime in Europe is magical.  I can’t wait to do it again someday.)

We’re also pretty savvy in our spending, in the name of future travel.  When I was traveling a lot for work, I decided to sign up for a United credit card to take advantage of all the awards miles I was racking up.  While the card does have a yearly fee (I think it’s $50 or $100), we use the card for almost all of our regular purchases, and have racked up enough miles for two round-trip tickets to Europe each year (which is worth wayyyy more than the $100 fee to us!)  And even though we’re not using our miles to head off on a European vacation in 2015, we got 5 nights at a 4-star hotel in downtown New Orleans for free with our points.  Not bad considering we just jetted off to Amsterdam/Scotland/Ireland in May.

Do you make travel a priority?  What are the tips and tricks you’ve picked up over the years?

And I’d love to hear if you took a babymoon — was the getaway nice before your whole life changed?  I’m kind of freaking out a little.  (Just a little.)  😉