Can you believe Andrew and I have been traveling full time for two months now?! I really can’t believe how fast our year is going. We spent most of our first month road tripping around the United States so July was our first full month abroad. We visited four new countries neither one of us have been to before and stayed in seven different cities.
In my monthly update posts I give an outline of what we did in each city, an update on our points & miles, a budget update, and I have a new section – Top 3 Meals of the Month. Follow along for all our exciting July travels!
7 Days in Prague
On July 1st we flew from London to Prague and stayed for a full week. We stayed in the Vinohrady neighborhood, about a mile east of the main downtown/old town part of Prague. It was very residential and had so many good restaurants and bars for us to try. For an in depth view of how much we spent in a week in Prague read my blog post here.
We took two trips outside the city, the first one was a day trip to Bohemian Switzerland National Park. We booked through Airbnb Experiences and had a great time. We got to see Kost Castle, do a 3 mile hike through the park, eat lunch at a traditional Czech restaurant and visit a small recreation lake.
Our second trip outside Prague was to the town of Karstejn and Karstejn Castle. It was about an hour train ride from the city. Once you get to Karstejn you have to walk about a mile through town and up a hill to get to the castle. We enjoyed our tour and learning about Charles IV, whom the castle was built for.
7 Days in Kraków
On the 8th we took a quick Ryanair flight from PRG to KRK. Kraków is a small and walkable city and we really enjoyed our week there. Our time in Kraków seemed to revolve around the amazing restaurants and wandering around Stare Miasto (Old Town). We stayed a little less than a mile outside of the old town so we had access to dozens of amazing, cheap, non-touristy restaurants right by our Airbnb.
We did a lot of activities in and around Krakow in our week too. We visited Wawel Castle, did a Segway tour of Kazimierz, the old Jewish neighborhood, and a tour of Oskar Schindler’s Factory Museum.
During our week in Krakow we also did a day trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau through Airbnb Experiences. Our guide drove us to Birkenau death camp and then to Auschwitz concentration camp. Both places were really hard to experience but are so important to visit. I highly recommend scheduling a tour if you visit Poland.
4 Days in Warsaw
We had our first hotel stay in Europe at the Holiday Inn Express Warsaw The Hub. It was also our first stay on points! Every 4th night is free when you book an IHG hotel using points so I try to strategically only book IHG point stays in cities we’re staying in for four nights.
After a week in Kraków we were a little burnt out on Polish food, so in our 4 days in Warsaw we went to 3 different food markets/halls. I had tacos, a burger, and ramen between the three markets. Fabryka Norblina Food Town is a little kitschy and gimmicky but we enjoyed it and they have so many food options! You can definitely find cheaper eats in Warsaw but it’s still very affordable by US standards.
In additional to our food markets we went on a walking tour and visited the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the City of Warsaw Museum and the Museum of Polish Vodka. There are so many more world class museums in Warsaw, but we could only squeeze in so much in four days.
5 Days in Amsterdam
Earlier in the month, my family went on a Viking River Cruise from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands. We couldn’t afford to join them on the cruise but we flew from Warsaw to Amsterdam (on KLM airlines using Delta points) to meet up with them after the cruise. It was so fun seeing family, especially because I’ve never been to Europe with my mom and sister before and it was really special!
I got to do most of the planning for our five days in Amsterdam and I had so much fun planning for a big group for the first time. Some of the group did a bike tour through Airbnb Experiences, and if you’re not usually a big city biker, I recommend this tour as it’s not right in the main busy part of the city. We also visited Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum. Some members of the family visited Rijksmuseum instead of Van Gogh.
The photo above was taken in a little photo studio in Volendam. These photo shops are all over the town and are a really popular thing to do, even with local Dutch tourists! We visited Volendam on a private day trip that I booked through Viator. The tour also took us to Zaanse Schans to see a working windmill, and a Dutch diary farm to sample a bunch of cheese.
Lastly we also did a canal cruise with the whole family. There are canal cruises that include drinks, snacks, fancy boats, old boats, small boats, big boats, a full dinner…. really any kind of canal cruise you could want. The one we picked was only $25 per person and just included beer and wine.
