The first 31 days of 2025 has come and gone.
I’m sharing this later than I hoped but better late than never.
But it was an eventful month that included saying goodbye to family, a trip to Miami, seeing the American Alligator, checking out a premium airline lounge and snow fall in Houston.
The first week of January was spent in Austin and San Antonio on a family roadtrip.
After our family wrapped up their visit to the US and returned back to the other side of the world, the first thing I did was complete my 2024 annual review and made plans for 2025.
Playing the points, miles and credit card game in the US
In 1946, the credit card was invented by New York banker John Biggins.
Companies started to build credit card reward programs, hotel award programs and airline loyalty programs as a tool for attracting customers and building brand loyalty.
So when it comes to aggressively earning points and miles to travel the world almost for free, the US is the place to be (but only if you know how to play the game—safely).
But for every person who strategically earns points and miles to optimise their travels, there are hundreds and thousands of people who don’t. Those are who the big banks and companies rely on for their big profits.
As expats in the US, credit scores and your ability to obtain credit works really differently to Australia.
In Australia, as long as you don’t have a bad credit history and a sufficient steady income, then obtaining credit cards, car loans, home loans etc. is simple.
But in US, it’s a totally different story.
In the US, it’s all about demonstrating you have a good credit history before they extend credit to you. Having no credit history is pretty much deemed as bad credit history.
So as an expat with no credit history, getting credit for a car loan, credit cards, post-paid utilities and signing a rental agreement are all very challenging without the right support and strategies.
We were able to get a US American Express credit card from the get-go by using our Australian American Express credit history, and a low credit Bank of America card using proof of expat employment.
But to get the really good credit cards to play the points and miles game, we had to wait around 1 year before to build our credit score up before we could start applying for cards from Chase.
Saving $400+ in flight costs to Miami
Our trip of the month for January was a long weekend getaway to Miami, Florida.
Houston is a hub for United Airline, one of the three major US legacy airlines.
Since we prefer to travel with no stopovers to save time—even if it means paying a little bit extra. Trust me avoiding the headaches of flight delays and cancellations is well worth it, since airlines here are notorious for delays.
Over the last year and a half we’ve banked up some United miles from flying mostly United.
We redeemed 30,000 United miles and paid $11.20 in taxes for 2 seats in economy to fly direct from Houston to Miami.
Using miles saved us $405.76 in flight costs.
And since my husband still has United Gold status, we had also had access to complimentary Economy Plus seats which gave us more leg room. It makes the short 2+ hours domestic flight just a little bit more comfortable!
The economy plus seats would typically cost around $30 a person, saving us $60.
Our long weekend trip to Miami and Everglades National Park
In case you didn’t know, Miami is not a cheap long weekend getaway.
Accommodation was especially expensive.
We planned to hire a car for a day to drive across to Everglades National Park, just outside of Miami.
So we opted to stay closer to Miami airport, at the Holiday Inn Express, as it was more convenient to get to and from the airport, and included free parking.
But the downside of this hotel is that there’s no easy public transport—we ended up Ubering or walking every else else for the other days in Miami.
Traffic in Miami could also give Houston a run for its money!
Miami is a compact, grid-like city. At first glance on google maps, key places didn’t look far from each other. But the traffic and lack of good public transport between key areas meant Uber was the more efficient way to get around.
The heavy traffic also meant car rides easily took 2x or 3x longer than expected!
Miami is a foodie’s heaven
There were so many fantastic places to eat in Miami.
Here are our food adventure highlights in the three days in Miami:
- Ariete in Coconut Grove: An relatively affordable 1-Michelin star restaurant. The pressed duck for two on the menu attracted our attention since we didn’t get a chance to try this classic dish during our trip to Paris last July. The service was good
- Sanguich, in Little Havana: Cuban culture and food is huge in Miami. If you visit Miami, trying a Cuban sandwich is a must. The line at Sanguich was long even first thing in the morning when it just opened. But it was well-worth the day. We got the classic Cubano and the Pan Con Lechon.
