Family Travel For Real Life is organized by Dia @ The Deal Mommy, and this was the second event with the first in Washington DC in 2014.
You can read the live blogging series from Dan on Points With A Crew (can you believe it? When he travels, it’s always a party of 8).
- Family Travel for Real Life (#FT4RL) 2015 #1 – Bonnie the Frugal Travel Lawyer on “the new Frontier”
- Family Travel for Real Life (#FT4RL) 2015 #2 – Leslie from Trips with Tykes on mastering the International House of Mickey
- Family Travel for Real Life (#FT4RL) 2015 #3 – Jason Steele on the current state and sweet spots in the miles and points world
- Family Travel for Real Life (#FT4RL) 2015 #4 – Kenny from Miles4More on National Parks and off the beaten path family destinations
- Family Travel for Real Life (#FT4RL) 2015 #5 – Shawn from Miles to Memories on immersive travel: family adventures, educational experiences, and ways to give back
#FT4RL 2015 took place in the same hotel as the #CharlotteDO in 2014 after the March #milesmadness and the hotel is quite a property.
I attended TravelCon 2015 in Orange County just the week before and there is a major difference. That difference is, obviously, one geared towards family travel (#FT4RL) and manufactured spending. Depending on your needs, both are good to be an attendee. Leslie taught me a lot of things on Disneyland and Disneyworld. When she asked the room Disney related questions like “How many people have gone to Disney?”, “Anyone currently planning to go to Disney,” and the like, I was really hoping she wouldn’t ask “Who hasn’t gone to Disney?” I felt like I would have been the only one raising my hand.
TravelCon had about 100 attendees and #FT4RL was smaller and it made things cozy. One of the differences I saw at #FT4RL was a lot of interaction among all the attendees. With the smaller group, there was a great relationship building between the presenters and the audience. It was great because audience members were able to contribute to the topic at hand. A lot could be learned at #FT4RL because many people had tons of questions, especially for Jason and Kenny. During Kenny’s presentation, he covered a little about manufactured spending and Dia tweeted from one of Kenny’s slide and how true it is.
When thinking about MS, @KennyBSAT reminds us that common sense doesn’t apply. #FT4RL
— Dia (@TheDealMommy) March 7, 2015
Shawn shared some of his experiences traveling and I am wowed and lost for words at all of the places he and his family have gone. Jason covered award travel and I am always learning something new in that. I only know how to accrue points, so that was nice to learn. Bonnie covered discounted airlines, and two of the three I don’t have any plans to fly on. The only one that I have is JetBlue a few times.
My goal for attending #FT4RL was to go in open-minded to hear the presenters and really to meet the Saverocity team that attended. I have been exchanging emails with the writer behind Personal Finance Digest for years and attending #FT4RL was the perfect opportunity to do such.
It was also great to meet Dia @ The Deal Mommy, Joe @ asthejoeflies, Kirsten @ The American Travel Project, and last but not least, Kenny & his family @ Miles4More.
And a big shout out to all of the readers that came out and let me know their thoughts.
For the next DO of any kind, I hope I can meet the rest of the team, Big Habitat, the duo at Tagging Miles, Trevor & Joe (by the way, you should listen to the first podcast of how Trevor and Joe met), and the mystery family man behind Are We There Yet.
Edit: I forgot to add – I did what I did last week and kind of snuck in as a regular “Joe” without advertising who I am, that is so much fun to surprise everyone!
Great to finally meet you! You should give Disney a try–it’s actually a little more fun when you don’t have kids since you don’t have to deal with crankiness, tantrums, diapers, etc.
Thanks! Think so? I feel like I might be too old to go