8 Days in Germany
Ingelheim am Rhein
After leaving Amsterdam, my family drove down to Munich but stopped for one night at Ingelheim am Rhein, a small German town on the Rhine River. This town is special to us because we can trace our ancestry back to it! There’s even a winery in town that is my mom’s maiden name, which is non a common German last name. According to 23andMe I am almost 75% German! We didn’t have much time in Ingelheim, so besides taking a peek at the winery (that was closed) we just had time for a nice dinner. It was so good it even made my “Top 3 Meals of the Month” so you can read more about that below!
Munich
Andrew and I spent five nights in Munich total, one final night with my family, and then four nights with our good friends Betsy and Michael. With my family we did a walking tour and a day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle and Linderhof Palace.
With Betsy and Michael we enjoyed lunch and watching city surfing in the Englisher Garden, visited the Munich Residenz (palace) and took and afternoon visit to Andechs Monastery. Andrew also went to the Olympic Stadium and BMW World and Museum with Betsy and Michael one day that I stayed in and relaxed.
Erding
The last two days of July were spent in Erding, Germany, a small town east of Munich. Betsy and Michael flew out on the last day of the month and Erding is really close to the airport so it was a great place for their last night in Germany. We enjoyed walking around the cute downtown area and the walking paths along the Sempt river through town. We also went to a great local brewhouse that made the “Top 3 Meals of July!”
Budget
The total budget for our Year Long Honeymoon is just under $50,000. I have allocated more money for the more expensive European countries and less money for the cheaper Asian countries we’ll visit this winter. The total budget for July was $3,980 and we spent $3,838.47, so over $100 under budget! Unfortunately June was significantly over budget so overall we’re about $1,400 over budget. I did build in a small buffer plus I have a feeling we’ll start to get better at the whole budget traveling thing as the year goes on.
We were lucky that my mom covered a lot of our meals in Amsterdam and my grandpa covered some of our meals and hotel nights in Germany. The food and lodging in Amsterdam and Germany is significantly higher than in Czech Republic and Poland. Thank you Mom and Grandpa if you’re reading this!
Top Three Meals of the Month
Andrew had the idea for this fun new category in my monthly update posts! We’ve been eating such good food on our travels but it’s impossible to share everything. Now I’ll be able to just share the best meals we had each month! I am considering more than just how good the food is, so I’ll also consider the atmosphere, price, and service.
#3 Lunch Bar TU in Kraków, Poland
We ate here twice for lunch during our week in Kraków and it was really good both times. They have 3 set menus each day that rotate. Nothing was in English so we didn’t really know what we were ordering, we just picked “Daily Meal #1” each time. The first time we had pork schnitzel, potatoes with dill, cabbage, and soup. The second time we had chicken Kiev, potatoes with dill, carrots, and soup. We also ordered pierogi both times as well. The set menu and pierogi combined only cost $10! This place has friendly service, and the set menu food is always ready as soon as you order it, so it’s a great option for a quick lunch. The pierogi take about 10 minutes to cook after you order.
#2 Gasthaus zum Erdinger Weißbräu in Erding, Germany
The second best restaurant experience in July was at Gasthaus Zum Erdinger Weißbräu. Betsy’s dad recommended we try this place and it was a great recommendation! The menu was pretty big with a lot of traditional German dishes. Everything we ordered was really yummy but the star of the show was the beer! They brew all their own beer right in Erding and have several kinds to try. The service was also extremely friendly and quick!
The #1 best meal of the month: Alt Ingelheim Restaurant & Sommergarten in Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany
Another German restaurant makes it to the top spot! Alt Ingelheim makes the number one spot for a number of reasons. First, the service was amazing and the waiter was so nice! They didn’t hesitate to accommodate our large group without a reservation. The cocktails were good and the wine was all local and amazing! Finally, and most importantly, the food was delicious! We really enjoyed the beet carpaccio appetizer, house salad, and the wiener schnitzel. Andrew got the salmon and said it was also really good!
Credit Card Points Update
New Point Gains
This month I’ve received two referral bonuses from my Chase Sapphire Preferred card, for 15,000 points each! Referral bonuses are a great way to earn a big chunk of points without opening a new card.
Lately we’ve also been putting most of our spend on Andrew’s Venture X card that gets 2x points on everything. He signed up for the card about a month and a half ago and he needs to spend $4,000 in three months to receive his sign up bonus of 75,000 points. Hopefully by our August or September update we’ll have those points!