- Edan in North Miami: Located out of the way in North Miami. A little corner restaurant that looks like it was out of the usual tourist-traffic area. The mushroom croquette balls and gooey basque cheese cake were my favourites. My husband really enjoyed the dry-aged boneless ribeye for two
- Los Felix in Coconut Grove: On our final morning in Miami, we headed back out to Coconut Grove to try brunch at this 3 year running Michelin star Mexican restaurant. As it was an anniversary trip, they offered us free bubbles on the house. We ordered a guacamole, pork tacos and the fish of the day to share. All the dishes and condiments were delicious. Highly recommend.
Everglades National Park
There are actually two easily accessible national parks from Miami, Biscayne National Park and Everglade National Park.
Biscayne National Park is effectively a water park—people go here for boating, diving, snorkelling etc.
Everglades National Park is a haven for subtropical wildlife (e.g. crocodiles, alligators, birds, manatees).
Since we’re not water people, Everglades was the perfect choice for us.
There are 3 main entrances into Everglades National Park, but each area distinct and not accessible within the park. The closest entrance to this Everglades, Shark Valley, is actually only 45minutes away from Miami!
Since we only had one full day to explore Everglades, we spent the morning at Shark Valley district and then the afternoon in the Flamingo district.
The highlight at Shark Valley was taking the 2-hour guided tram ride through this part of the National park.
We saw a lot of American alligators and colourful birds. The guide was entertaining and knowledgeable about the wildlife and area. Highly recommend the tram tour if you’re short on time.
You can also walk or bike the Shark Valley area, but you’ll need to give yourself a lot more time.
The Flamingo district is very different from Shark Valley.
The drive from the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center entrance all the way through to Guy Bradley Visitor center takes around 45 minutes, but there are a lot of easy short walks and lookouts to stop by along the way.
Both visitor centres are also really educational and interesting—well worth a drop in.
We gave ourselves around 3 to 4 hours to stop by a few short walks, saw some birdlife and saw a manatee ducking in and out of the water at the jetty near the visitor centre.
Must-dos in Miami
- Explore Little Havana. Walk along SW 8th Street in Little Havana on a weekend to experience the hustle and business, Cuban culture and duck into one of the many restaurants along the way. Pick up a Cuban sandwich at Sanguich or be refreshed with an interesting flavoured ice cream at Azucar Ice Cream
- Miami South Beach. Miami is known for beach and sun, so visiting South Beach is a must-do tourist attraction. I loved the colourful lifeguard towers dotting the beaches.
- Española Way in South Beach. A busy little strip of restaurants. Really quaint and colourful. It’s a touristy area, but worth walking through even if you’re not planning to dine here.
- Admire art deco building along Ocean Drive and all around South Beach. If you’re an architecture fan, you’ll enjoy checking out the pastel coloured buildings in the area. Many of which have been converted to restaurants and hotels. We didn’t have time to do an art deco walking tour, but that was something on offer as well.
- Miami Design District. We had some time before heading to the airport on Sunday afternoon, so we decided to squeeze in a few hours here. This is the creative and luxury shopping hub of Miami. If you’re not into luxury shopping, this is still a fun place to visit. The architecture was funky and interesting. It’s a great place to people watch too—we should a bunch of photo shoots (influencer fashion shoots?) while we were walking around the area.
- Wynwood Arts District. This is the hipster district in Miami filled with artistic graffiti art, hip restaurants and indie stores. Wynwood Walls is another is a street art museum in the heart of this distract. For $12 per adult, you get to see some really creative art pieces and graffiti art.
American Airlines Flagship Lounge in Miami
The Texas hub for American Airlines is based in Dallas-Fortworth airport.
We rarely fly American Airlines because it often involves a stopover at Dallas—something we want to avoid at all costs.
Miami to Houston is one of the rare routes where there is a direct flight. And American Airlines back to Houston was significantly cheaper than United Airlines.
As my husband still has Qantas Gold (equivalent to One World Sapphire), we could access the American Airlines Flagship lounge at Miami Airport before departing Miami. The lounge definitely has a more premium feel and one of the better lounges we’ve visited while travelling around the US.
The buffet had a good mix of soups, appetisers and mains. Along with a pasta station where a staff member cooked up a custom dish of pasta for you.
