Look, I’ll be straight with you – I used to think the Denver to Seattle route was one of those flights that just… costs what it costs. You know what I mean? Like, it’s a major route, so surely the airlines have figured out exactly what people will pay, right? Wrong. So incredibly wrong. Last…

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve flown between Chicago and Seattle over the past five years. It started when my sister moved to the Pacific Northwest for a tech job in 2020, and suddenly I had a permanent excuse to visit the land of coffee, mountains, and inexplicably passionate opinions about which neighborhood…

Look, I’ve flown between Seattle and San Diego so many times that I’m pretty sure the gate agents at SeaTac recognize me at this point. It’s become my go-to route because, well, I’ve got friends in San Diego who refuse to move somewhere less expensive (can’t blame them, honestly), and I’m based in Seattle when…

I’ll never forget the first time I needed to escape Seattle’s gray January drizzle for some Arizona sunshine. I was sitting in my friend’s apartment in Capitol Hill, watching rain streak down the windows for what felt like the fortieth consecutive day, when I just snapped. I pulled out my laptop right there and started…

So here’s the thing—I was sitting in a coffee shop in Phoenix last March, mindlessly scrolling through flight prices to Seattle, when I literally spit out my latte. $89. One way. I’d been watching this route for weeks, and suddenly there it was, cheaper than the Uber ride to the airport would cost me. That…

So I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Adams Morgan last October, frantically refreshing hotel booking sites on my phone, and honestly feeling pretty defeated. I had a freelance gig lined up in DC that would keep me there for two weeks, and every hotel I clicked on was showing rates that made my budget…

I’m going to level with you right from the start – Washington DC scared the hell out of me when I first started planning an extended stay there. I mean, we’re talking about the nation’s capital, where a coffee costs what a full meal should cost and hotel rooms can drain your savings faster than…

So I’m going to tell you about the time I accidentally became a hostel person in my thirties. Not exactly the trajectory I expected when I quit my marketing job back in 2017, but here we are. Generator Hotel Washington DC wasn’t even on my radar initially. I was planning another DC trip last fall…

Look, I’ll be honest with you – when most people think “budget travel” and “Washington DC,” they don’t usually think those two things go together. And for the longest time, neither did I. My first trip to DC back in 2018 was a nightmare of overpriced hostels in sketchy neighborhoods and hotels that charged $40…

Okay, I can already hear you laughing. Ava Martinez, the queen of $30-a-night hostels and couch-surfing, writing about the Four Seasons? Trust me, I’m laughing too. But here’s the thing – last spring, I actually stayed at the Four Seasons Washington DC, and I didn’t have to sell a kidney to do it. Let me…