Welcome!

Thank you for visiting Rachel and Dakota’s first travel blog post! We have a knack for travel and finally decided it was time to start blogging about it. We have taken several trips across the country this year; however, this is our first ever trip to Europe! Earlier trips this year include Texas, Florida, New York, California, Hawaii, Ohio, and North Carolina. This blog post will be the introduction to our three week European vacation.

Before we get into the trip let’s talk about how we got here. Europe has been on both of our travel bucket lists. While some destinations aligned, other destinations differed, so we did what any good marriage does: we compromised! We had three weeks to squeeze in as much of Europe as possible because who knows when we will be back. This trip was planned six months in advance. I have never taken more than a week long vacation before, so three weeks seemed like an eternity in vacation time. Our itinerary for this trip was well over three pages. This may sound exhausting, but there is so much to see.

Also, this trip would not be possible without us being introduced to the travel points and miles world aka “travel hacking”. I could write a separate blog post about this (and maybe I will) but international travel is not cheap. With that being said we paid less than $500 out of pocket for our three total flights with one of those being in premium economy class. A great introductory FREE course regarding travel hacking can be found at 10xtravel.com. I think this is enough introduction so let’s get into Day 1!

Day 1

Our day started at getting up at 5:30 am. We had some last minute packing to do as well as getting our three dogs and a recent litter of puppies taken care of before we left. Since we are going to be gone for such a long time, we opted for a shuttle service pickup in lieu of paying for airport parking. Cookeville friends, if you have not tried Upper Cumberland Shuttle Service I highly recommend them for your airport transportation. Their website is ucshuttleservice.com. They have door to door pickup 24/7. This definitely beats the airport parking and carrying your luggage all across the parking lot. It can also mean a quick nap on the way to the airport, or you can get that last office email sent before your flight. We both opted for the first option on this trip. However, we hit a small snag just as we got off the interstate. While we were exiting we hit a large bump with the airport in sight. We could see the departure lanes just ahead when we heard this loud groaning noise coming from the rear of the minivan. You guessed it, it was a flat tire. We arrived early enough to the airport that we weren’t nervous. Our shuttle driver did a fantastic job in taking care of us. She flagged down the first airport shuttle bus that drove by, and they let us hop on for a quick ride to our departure gate.

Our first flight of the day was to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York with JetBlue Airlines. We were able to use the points that I mentioned earlier for this flight. This flight ran us 25,600 travel points. We only paid cash for our luggage. Our flight was just over two hours in the air. We had never flown JetBlue before, but we truly enjoyed it. The main attraction to this airline was the snacks. We are accustomed to a small cup of soda and trail mix, but JetBlue offered a variety of snacks and a full can of soda. It’s really the small things in life! We enjoyed the rest of the flight then touched down in New York.

The rain was coming down hard that afternoon, but thankfully we had some friendly faces to pick us up from the airport. My sister and her husband call Staten Island home, and spent the afternoon with us before our evening flight. They may be New Yorkers, but their southern hospitality made us feel like we were at home. We hopped in their car and made for Manhattan. We discussed before the trip what we wanted to do and my answer was “What sounds more touristy than seeing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular?” So, that is what we did. We arrived late due to our flight being slightly delayed, but the show was a ton of fun. The iconic Rockettes did an amazing job, and the performance put smiles on our faces.

After the show, we walked around downtown to soak in the Christmas atmosphere. We ventured over to the famous Rockefeller Christmas tree, and I have never seen a larger Christmas tree in my life. We felt like Kevin McAllister when we saw the tree. After getting a few photos in front of the tree we walked over to Saks Fifth Avenue and caught their Christmas light show. It gave us that true Christmas in New York feeling. We had some time to spare, (plus we were all starving) so we ventured toward finding some food. My sister recommended this quaint little restaurant next to Grand Central Station called Pershing Square. It is built directly under a viaduct, so when large trucks drive over us, we could feel the building shake. Rachel had chicken, while I opted for the pancakes. This place was perfect to sit and catch up with Katie and Joey. After a bit of talking and storytelling we hopped back in the car towards JFK.

We said our goodbyes to Katie and Joey, then carried our luggage to the Air France check-in counter. Our flight was to take off at 12:30a.m.  New York time and land at 1:15 p.m. Paris time with over a 7 hour flight duration. This flight in premium economy cost us 60,000 Chase ultimate rewards points. This also included two checked bags each so the only out of pocket cost was roughly $50 for international fees. The premium economy booking had several perks. The first being priority check-in. There was a separate check-in line which expedited our check-in process. We made our way through security and on to our flight gate.

We had time to get a little bit of rest before our flight. It had already been a long day and it was nearly midnight in New York. Our flight began to board, and since we were premium economy we boarded right after priority boarding and first class. This plane was the nicest plane Rachel and I had ever been on. Again, our row had only two seats, and they were much wider than we were used to. The seat in front had a large screen, and the seat reclined nicely. Once we were in the air we were offered a three course meal. The first course was an einkorn, butternut squash, cranberry and pumpkin seed salad. The main course was a choice of traditional shredded braised beef shepherd’s pie or cheese ravioli, creamy porcini and Shimeji mushroom sauce. This was followed by some cheese and bread then ended with a personal sized cheesecake. Rachel opted for the ravioli while I chose the shepherd’s pie. In the end there was no food to be found on either of our plates. Once our stomachs were full, we put on our sleep masks and got some decent sleep on the plane. Before we knew it, it was time for our descent into Paris. We were served some cold bread and pastries with some juice and coffee just before we landed.

I believe this is enough for our first post. Stayed tuned for day two of our trip and our first destination. You won’t want to miss how beautiful it is, and what we think about it. If you have any questions about our travel or just want to chat, feel free to drop us a message. Bon voyage! Until next time!