We’re a married, age-gap couple with a passion for exploring the U.S., one road trip at a time! Our travels focus on national parks, scenic drives, and hidden gems, with detailed itineraries to help you plan your own adventures. While we cover destinations across the country, we have a special love for Southern California, Las Vegas, Florida, and our current home base—Dayton, Ohio.With a background in hospitality and tourism management (B.A. & M.S.) and experience in hotels, theme parks, guided vacation sales, and special events, we bring both industry expertise and firsthand travel experience to our content.Follow along as we uncover the best weekend getaways, off-the-beaten-path spots, and foodie finds across the U.S.!
Discount Travel Secret: 2026 Travel Bucket List
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Discount Travel Secret: Vision Boards & Bucket Lists Hi Reader, Have you made your travel vision board or bucket list for 2026 yet? We make one every year and cover how to do it in-depth inside the Discount Travel Secrets Insider Series. I personally recommend making a nice graphic on Canva (it's free), so you can make it your desktop or phone background, or making a Pinterest board. Our 2025 travel bucket list included:
Travels we actually did:
So we finally went to Frankenmuth and we went to a new to us Cedar Fair park, but that's pretty much all we got to on our bucket list. You could argue that we went to at least 3-5 national park service sites (there's 400+) that were new to JP, but we didn't get to any national parks. So what's on our 2026 travel bucket list? I don't have it 100% finalized, but it's going to centered around using our timeshare points at resorts we haven't stayed at yet (we banked all of this year's points to next year so we have a ton to use). So it'll be places we can visit while road tripping around to these different resorts. I'm sure we'll still have some national parks and historic sites, maybe some cities we haven't visited before, and definitely some America250 events! I'd love to hear any ideas you have for your 2026 travels! See you next week, Eva and JP 💎 P.S. Ready to plan your next trip? Find some of our favorite travel-related resources below. ✔ Find the cheapest rental car rate |
Discovering Hidden Gems
We’re a married, age-gap couple with a passion for exploring the U.S., one road trip at a time! Our travels focus on national parks, scenic drives, and hidden gems, with detailed itineraries to help you plan your own adventures. While we cover destinations across the country, we have a special love for Southern California, Las Vegas, Florida, and our current home base—Dayton, Ohio.With a background in hospitality and tourism management (B.A. & M.S.) and experience in hotels, theme parks, guided vacation sales, and special events, we bring both industry expertise and firsthand travel experience to our content.Follow along as we uncover the best weekend getaways, off-the-beaten-path spots, and foodie finds across the U.S.!
Discount Travel Secret: National Parks Free Entrance Days Hi Reader, When JP and I first started traveling together back in 2017 we didn't have much money (I was in grad school, working 2 full time jobs, and living in the notoriously expensive area of Southern California). I wasn't sure how long I'd be living out there and I wanted to see and do as much as I could while I had the opportunity. So we started taking some overnight and weekend trips to national parks because of how inexpensive...
Discount Travel Secret: Groupon Discounts Hi Reader, Something JP and I bought recently was a Groupon bundle for a local entertainment center that included an escape room for 2 + an appetizer for $36. When we lived in California, most escape rooms would make us buy out the room if it was just the 2 of us, so it would cost about $100-$110 for us to do an escape room. Being in Ohio now, most escape rooms are about $30-$35 per person and we don't have to buy out rooms, so it costs nearly half of...
Discount Travel Secret: Priority Wine Pass Hi Reader, Today I want to share with you one of my favorite partners that I work with, the Priority Wine Pass, because if you have any trips coming up in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, or Texas, this little pass will save you so much money. The wineries you can visit with this pass offer 2 for 1 tastings, complimentary reserve tastings, and other perks, just for being a wine pass holder. In as little as 3 wine tastings this pass will more...