Review: Qantas Domestic Business Class

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

Here’s another travel saga for you 🙂 . So my Mom and I originally booked a non-stop flight from Cairns (CNS) to Sydney (SYD) as part of our trip Down Under. However, a few months before the flight, we got an email that the non-stop flight we had booked no longer existed and we were now stopping in Brisbane along the way.

Later research would uncover that we wouldn’t be able to make the other non-stop flights on that day. So it’s good that we had built wiggle room into our plan because we had just turned one flight into two. Continue reading “Review: Qantas Domestic Business Class” →

My Favorite Travel Tools Of 2024

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

Our world keeps changing and in a lot of ways that’s a good thing 🙂 . I continue to be amazed by new free tools I find online that help make my travel easier. Some of these have launched recently and some have been around for a while and I just had no idea.

I’ve talked in the past about travel tools that help me live my full-time nomad life in the posts below: Continue reading “My Favorite Travel Tools Of 2024” →

The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Investing, Keto, Net Worth Update, Travel

I’m going to need time to slow down a little because this is getting ridiculous 🙂 . I’m still not used to writing “2024” and we’re almost halfway through, so either my brain needs to catch up or time needs to slow down – obviously I’m picking the easier solution 😉 .

This month was luckily way less frantic than April. Hopefully I will remember not to over-schedule myself and my travels so I don’t make that mistake again.

However, it still makes me laugh that traveling once per week wore me down so much when I used to travel just for a weekend. No wonder I was tired all the time 🙂 . Anyway, let’s see what I got up to during my less wild May and try to get my brain to realize it’s now June 2024.

Continue reading “The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap” →

Review: Qantas International Business Class

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

This is a bit of a saga 🙂 . During my Mom and my trip Down Under, we decided to give a new-to-us airline a chance: LATAM. But as you can see from the title, this isn’t a review of that airline. So what happened? 🙂

We booked a flight from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand, 10 months in advance. And a few hours before our flight, we received a text message from LATAM that said our flight had been canceled and asked if we wanted a refund. No flight alternatives were given. WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!?!?! Continue reading “Review: Qantas International Business Class” →

How I Use Notion To Organize My Life

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Hobbies, Reviews

About a year ago I mentioned in my annual accomplishment post that I had started using Notion to organize my life. I didn’t know that I was looking for an organizational solution to my ‘busy’ retired schedule 😉 , but a YouTuber I watch mentioned they use Notion and I loved the look of it so I decided to try it out.

Doing so was easy because it’s a free service and was simple to set up. I was then immediately blown away by learning that it’s completely customizable. Anything I want to create – I can. Continue reading “How I Use Notion To Organize My Life” →

Review: COPA Airlines – A Panamanian Gem

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

So I’m a creature of habit. I follow the “better the devil you know” guideline when it comes to things like airlines and rarely branch out unless I’ve received a recommendation from someone I trust. And even then, I do lots of research on the airline before committing to barreling through the sky with them.

When I was looking into an airline to take from Costa Rica back to the states in time to catch my first Total Solar Eclipse, COPA Airlines kept coming up. I knew that a few of my friends had flown them before, but wasn’t sure if it was for me. They’re a Panamanian airline and my flight would backtrack a bit to Panama before continuing on straight to Austin, Texas. Continue reading “Review: COPA Airlines – A Panamanian Gem” →

The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Investing, Keto, Net Worth Update, Relationships, Travel, Travel Hacking

This might have been the fastest month of my retired life. I had a great time, but fast travel is definitely not for me because while I had a lovely time, I can’t remember the last time I was this tired. It was probably during my career 4 years ago and I don’t like it! So let’s see what I did this month that was worth messing up my sleep schedule and my relaxed lifestyle 🙂 .
Continue reading “The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap” →

Review: Air New Zealand

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

I’m always curious about airlines I’ve never flown before. And in my typical neurotic fashion, I always search around to find reviews of new airlines before I fly them. So in the interest of helping anyone else that’s like me out there, this is my experience flying Air New Zealand for the first time. Continue reading “Review: Air New Zealand” →