I discovered JetItUp.com back in March and was immediately in love. I am obsessed with infographics and I love anything that will allow me to document where I've been and what I've done. The site is awesome because it allows you to input every flight you've taken as far back as you can remember. For me, I've only really been tracking my flights in one place since January of 2013, so that's all the data I've inputted so far. 

I'll be honest, data entry for JetItUp is tedious (unless you have all of your flights stored in TripIt or have a custom CSV file to import, it's manual) and it honestly takes ages. Despite that fact, once the data entry is complete, JetItUp generates some really awesome data about your travels.

You can manipulate date ranges and it will give you information on everything from the number of flights you've taken to the number of airports and countries you've visited. It also gives a fun "Top 10" for airports, countries, etc.

Scroll down a bit more and you can get everything from your carbon footprint estimate to fun facts like the longest flight you've taken.

You can also generate a world flight map, which quickly maps out everywhere you've flown. As you can see, quite a large chunk of the world is missing from my own map.

Finally, if you input future flights, JetItUp will also show you a fun map of what's upcoming. As you can see, I'm finally making a dent in the other half of the world and I couldn't be more excited about it!

Hope you enjoy! 

I had the privilege of attending a friend's wedding outside of Tucson, Arizona in May so Chris and I decided to stay at the Westin La Paloma Resort. It was a quite affordable option and the setting was absolutely gorgeous. My family lives in Arizona, but over three hours North of Tucson, so I always seem to forget the fact that Tucson is located right in the middle of the desert. 

The Westin La Paloma Resort is nestled up against the Santa Catalina mountains and almost appears to be a natural part of the desert itself. 

The resort has five pools, a golf course, a spa, and several restaurants (including a swim-up bar). Unlike the city hotels we've been staying at lately, everything is quite spread out - so much so that you can get a guy with a golf cart drive you to your room from the lobby. All parking is in a two-story lot directly in front of the lobby, so if your room is on the other side of the resort, it might be quite the trek if you have a lot of luggage. Luckily, our room wasn't too far, so we passed on the golf cart and headed to our room to hit the pool and relax before the wedding.

The rooms at the La Paloma are quite spacious. All appeared to have an attached patio to enjoy the desert views and a wonderfully large bathroom with double sinks and a separate shower and bath. In addition, our room had a Heavenly king bed, a seating area with a couch, and a desk. The La Paloma underwent a $35 million renovation that was completed in 2013 and the resort was quite nice, but the decor was understated and muted in traditional Westin style, which can be a bit boring.

As a current California/former Arizona resident, I've been to San Diego about a hundred times. Interestingly, somehow I always end up there with people who haven't been before, so I've developed a sort of tour (plus or minus an activity or two) that I have now taken 17 people on (over 5 trips) during their first visits to San Diego. 

For my third city guide, here's what I love to see and eat in wonderful San Diego!

To See

Balboa Park
www.balboapark.org

Balboa Park is one of the most beautiful places in San Diego. I take the same pictures over and over again each time I go and it's really because I just can't resist the beautiful architecture and grounds. Interestingly, many of the beautiful buildings in Balboa Park were actually designed for the 1915 Panama - California Exposition. Balboa Park is not only gorgeous to walk around, but it's also home to many fascinating museums, the world's largest outdoor pipe organ, and another item on this list - the San Diego Zoo. If you're in San Diego, Balboa Park is a must see!

Coronado Island
coronadovisitorcenter.com

Just a quick jaunt across the bay from downtown San Diego is a true gem - Coronado Island. You can reach it by bridge and it is a beautiful community with shops and restaurants along the main drag, Orange Avenue. My favorite thing to check out on Coronado Island is the Hotel del Coronado. It's a beautiful, historic, red-roofed hotel right on the beach and it's beautifully maintained. The "Hotel Del" as it's called, is nice to walk around and has a very rich history, including its very own ghost story, which I always get a kick out of. The beach on Coronado Island is also very nice and seems to be less crowded than others in San Diego.

The weekend after we checked out the Andaz West Hollywood, we returned to SoCal for Memorial Day weekend. Much like the Andaz West Hollywood, the Andaz San Diego had a previous life outside of the Hyatt family. The Andaz San Diego was formerly known as The Ivy Hotel and aimed to offer a "sexy" boutique experience. In some cases, your room came complete with a stripper pole! I'm not quite sure if Hyatt retained those or not, but the hotel vibe was definitely very party-like. The rooftop pool and restaurant turns into a club on the weekends and it was definitely poppin' (more to come on the roof later on).

