Who Are We?

Bret is a 20-something writer, traveler, hockey fanatic and staring contest runner-up from Southern California.  His idea of travel used to be driving across town for an In-N-Out burger.  But after his first international experience, he caught the travel bug, which he initially confused with malaria (turns out it was just heartburn from the In-N-Out).  Besides speaking about himself in the third person, Bret enjoys the simple things in life, such as iPods, Blu-ray movies and reverse osmosis water filtration systems.  If you’d like to remind him of how unfortunate it is to have the initials “BS,” feel free to e-mail him at bret [at] thejetpacker.com

Jackie is a writer, traveler and editor extraordinaire.  She’s also our resident web guru (and by “guru” we mean “novice”).  She was well-traveled as a kid, but didn’t really develop a passion for it until after college.  In an extremely cruel bit of irony, Jackie’s passion for traveling is at constant odds with her intense fear of flying, and she’s anxiously awaiting the era of “travel by teleportation.” When she’s not traveling, Jackie enjoys not being on an airplane, watching sports (especially hockey), playing poker and being a slave to her urban rabbit.  Email her at jackie [at] thejetpacker.com

What’s Our Blog All About?

We’re two friends who think travel is best when you have someone to share it with.  When we started traveling, we realized that too many travel blogs advocated cutting corners so much that eventually you strip your trip of any excitement.  Sleeping on cockroach infested beds in a hostel and eating microwaveable noodle bowls doesn’t make for a memorable travel experience in our opinion.  We don’t want to go to a global hot spot and sacrifice fun for low prices.  So we search for ways to take a high-class vacation on a middle-class budget.  We’ll be sharing tips, deals, advice, resources and information on how to have a 4-star trip at a 2-star price.

Where Do We Travel?

Dodging machete-wielding villagers, fending off hungry lions, and traversing unstable terrain in fifth world countries isn’t our idea of a fun trip.  Instead, we prefer to visit popular tourist destinations so we can share our experiences before you travel there. We might visit the occasional obscure destination as long as we feel confident we’ll return with good stores to tell… and our limbs.