Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction

Please help me welcome to the creative live stage chris gilo welcome back to creative live chris how are you doing? I'm gonna have to turn a little bit because we got that camera on all right, well, with that long intro now we're set to go let's pack some travel awesome. Thank you. No hello, everyone hello internet awesome! I'm so thrilled to be here been looking forward to this for a long time thanks for your patience and we're kind of shuffling stuff around but I am really excited been looking forward to this and I know it's going to be a great experience so you know what I'd like to do dame like I realize people are joining locally all over the world with some different history of travel, different aspiration of travel some people want to do all kinds of different stuff. I liked what tucker said earlier he mentioned something about how he had done a lot of like long distance bus travel and sleeping on the floor of the airport in budget travel and I've done a lot of that myself a cz ...

well, I've done plenty of that, but I've also done you know, some other kind of travel too, so we'll talk about howto maybe upgrader change that situation up and a skin I mentioned briefly over the past ten years I've been on a journey to visit every country in the world and this is something that I didn't initially set the goal when I very first traveling I just loved to travel you know I loved the experience of being in different places and meeting different people understanding different cultures and the more I travel the more experienced the more like fun things that I saw him was part of the more I wanted to do it and eventually after I've been to about fifty countries I set a goal of going to one hundred countries and I said that's something I would love to do like some time in my life and as I kind of worked toward that goal I realized it actually wouldn't be that difficult it's permitted to it if I was strategic about it if I went to one country and then try to find the neighboring countries and if I planned and kind of prioritized and so as I got closer I said let's let's kind of raise the stakes a little bit let's go to every country in the world and so that's how that goal came to be andi spent the past you know, six to eight years really focusing a lot on it andi we finished the journey earlier this year in norway at the end of the world a cz we called it and I was fortunate to have a number of my friends and readers from all over the world I think about twenty countries come and join me for that party so it's also been really fun for me because I began this journey as a personal quest no and it kind of evolved into something much greater it evolved into something that was much more oriented around community on so that's been great for me and I mentioned all of that because this workshop today is not about me that's just kind of how we're starting the workshop is about all of you whether here in the studio are watching from all over the world. I want to share some of these experiences not just my travel stories, but I want to tell you how I've been able to do it and ah lot of the way that I've been able to do it is through travel hacking is through the art of using frequent flier miles and other strategies to kind of keep the cost down to make many of these trips nearly free on dh that's what's enabled this journey. Teo happen for me, so I want to be able to show that to you as well. I really like this quote when a great adventure is offered, you don't refuse it from amelia earhart, and so right now I believe there are so many opportunities and possibilities available to many of us and so I hope that you'll accept them I hope you'll accept this mission of travel hacking okay and if you're just tuning in if you were there for the extended pre show, you may be wondering ok like why should you care like what will this do for you? Travel hacking isn't only for active travelers it isn't only for people like me who want to go to one hundred ninety three countries I realised not everyone to do that it's also for family travelers as cannon mentioned it's for business travelers it's for, you know, students on gap year it's basically for anyone who would like to see more of the world and save money doing it onda also anyone who would liketo have experiences that they might not otherwise be ableto have that's what travel hacking is about it's kind of about opening up those opportunities and possibilities and so you don't have to go to every country in the world to benefit from this you can earn hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles every year on dh then use them too go anywhere you like. So we'll look at some of the things you may think you already know about travel hacking how much time will it take? Well, this kind of take over my life do you have to get a lot of credit cards like are there other ways? What if I'm not able to do that? Maybe you've heard that the airlines make it difficult to use the miles so some people have miles I don't know like what to do or they go to book, they go to book their tickets and they kind of get shut down so we'll talk about that and here's how we're going to do that in today's schedule the day has broken into four different modules we'll cover the basics of travel hacking we'll look in depth on getting points in miles and cover the big bonuses of credit cards and then we'll talk about tips and tricks for seeing the world everything from airline hacks around the world tickets to the best ways to land luxury hotel rooms for less and finally will wrap up by looking at travel redemptions looking at how we actually like used these miles so the goal is, you know, over the first few sessions were gonna help people get a lot of miles some people may be hundreds of thousands of miles from people in smaller amounts but least get people you know, down the right road ondas we wrap up, we'll talk about how do we put those to good use a few tips, housekeeping tips as we go forward on this is gonna be a fast paced interactive session we're going to talking with