Travel Archives - Physician on FIRE

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Credit Cards for People Who Love Travel and Money

Credit Cards Travel Money

For many years, I used one Chase credit card for pretty much everything. With a typical credit card bill of $4,000 to $5,000 a month, I was rewarded with $40 or $50 worth of points every month and I thought that was pretty darned good. When I shopped at Amazon, I got triple the usual points, and there used to be some other perks, like using $250 worth of points for a flight worth up to $400. I knew the ins and outs of the card’s benefits pretty well, and I did my best to get the most value I […]

23 Days in Hawaii: Our Slow Travel Fail

Living like a local for weeks at a time. That was the dream when I went part-time. Every day spent away would be sublime. I promise the rest of this post won’t rhyme. Our first lengthy family adventure was a complete success. The four of us spent three glorious weeks in Mexico. Our apartment overlooked the friendly and vibrant city of Guanajuato. We woke up naturally to leisurely mornings. Our commute to school was a hike down the winding alleyways stairways. We explored our city, attended Spanish classes together, made new friends, and even made a habit of journaling and […]

Cruise to Cuba With Me for Free Using Travel Rewards

Cruise Ship Decks

That’s right. My family and I are headed to Havana, Cuba. We’ll also visit Key West on a four-day cruise leaving from Tampa this coming September. And you can join us! And by us, I’m referring to my family and a growing list of fun people in the personal finance blogging, writing, and podcasting worlds, including: Mr. & Mrs. WOW from Waffles on Wednesday Miss Bonnie MD Carrie Reynolds of Hippocratic Hustle Dr. & Mrs. Cory S. Fawcett, published author and blogger. Dr. B.C. Krygowski Nomads with a Vision Frugally Reckless Wall Street is Waiting I’m a big fan […]

Three Weeks in Guanajuato Mexico: A Preview of Life After FIRE

Guanajuato Hillside

We wasted no time making plans to take advantage of my newfound freedom as a part-time anesthesiologist. October was busy with a couple of conferences, but when our work schedule was published, the better part of my November and beginning of December were wide open. My wife and I had been dreaming of a Spanish immersion experience. For the last year, we had been watching Calico Spanish videos with our boys, beefing up our vocab with duoLingo, and the two of us had studied the language for at least a couple years in high school. In our spare time, we […]

A Gap Year Away From Medicine: One Physician’s Experience

El Calafate

Today’s post comes from an early-career west coast cardiologist named EJ. He puts out great stuff on his own site called Dads Dollars Debts, and was kind enough to share his experience in a guest post here today. In the post, the good doctor talks about burnout, travel, a sabbatical, and more — all great topics to be discussed here at Physician on FIRE. Take it away, EJ! Do you ever get that feeling that you can’t go any further? You are fatigued, unable to get going, and negative about your day to day. Or maybe, every little thing […]

A $4,300 Family Vacation in Paris and Reykjavik

kids louvre

Last fall, my inbox teased me with a remarkable deal. Paris for $410 Roundtrip. I clicked where the e-mail told me to click for further details. Amazingly, the deal offered lined up with time I had off from work and partially coincided with our boys’ spring break. The flights were on Icelandair, an airline I’ve flown on a couple prior trips to Europe. As I have twice before, I took advantage of the free stopover option, extending our layover on the way home from a couple hours to a couple days. Within an hour of receiving the e-mail, […]

The Sunday Best (3/19/2017)

Sunday Best Catacombs

The Sunday Best is a collection of articles I’ve curated for your reading pleasure. Expect most of the writing to be from recent weeks and consistent with the themes presented on this website: investing & taxes, financial independence, early retirement, and physician issues. I’m traveling this week, so I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my favorite bloggers’ travel posts. Presenting, the Traveler’s Sunday Best: Matt & Daniel of the resumé gap are bona fide globe trotters and excellent picture takers. Last summer, they proved it spending Three Weeks in Hungary, Zagreb, and Slovenia. What’s a Zagreb? […]