We upgraded our booking to a one bedroom suite and checked in on Friday night to a room that was sans stripper pole but definitely very chic. The room was very nice and I loved how it was decorated, but I honestly wouldn't call it a "one bedroom" at all. All that separated the bedroom from the rest of the room was a wooden wall in the middle of the room and open on either side. 

The living room had two couches, a desk and chair, a coffee table, a TV mounted on the wall (with another TV mounted on the opposite side of the wall facing the bed), and a small bar area complete with refrigerator, coffee maker, and wine and spirits for purchase. 

Basically the entire right wall of the suite was windows, but disappointingly, our room faced an interior "courtyard" of sorts and if you had the window coverings open, you could see straight in to other rooms and vice versa. In fact, there was actually quite the bachelor party going on in the multi-level suite across the way from us. Cue the first time during our weekend stay that we felt old and boring!

The bathroom had a very interesting design as well. The sink area was only partially enclosed by a glass wall which offered absolutely no privacy at all, but looked cool at least. Luckily, the shower and toilet were enclosed, but only by a frosted glass door. 

The toiletries were a nicer looking version of Hyatt's typical LATHER toiletries.

Travel Planning: Fall in Asia
Review: LAX Star Alliance Lounge
Review: Singapore Airlines Suites Class LAX - NRT
Review: Park Hyatt Tokyo
Recap: Time in Tokyo
Review: HND JAL First Class Lounge
Review: JAL Business Class HND - GMP
Review: IP Boutique Hotel Seoul
Recap: Time in Seoul
Review: ICN Cathay Pacific Lounge
Review: Cathay Pacific Business Class ICN - HKG
Review: Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui
Recap: Time in Hong Kong
Review: HKG Cathay Pacific “The Wing” First Class Lounge
Review: Cathay Pacific First Class HKG - SFO


As of January 1 this year, my total country count is at 21. I've been aggressively crossing countries to visit off my list since I graduated from college and I'm really fortunate and proud to have seen all that I have so far. But if you looked at a map of where I've been, you'll notice the entire Eastern Hemisphere is completely blank. I'm so excited to finally be changing that in September!

I usually plan one big trip a year and some of my traveling friends and I joke about my "two country minimum". If I can't hit at least two countries in a given trip, I'm not going. It's actually the sole reason why I went to Bolivia last year. We knew that we wanted to go to Machu Picchu, but I couldn't possibly plan a trip and only see one country. We thought about Ecuador, but a trip to the Galapagos is insanely expensive! For Brazil, you need a visa, but I noticed that Bolivia was close by and might be interesting (ergo, my blog's header of Salar de Uyuni). The rest is history!

This year, we haven't completely hammered out the details, but I know for sure we're going to Tokyo and Hong Kong. We're undecided about where we are going in between, but we're considering Seoul, Taiwan, and Singapore. I really could not be more excited, especially because this has all come up so fast!

The best, best part of this whole trip though will be the flights to and from Asia. Chris and I are about to experience the best that travel hacking has to offer - the international first class award ticket. Our flights were a huge coup and we couldn't have done it without Alex over at Points Pros. Side note: did you know that you can actually pay people to book award tickets for you? You might ask why anyone would ever do that. The answer is, award booking is actually really hard for things like this. Most airlines don't release much award availability and they certainly don't make those awards easy to find. Then, there's the fact that you often need to transfer points from multiple accounts in order to actually use them for the airline you've chosen. It's a real mess, but Alex made it a total breeze!

Anyways, here is what we managed to get: 

LAX > NRT (need to get to LAX from SFO)
Singapore Airlines, A380 Suites

First of all, I have never flown on an A380 and as much as it pains me to say it (former Boeing employee here), I have been dying to! Second, Singapore Suites is supposed to be absolutely amazing. We landed middle seats in Suites and while the middle seat is usually the worst spot on the plane in any other situation, on Singapore Suites, it transforms into this:

HKG > SFO 
Cathay Pacific, First Class

Cathay was actually just named the wold's best airline for the fourth time. As the only airline to receive that honor four times, I expect great things! I think what I am most excited about is the pajamas they give you on the flight:

LOVE the look of these PJs and I hear they are super comfy!

Anyways, there will be tons of content on the blog once we're back from our trip and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures! Now that the flight's out of the way, I just need to plan what to do when we get there! If you have any thoughts on must-dos in Hong Kong or Tokyo or on which of the other cities we shouldn't miss, I would love to hear them in the comments!