these amazing, beautiful people in front of me and also many of the amazing, beautiful people out there online throughout the day we'll have lots of question an attempt it answers that's what I always call it que es eso whenever you see this kind of slide, be prepared to do something and a zeiss said, we'll be playing some fun game sums will be prepared to jump in both here and online. We'll be covering a lot of information today with all kinds of different links on I'll be throwing them out, but it kind of goes quickly, so to learn more, you can visit travel hacking dot org's slash creative live for a comprehensive resource is paige many of the things that we're talking about today we will also have a few additional special guests coming in throughout the day, some of them here in the studio audience and some of them kind of being skyped in from around the world. S o first, I want to introduce stephanie zito over here on my right my friends colleague and co presenter stephanie has been to more than one hundred countries of her own. I initially learned a lot about travel hacking from her, so I was thrilled to have her join me so she'll jump on stage from time to time, especially when I forget things and she may facilitate something's later today as well and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, submission will have some folks joining us from afar, so we briefly met the studio audience when we got started we heard people's names and websites and all that which is great I would like to talk to this to the audience again really briefly and hear your name and I'd also like to hear where would you like to go like if you're going to plan a big trip or you have you come to this workshop for a reason what would you like to work on like is there something that you know on your mind that you'd like us to plan for today I'd love to hear that from each of you whoever would like to start with thanks you're using microphone carry card from seattle and I've been to thirty one countries so far and I'm just building my life so I can live in seattle six months out of the year and probably travel six months of the year um I don't have a goal of a certain amount I just hone in travel okay? He liked the idea of essentially being location independent butt with a bass in seattle you have the base but you want to travel that happier correct that's excellent. Great thanks. Yeah well from minneapolis I think I've been there six or seven countries but I wouldn't go somewhere where it's not planned out like I want to kind of explore more and I'd like to go somewhere not a safe place to so maybe like india or thailand or somewhere like that great thanks mark mark and before mentioned I wanted to around the world on trip threat and also it would be really cool to chase the summer and so just bounce around and find the summer season wherever it's going on every single time of the year that's great so when you said around the world trip, do you have an idea in mind of how you'd like to do that? Is that something with miles is that around the world trip star alliance or one world or have you not even thought about that yet have not thought about you're in the right place that's great we'll do that we'll work on that section three I'm sierra and I would really just love to see the world but egypt is calling my name e I really want to go to egypt and to see the pyramids and all that so that's great thanks my name's paul and I think most of all I'd like to try and find some ways that can make ongoing travel of a part of my life make it an unconventional life where travel just doesn't happen as these highlights from time to time but that it's something that's more ongoing and possibly could even make a living with something that involves travel like that thanks marianne from willows california and I can't take long trips so I wanted to know how didn't take short trips to get the most out of them any particular place in mind? Well I'd love to go to egypt I like to go to greece and croatia but I'd like to go there you know and stay and then get the most out of it for a short period of time right? We'll plan a group trip to the mediterranean and before we leave today from san francisco and the next day ventura I'd love to go on would be teo tanzania and zambia for nakamoto charro and victoria falls ah I've been a close second would be to jump around southeast asia I am tougher and eighteen months ago I would have said that I had all the time in the world and I would just like to go everywhere now that I have this phenomenal job created wives I have sure amounts of time so I would like to learn you know how to do a shorter trip and make that uh you know, a perfect trip whereas you know having thirty six hours to waste in the airport or on the bus or things like that so I don't have any place in particular my brother lives in hong kong I have not seen him yet never six years it comes on occasion but that might be the first one on the list that's great okay, I'm noticing in kind of a common theme that I want to address but first I wanted to briefly check in with online audience may I do that? Has anybody been responding about where they would like to go with their plans? Are they are just as excited as everybody healthy year? So regina d says my goal is to be at a place in my life where I can get to travel out of the country at least once a year, if not every other year and curtis here has a has a good list scotland, australia, japan, italy, greece, south africa and new zealand that's big all over, I've got a sh man, thony says, I'm trying to plan a three month vacation to morocco and work remotely I'd love to get crisps. What through the common thing I noticed I really noticed I think paula kind of started it we talked about I would like to travel to be more than just occasional highlights in my life. You know, I would like to not just have one big trip a year or something like that. I would like trouble to be a recurring thing I would like it just like I have, you know, recurring worker recurring activities that I do and, you know, travel is always something special, but