Lifestyle Design

One of my favorite travel blogging images is the digital push pin travel map that highlights cities and destinations that its creator has visited.

In one quick glimpse you can see every place in the entire world they have been and with just a little thought, imagine where they may be going next.

As we are building a home full of travel decorations, I knew that one day I would be taking this popular digital map and converting it into a real-life decoration to be used as the centerpiece for one of our rooms (with a fantasy of it being in a travel-inspired bar room).

I always expected these maps to cost upwards of $150 or more when finished, as is the case with some of the nice ones available on Amazon or Conquest Maps, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money right away.

Instead, I put on my crafting hat and ended up being able to make my own professional style travel map with pins at home for just about $50 US and an hour of my time.

If you’ve ever fantasized about making a push pin travel map of your own, here’s what you do.

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When we tell people we often travel the world for free, they often look at is with a bit of incredulity.

Those who know us instantly assume it is because of this travel blog and that we bounce around from press trip to press trip. But we often shock them when we say that is not our scene and we go on few, if any, hosted trips. In fact, when we travel we don’t even pitch brands to work with.

It is something that we never enjoyed doing, so we don’t do it.

Our travels are instead primarily paid through points which we acquire in a mix of paying for travel with large companies and travel credit cards. So in this one, we thought we’d share about how our travel credit cards have helped us earn a ton of free (and deeply discounted) travel!

All cards featured herein are cards we personally have in our wallets right now (both of us in most cases-  double the rewards!), and we will do our best to update this guide as we open or close cards in the future.

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When we are at home, we like to have constant reminders of our travels. From the random knick-knacks to hand painted artwork we pick up on the road, our house is covered with decorations that remind us of where we’ve been over the years.

But one of our favorite pieces of travel art is one that does not come from our travels, but is about our travels- our world map!

For many years we were settled with a DIY travel map with push pins we made ourselves, but after a while we knew we were in need of an upgrade. We searched the internet, read countless reviews, and settled on one that appeared to be leaps and bounds better than the rest- Conquest Maps.

It was the best decision we ever made.

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It has taken me over 10 years, but I have finally completed part of my lifestyle design quest- namely, achieving digital independence via blogging.

I’ve built my websites to the point where they provide a comfortable and regular income stream such that I felt safe to make the leap into blogging as my full-time job.

It has been nearly a year since I made that decision to go full-time on the sites, and while I’m quite happy with that decision I’ve found out an ugly truth: I’ve monetized my life, and now everything is work.

De-programming myself has been one of the hardest parts of making the leap.

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