Complete Guide to a 48 Hour Stopover in Reykjavik

The other day, I shared all kinds of great tips on how to blog well. At least a couple of those tips are in play today. Specifically, make friends, and guest post up. In planning for our upcoming family vacation, I was searching for information on Iceland. I’ve been there on a stopover a couple times before, but not with kids and not in ten years. One of the first sites I found was Life With a View, a visually stunning blog full of Icelandic travel advice and photography by an American expat, Jeannie. I reached out to Jeannie (make friends) and asked […]

Mixing Business with Pleasure: PoF Goes to SLC

Welcome Physician on FIRE

Have you ever had an amazing weekend but you couldn’t tell anyone about it? Or, at least you couldn’t tell anyone without telling a long story that you’re not ready to tell, and revealing a fact you’re not ready to reveal? Me, neither. Well, not until a few weeks ago. About a month ago, I told my parents about an incredible opportunity I had. They were nearly as excited as I was about this opportunity to collaborate, and they offered to watch our boys so my wife and I could take a quick trip to Salt Lake City, Utah to explore the […]

The Sunday Best (11/6/2016)

The Sunday Best

The Sunday Best is a collection of a handful of posts I share with you each week. With so many informative and inspirational writers out there, I have no trouble coming up with a number of worthwhile reads each week. Every featured post should be of interest to any physician seeking financial independence. Some will be written by your physician colleagues; others will be written by our friends and patients who share common goals and interests. Presenting, this week’s Sunday Best: In my Financial Freedom post, I mentioned the rising cost of health insurance as one of many reasons to consider striving for More than Enough. The Grizzly […]

The Earth Awaits: Where in the World is Our Family Going to Go?

[PoF: The following is a guest post from The Frugal Vagabond. After I saw his excellent new site, The Earth Awaits, I asked him if he would like to showcase the site while doing some deep digging for me. I am not necessarily interested in retiring abroad, but would like to spend a year with my family in a true Spanish immersion situation.] Despite the differences in our lives, our professions, and families, PoF and I have a lot in common. We aspire to FIRE, or at least downshift, because we recognize that time is the most precious commodity […]

Find & Fuel Your Passion: One Yooper’s Story

How do you find and fuel your passion? When I daydream about my early retirement, I get lots of ideas and before long, I have too much planned than I will have time for. Eventually, I’ll be able to strike some experiences off the list, and the roster of ideas may become more manageable. Or, exploring one avenue may lead me down several alternate paths, and I’ll be busier, while learning more and having more fun, than ever. Others may know exactly what they want to do with their free time. And they may devote vast amounts of time and resources to following […]

Saving Money in and Around San Francisco Part II

In the first installment of Saving Money in and Around San Francisco, I discussed the first four days of our six-day northern California adventure. I think my wife and I did a good job experiencing the greater San Francisco area and its goats without breaking the bank. Of course, there is more to northern California than bridges, museums, and goats. There’s also wine, ocean, redwoods, and beer. And if you’re lucky like me, there might even be friends! In San Francisco, we used public transportation to get around. The BART train will take you from the airport to downtown San Francisco and […]

Saving Money in and Around San Francisco Part I

Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, while Q-Tip left his wallet in El Segundo. My wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely peninsula that is San Francisco last week. With so much to do, see, and eat, it would be easy to leave town with an empty wallet and a hefty credit card balance. This frugal physician wasn’t going to let that happen. How did we save money in San Francisco? As an employed physician, I receive a generous CME allowance, which covers travel, meals, lodging, and registration for conference attendance. We planned this trip around […]

What I Learned on Spring Break

My 7-year old was required to keep a journal to chronicle his spring break experience. “I liked the Disney Dreams show becus it was majicle!” I didn’t keep a daily log of my favorite things like he did, but I did read a couple good books and made quite a few observations that I feel are worth sharing. The day before we left, we visited the public library. In two short minutes, I grabbed a couple books from the personal finance section. I enjoyed both of them, but I won’t be giving a full review. I’m not a qualified book […]