The Points Mom

Travel is my porn

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A friend of mine recently said to me that travel is her porn. I have been thinking about that statement ever since. Because, for me too, TRAVEL IS MY PORN.

When I was younger, my fantasies were much different than they are now (wink wink). But, as a mother of 3 middle schoolers in my mid (ok late) 40s who is constantly doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, helping with homework and DRIVING and DRIVING and DRIVING, my fantasies now consist of quite different content. I now fantasize about traveling. Ok, despite an occasional fantasy about Jeffrey Dean Morgan (have u seen him on The Good Wife – Wow!), most of my fantasies consist of places that I want to go and things that I want to do.

I fantasize about climbing the Eiffel Tower, playing with elephants in Thailand, hot air ballooning in Palm Springs, attending a cooking class in Florence, driving up the Pacific Coast Highway and hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I imagine myself sipping wine in Positano the summer my husband, Rob, turns 50 and cheering at Wimbledon with my oldest son, Daniel, my 50th summer. I constantly think about where to go on summer vacations, school breaks and long weekends. I imagine all the places we can finally go to when my kids hit college and beyond, when we have more time to travel, both as a family and as a couple. I can go on and on about my travel fantasies, but I don’t want to get anyone too excited. 🙂

“My porn” consists of old school printed material as well as present day internet sites. I look at the pictures in my travel magazines and fantasize about traveling to exotic places. My internet porn sites include hotel websites like Starwood and Marriott, as well as sites about popular road trips, tourist attractions, ski mountains and beach resorts. I look up sites with information about which airlines fly to Iceland and Argentina and sites that tell me the top ten things to do in a particular city. At night, I search the Internet for “my porn”. My friends joke that I have our family vacations planned for the next 2 years. They are wrong…they are planned for the next 25 years, at least in my fantasies.

And unlike the fantasies of my younger self, many of my current fantasies become reality. We have hiked Masada, rafted the Colorado river, watched the changing of the guard and ziplined in Costa Rica. We have screamed on Space Mountain, water skied on Tahoe, helicoptered in Hawaii and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. We have skiied many mountains, hit many beaches and explored multiple cities.

How do I make these fantasies become reality? The answer…I am always accumulating more points and miles and then using them to book free travel. This is now my passion. This is how I do it.

As for my husband Rob, who wishes my fantasies were different, he sleeps quite soundly beside me as I scour the internet for “my porn”, anticipating the next trip to fulfill my fantasy and satisfy my passion. If travel is your porn too, this site can help you fulfill your fantasies as well, and you can start doing it for free.