If you are a regular reader of the blog, you will have noticed that the last couple days have been silent here. Not by desire in any way! I have a bunch of posts in the (mental) hopper but they are pretty time consuming to do and I ran out of time last week to get them done.
That was because we were wrapping up our trip to the US, getting medical checkups done, last minute buying and packing of personal items, and saying goodbye to friends and family. Last night, we returned to Greece and are glad to be “home.” In the past 7 weeks, we have done quite a bit of moving around!
Miles Driven and Flown
Our trip back to the US was to accomplish a few different things – a couple of meetings I had, two family weddings, some paperwork, and get some medical things done. While we were back, it turned out that I ended up doing a fair amount of traveling, some of it more than I had thought! For those that like numbers, here are my travel stats since we left at the end of April.
Airlines and Miles
I flew on quite a few airlines (some of which will be featured in reviews coming soon) during our trip! Here is the list:
- Turkish Airlines
- JetBlue
- Delta Airlines
- American Airlines
- United Airlines
- Southwest Airlines
- US Airways
- Asiana Airlines
- Aegean Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Air Canada
I flew a total of 38,000 miles over the last few weeks – more than half of them in economy (whatever gets me to my destination!). That averaged out to about one transcontinental roundtrip per week, and I did not fly at all the last two and a half weeks of our stay.
Geography
I hit quite a few cities, states, and countries during our trip! Some of them I simply drove threw and others I was in for a night or two. The list is:
Cities
- Istanbul (2 times)
- New York city (2 times)
- Rochester, NY (stayed there mostly)
- Detroit, MI
- Seattle, WA
- Toledo, OH (there a week)
- Chicago, IL (2 times)
- Jacksonville, FL
- Washington, DC (3 times)
- Frankfurt, Germany
- Thessaloniki, Greece
- Seoul, South Korea
- Vancouver, British Columbia
- Atlanta, GA (2 times)
- Liberia, Costa Rica
Some of them were layover cities but most were visits for a total city count of 15 cities in 7 weeks.
States
I also visited (or drove through) quite a few states (and one district). The list is:
- New York
- Michigan
- Illinois
- Washington
- District of Columbia
- Ohio
- Florida
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- North Carolina
- Virginia
- Maryland
- Pennsylvania
That made for a total of 13 states and involved 5,000 miles of driving.
Countries
The country count was smaller. The list of countries hit on my trip is:
- USA
- Turkey
- Canada
- Germany
- Greece
- Costa Rica
- Korea
Hotels and Cars
I mentioned in an earlier post about the amount of rentals I was doing. I ended up having a rental vehicle for 42 of our days in the US. Actually, it was six different rental vehicles from two different companies (National and Avis). National took very good care of my (40 of my days were with them). I had a great experience and very thankful for my National Emerald Executive status
I stayed in hotels for 29 of the nights of our trip. That included 12 nights that allowed me to finish my Hyatt Diamond challenge and another 8 award nights at Hiltons. My Hyatt hotels did not cease to amaze me with customer service and quality (of course, a couple of agent issues but nothing to ruin my experience).
All Done
Something that did not happen that I thought for sure was going to happen was that I did not run any races during our time away. I had three different races on my calendar but various things came up that prevented me from participating. One of those things was a prolonged asthma episode. Fortunately, that is behind me now! My kids got to do a kids fun run at the airport the morning of our departure and they had a great time!
We arrived back here last night and are very happy to be done! Truth to be told, I love the travel that miles and points afford me but it is even better when I get to do it with my family. Most of that travel was with family and it was great! Thanks to miles and points, all of my flights were taken care of with them and almost all of my hotel stays. Without them, there is no way that we could have done all of this!
Our final mile and point tally was:
- 550,000 airline miles
- 310,000 hotel points
- 9 free rental credits
Yes, that is quite a few miles and points but it was for 5 people to do a lot of stuff! Anyway, now that I am back here in Greece, I am looking forward to getting back to regular posting. Being 7 hours ahead of the East Coast does not hurt with that either!
