2025 Travel Year End Review

One of my most active travel years (based MSY)

Dallas 3x
Disney cruise to Bahamas
Oregon - Portland and coast up to Washington
Las Vegas
San Francisco and Napa
Mexico City

SW promotional companion pass did some heavy lifting there

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two weeks in Japan

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Sounds awesome!

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Oregon - Portland and coast up to Washington

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I remember the OT thread and you arriving at the OR coast just in time for the tsunami warning . Definitely a memorable event this year

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SXM

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One nice caribbean trip I see . Dutch or French side?

American just sent me my year end:

Top 10% of MSY fliers
Hours of Flight Time 116
Total Miles: 107,925

Total airports- 18
AMA (Diverted here)
AMS
BWI
CLE
CLT
DAL (Southwest)
DFW
GRU
HOU (Southwest)
IND
LHR
MIA
MSY
ORD
PHL
PUJ
PVG
SFO

New airports- 3
PVG
AMS
MTY

New Airlines - 0


I did American, British, and Southwest this year. Do have a KLM and Qantas segment next year. DFW-PVG was my longest flight which beat our BLR-LHR for me. Will pass that next year with DFW-MEL.

I will be maintaining my Executive Platinum for another year. Will maintain Hilton Diamond but will not get their new reserve tier. I will also maintain National Executive Elite but I have using Uber instead of renting more and more.

january MSY to cancun for a music festival
february MSY to nashville for concerts
april MSY to orlando, then St Augustine for concerts
august MSY to SF for concerts
august MSY to boise, road trip thru idaho, wyoming, montana; glacier airport to MSY
october road trip to huntsville for concerts
several trips MSY to norfolk for family

it was a fun year

I was coming here to post this!

Anyway, here's mine.

While this wasn’t my busiest travel year ever, it was certainly the most rewarding. Early in the year I took my paternity leave as Mrs. H2O returned to work after the birth of H2O Jr. We took the opportunity to do plenty of traveling, including my first trip to Asia with Mrs. H2O, H2O Jr., and her family to Kazakhstan to visit family.

The Asia theme continued in July when we headed to Japan with some of our Denver based travel friends to celebrate my birthday. All in all, it was an amazing year of travel and I’m already looking forward to 2026!

Looking forward to seeing everyone’s 2025 stats as we head into 2026!

New Countries (4): United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Japan
New Airports (4): DXB, ALA, IST, HND
New Airlines (5): Air Astana, Turkish Airlines, FlyDubai, Emirates, Japan Airlines
New Aircraft (0): N/A

Shortest Flight: IAH-AUS, 140 Miles
Longest Flight: DXB-DFW, 8,040 Miles

Total Airports: 17
Total Flights: 40
Total Miles: 59,172 Miles

Domestic Map


International Map


While we took many amazing trips in 2025, our two visits to Asia have to be the highlight for me. We started things off in March with a visit to the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and Turkey.

Trip Report: A Journey Across Asia












In July we joined some friends, sans kiddos, for a birthday trip to Japan.

Trip Report: Japan




2026 is already shaping up to be a fun year. We're ringing in the new year with Mrs H2O's family in Tulum. In February I'm off to Serbia and Sweden for an insane 72 hour travel fest with an old college buddy of mine. In March we're headed to Park City for some skiing to celebrate a friend's birthday and we have plans to travel to Italy in September for a wedding. I'm sure we'll fill in some more trips between now and the end of next year!

Edited: Info for another thread

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May not have been a huge travel year for you but your reviews are always top notch

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Thanks Cuse! Excited about what I have in the pipeline for 2026. Still need to get South America knocked out so maybe we'll head south of the equator for Mrs. H2O's birthday next year. Off to Tulum on Wednesday to close out the year.

Also, the reviews are one of my favorite things to do as it lets me essentially re-live the trip. if your into over the top travel, my buddy Tim has a site for his trips that are absolutely wild.

SFO777

Thanks. I like the Great Circle site.

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What don't you like about the Aspen airport?? I love flying in and out of there. Only one way in, one way out.

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On way in and out was the problem! (Wind direction)

On arrival we hit turbulence bad enough the pilot diverted to Grand Junction, where we were put on a bus that was 90 degrees and never cooled down until we parked at the Aspen airport a couple hours later.

On departure, our flight got canceled the first day after being there about 7 hours.

The next day after that, we were next in line to take off (after already being majorly delayed) until we made room for another plane. The commercial airlines promptly stopped taking off after that jet, so we sat there for another 1.5 hours and after I guess a total of 3/4 hour delay we finally took off.

Thankfully my kids rose to the occasion and didn't drive us insane

This was after we just didn't vibe (as the youth say) with Aspen at all, so it gets another negative hit. One positive is my Amex Plat trip protection kicked in!