The drinks on offer was also quite extensive. There was a variety of sparking, wines, spirits and non-alcoholic drinks. All self-serve.
The economy flight itself was fine.
Nothing bad nor outstanding.
Like all legacy airlines in in America, domestic flights are pretty basic, the cabins are normally quite packed and the boarding can feel overwhelming—American Airlines has 9 boarding groups!
Making Travel Planning Easier (Free Template in Notion)
A goal without a plan is a dream.
So the first step to start travelling and exploring more is to get organised and intentional about making a plan and locking in travel dates ahead of time so the trips actually happens.
But I get it. There’s a lot to juggling when it comes to travel planning—itinerary, accommodation, flight options, things to do, recommended food and drink places etc.
I wouldn’t recommend keeping track of all that in your head. I’m a big Notion fan and I use that to plan and track all our trips. I also use it for other things like meal planning, tracking my tasks and projects, and keeping track of my camera gear etc.
Notion is free to use, hyper customisable and saves you time by giving you the ability to templatise things you do often.
So you’re not reinventing the wheel each time you want to plan a new trip in Notion.
If you want to make travel planning easier, start with downloading my free Travel Hub Template System in Notion that’s been downloaded more than 824+ times below:
Out and about in Houston
There is nothing particularly touristy about Houston except for NASA Space Center.
But the one thing Houston has going for it is the big food scene. You can get almost any cuisine in Houston.
So much so that Michelin finally came to Texas in 2024, awarding 15 restaurants one Michelin star (6 in Houston).
Since our time in Houston is limited, we have an effort to head out a few times a month to try a new place
Our Houston restaurant highlight for the month is Corkscrew Barbeque, a 1-michelin star place.
Technically it’s in the neighbourhood of Spring, near IAH airport, but easily drivable from Houston.
We went on a Friday and got there around opening time. We waited in line for 45 minutes before ordering. Once the order was in the food was fair quick to arrive.
A few other favourites we went back to were La Lucha and Simply Coffie up in the Heights area.
A surprise snow fall in Houston
Last year, Houston experienced it’s annual winter freeze when an arctic blast flies through the US.
This year, Houston didn’t just freeze and ice over. It snowed!
A really cool experience to see snow in Houston, even if it was just a few hours in the morning.
I’ve never seen Houston empty and silent—no cars, no traffic noises in the distance, not a soul on the road.
Living in an apartment facing towards downtown Houston, we can clearly see the 610 highway loop. And this highway is never quiet regardless of the time of day (including in the dead of the night).
The city effectively shut down for a few days.
Everyone was told to stay home and get off the roads. Houston is not built for ice and snow.
I reluctantly put on my heavy snow jacket that I bought for our Christmas trip to Jackson hole and headed outside to our apartment building entrance to experience fresh snow fall.
It was eerie to see Houston so quiet, but absolutely beautiful to see Houston covered in white snow.
Learned the Zettelkasten technique for managing knowledge and tried Obsidian (digital tool)
Our modern life is filled an overwhelming amount of digital noise and information coming at us from all directions.
Sometimes it’s knowledge and information we actually want to capture, use or reference later.
But unless we have a system for doing this, it can feel really overwhelming.
I’ve been using Notion for the last 5 years and love using the tool to manage my tasks, projects, notes, ideas and so on.
It’s such a powerful, flexible and customisable tool.
The one thing I haven’t managed to crack the code on is implementing the Zettelkasten system in Notion.
So in January I hopped into a workshop series learning all implementing Zettelkasten another tool called Obsidian.
In a nutshell, Zettelkasten is a personal thinking, knowledge and writing method invented by a German researcher, Niklas Luhmann. In his lifetime, he wrote over 50 books and 600+ research articles. And he gives credit to using this system.
The workshop was a quick way to learn how the system works and how I could implement one myself.
I can see the benefits, especially when it comes to original thinking and connecting ideas. But I’ve yet to fully commit to having another system.
Final Thoughts
That’s a wrap on January 2025.
I’m hoping to work on the February recap shortly. Some exciting stuff to recap, including a last minute Disney Cruise Line experience and trip to Mexico.
I’m keen to hear, what’s your highlight from January and February this year?
Until next time, happy travelling!
Janice.
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