New Point Redemptions
I am just so excited about the point redemptions I’ve made this month, y’all! To get the most out of your points, you need to calculate the Cents Per Point or CPP you’re getting from each booking. This calculation is (Cash value of flight or hotel – any cash fees paid) / points used to book the travel. Then you can compare the CPP to what you value your points at which is normally between 1 to 2 CPP depending on point type.
- Flights from Kathmandu to Singapore: Originally our itinerary had us flying from Kathmandu to Bangkok and visiting Singapore later in our trip. However, there are no direct flights between the two cities so I couldn’t find any good point redemptions and flights were going to be around $400 each. I decided to change the itinerary up a bit and search for Kathmandu to Singapore flights, and there was a lot of availability on Singapore airlines. I transferred 40,000 American Express points to Singapore Airlines and paid $66 in fees to book us each a flight from KTM-SIN. These flights would have cost $419 each so we had a CPP of 1.93. Then we just need to book a cash fare from Singapore to Bangkok which only cost about $100 each.
2. Flights from Bali to Cairo, Egypt: We’re not taking this flight until April 2023 but I’ve been looking ahead and planning out our longer flights. The options I saw for Bali to Cairo were either $500 for a flight with 2 layover or $1,000+ for one layover. I looked around and found a Qatar Airways flight for only 25,000 American Airlines points plus $56 in fees. So in total for two people we’re spending 50,000 AA points and $112 for flights that cost $2,044 total! Our CPP was 3.86 which I think is really good for economy flights.
3. Three nights at the Hyatt Regency in Sofia, Bulgaria: I transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt. We could choose between 5,000 points a night for a standard room or 7,000 points a night for a room with Regency Club access. We chose the club access to we can have free breakfast each morning, snacks throughout the day and a glass of wine or beer each evening. Cash fares for the rooms were $160 per night without club access to our CPP was AT LEAST 2.29.
4. Five nights at Hyatt Regency Bali: Again, I used Chase points to transfer to Hyatt. I paid 32,000 points total for the five nights for a standard room with club access. This room would have cost us $1,000 for five nights so we’re getting right around a 3 CPP redemption. We’re not going to Bali until spring 2023 but I’m so excited to go now!
5. Last but not least, Three nights at Alila Ubud, Bali: Alila is a a newer brand under the Hyatt umbrella, so I again transferred Chase points to my Hyatt account. I booked us in a private bungalow with our own pool for 36,000 points. The room would have cost over $1,000 for the 3 nights so we’re getting just over 3 CPP again for this stay. Bring on the free luxury!
Updated Point Totals
Kailyn American Express: 256,323 points worth ~ $3,076
Kailyn Chase Ultimate Rewards: 16,736 points + Andrew Chase 60,624 points worth ~ $1,160
Kailyn IHG: 58,985 points worth ~ $294.93
Kailyn Delta : 39,296 points + Andrew Delta: 20,800 points worth ~ $780
Kailyn United: 6,452 points + Andrew United: 21,037 points worth ~ $310
Kailyn American: 4,253 points + Andrew American: 13,595 points worth ~ $214
Kailyn Citi Thank You: 3,805 points worth ~ $57
Kailyn Capital One: 136,869 points + Andrew Capital One: 7,592 points worth ~ $2,167
Total Rewards Points Remaining: 646,359 redeemable for about $8,061
A decrease of 122,664 points and $1,606 from my last update in June. However I did use 179,000 points in the month so I’m pretty happy with this!
What's Next For Us?
In August we’ll be continuing our travels in Europe and we get to celebrate Andrew’s birthday! We will spend the month exploring Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. After a month full of traveling with friends and family in July, we’ll be back to traveling by ourselves for the whole month of August before we get to meet up with more friends in September!
Until next month,
Kailyn (and Andrew)
4 Comments
You did a lot in one month and how great you spent time traveling with family! The Dutch family photo is a keeper. Poland sounds great and love to hear how affordable it is.
I love the variety in the spots you stopped this month. And the fact that you did it under budget. Poland has been on our travel wish list for some time. And one day we hope to finally get to do a road trip in Germany. Love the addition of the top 3 meals.
Shout out Dan for the Erding meal!!
That sounds like an amazing month, you’ve given yourselves enough time to really see and experience places properly. And how lovely to meet up with your family in Amsterdam. I absolutely love the photo of you all in Dutch costumes.