wouldn't it be great if it was the special that happens frequently happened whenever you wanted it tio r every month or every two month, whatever your schedule is and that's why travel hacking it has been for me so great to hear all those things I want to make sure everybody is awake about here and you know online so do this fun little game we're going to practice here we have some warm up rounds airport co challenge just to kind of see where everybody's knowledge is s o this is a really simple game if you're watching online just stay tuned I'm goingto explain how that works for you in a second but here in the audience I'm gonna put a slide up and you're going to say what the airport code iss okay, so we'll start with a couple of easy ones and I'll give you clues if we need to a t l a atlanta very good great good group and see anchorage very good and see the answer wass anchorage great job why y z anybody so fun fact we haven't answered when somebody has an answer somewhere fun fact all canadian airports begin with why so that's always a little bit of a clue anybody have an idea really big city in canada perhaps the answer is no somebody online we got well yeah someone is guessing winnipeg you know and then it's a good guess though I got a toronto wait a couple more warm up rounds okay you guys are doing great two out of three alright see our age zurich zurich with mike hunger job both you guys on the ends I think alright little bit trickier delta's here on michael this is in the united states jim oin it is de moines it's in the heartland right that's good shout out to everybody in the line oh, now de moines is coming into a thirty second delay their eyes right andrew you're going to get one all of their own in just a second that's good. Okay, well or p n h this is far from north america this is across the pacific ocean into southeast asia. It's not in thailand that's great paul's gonna be disqualified. Theo newport steve was also the personalized that's good. I think I won more warm around here are you know you know reno very good, tober awesome cpt go quicker now africa, southern africa keep cape town good job. Both you guys back on and be are you brussels? Marianne great job. All right, good job. Good job. Go team cool. So I'd like all of us to choose one goal to focus on when we think about travel hacking. We kind of begin to focus on that in some of the aspirations that you guys mentioned, but I guess the point I want to make is even though throughout the day we're talking a lot about miles and points and we're going to get kind of technical and talk about all these different things and stuff to sign up for ultimately it's the experience of travel that really matters like that's what that's what this is all about it's not about you know, just accumulating you know, points in your balance that you're never going to do anything with or kind of playing this is a game it's so it's so you can really have experiences that you wouldn't otherwise be able tto have so it helps to have a destination or a travel experience in mind I wanna encourage everybody watching online to do the same thing and we thought we kind of give you an overview of the number of miles required to do some different things time if you're not from the air with miles it all just kind of give you like a little run down so if you know that you want to go to a family reunion in florida, for example or pretty much anywhere domestically within the united states or in canada in economy class you're going to want twenty five thousand miles if you want to go to brazil for carnival on average, you know you're gonna want forty thousand miles of some of these things will very depending on the program depending on class of service and all that but this is just a general overview if you want to reenact tomb raider at angkor wat in cambodia, then you'll need seventy five thousand miles departing from north america. If you want to go to sydney, australia one of my favorite cities in the whole world maybe you want to go on an amazing vacation or have a honeymoon there then you need one hundred thousand miles and presumably if you're going on honeymoon, you're taking someone else with you so you would need times two of that so two hundred thousand miles to take two people and as we talk about travel hacking today, different opportunities most of them can be doubled if you have a willing spouse or partner or somebody who's willing to kind of go in on things with you my cat is actually a very active travel hacker and she has several accounts of her own I might talk about that at some point I might not, but just be aware most of the promotions that you see you can usually earn time's too. If there's someone else some that you're doing this with tanzania on safari I think someone mentioned that dexter talked about going to victoria falls one hundred thousand miles on, then later we'll talk about some aspirational awards you can fly the airbus three eighty in a first class suite to dubai this plane actually had a shower in the first class cabin and so if you ever wanted to like take a shower you know, while you're flying ten hours to dubai, then you would one hundred forty thousand miles for that. So the reason we kind of put all this up is just if you have an idea of what you want to do, the kind of experience that you're hoping to create for yourself, it's much easier to then figure out, okay, how many miles do we need? You know, on what airline do we need to pursue them? What programs we're going to focus on. So the action points for both the in studio audience and for everyone watching online eyes to write down this goal and roughly how many miles you need to get there. And the thing about goals is you have to feel any pressure about this. You should just write something down and you can change it later. You can have more than one goal, you know, as you think, throughout the day and later, but I really like the idea of saying, like, okay, this is something I want to do, you know, I want to accomplish this and create this experience for myself, and this is what it will take because miles air for spending.