As a kid, and to this day, I have loved airplanes. I remember watching them fly overhead, high in the sky. Then I’d think of all the people on board and I’d actually feel, well, left behind. I’d wonder where those people were going. What they were going to see. While there I was, stuck in the same old same old.

I have always been a traveler, mostly not of my own choice. I grew up as a Navy brat, so we packed up and moved to a different coastal port every few years. Our family would take day trips in the old station wagon to nearby destinations or on cross country vacations. It was there, in the back seat with my brother and sister, where I learned to love being mobile. Where I learned to love the feeling of seeing something so new and unfamiliar. Where I learned to appreciate something as simple as a city’s landscape or flora just for being different from what I saw everyday. To this day, I still love this feeling.

I guess that it was inevitable that I ended up working for the airlines.

I started working for Mesaba Airlines in 1999. It was there where I took my first non-rev trip, an out and back to Raleigh-Durham (I never left the airport.) Back then, it was a love of flying that led me to so much non-revving. I just wanted to be in an airplane, high above the sky, watching the world below. I didn’t care where the plane was going or how much time I had there. Finally, I was one of those people in the sky. And, perhaps, there was a kid far below watching us the way I used to so long ago.

Then, I was employed by Delta Air Lines, and their non-revenue choices out of my hometown were much more numerous. The way I non-reved had evolved over the years. In the beginning, I flew just for the sake of flying. Toward the end, I just wanted to get there. In the beginning, to get to any place, I’d take weird routings with plenty of stops. It evolved to taking the quickest way possible to maximize my visit time in each city.

I used to try to visit a new city about once a week. I always liked to keep the costs down. I saved money by not eating on these trips as it tended to slow me down. (If I did, it was something cheap at the airport somewhere on the way back home.) Another way was to use [gasp] public transportation.

I have grown up in big cities where public transportation is a way of life, so taking the bus or subway is not a big deal to me (others I speak to have a total misconception of public transit.) It is very cheap and usually just as convenient. Sometimes I rent a car, but after fees and taxes and gas and parking, an eight dollar day pass on the city’s metro looks pretty good. Don’t be shy to take these options. Just get on the internet (see Resources) get any pertinent route and fare information, print up the info you may need and go! Just don’t forget the Backpack.