Hello, and welcome to my personal travel website. My name is Moawia.

the backstory

I grew up in Sudan, where I studied and then practiced architecture early in my career. My first international trip was at the age of five to Ivory Coast in West Africa – yes, that was the name back then, before it became Côte d’Ivoire. We moved following my father as an expat with the African Development Bank and United Nations stationed in Ivory Coast. We moved often, living as expats in a succession of countries worldwide as my father was assigned to various United Nations posts.

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early on…

Fifteen years later, while I was a junior at the University of Khartoum (Sudan), I took a trip of a lifetime with a group of four college friends. We spent a month backpacking across three countries in Europe: Greece, Yugoslavia, and Austria. We had limited funds and zero experience planning such a trip. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun! During this trip, I learned a great deal about myself. It also opened my eyes to the possibilities and what the world has to offer: diverse cultures and history, awesome people, and great architecture – oh, and did I forget delicious food?!

and now…

I currently live in the Phoenix area in Arizona, in the USA. And I am lucky to have been afforded the opportunity to do what I love most: working for a national construction company building great things and continuing to travel and explore the world.

Today, my desire to travel has developed into a serious hobby. Unlike travel nomads and those who quit their cubicle jobs to travel for a living and blog about it, I continue to hold a full-time job and fanatically pursue my travel dreams. My job is awesome, and I love that it helps me collect airline miles and hotel points to lower the cost of my adventures.

As a result, my trips are planned around work and family schedules. Without a doubt, trips I take with family and friends are the best, however, I have also had a good share of successful and joyous solo adventures. Because my travel budget is limited, I do my best to use airline miles and hotel points to stretch my budget and save. I also leverage bonus points offered by travel credit cards to help cover expenses for day trips and other local experiences.

what am I most grateful for?

A friend once asked me: “What are you most grateful for?” Without hesitation my reply was:

“I am grateful that I live in a diverse world, I get to travel to enjoy it using miles and points, and most importantly, my wife lets me do it unsupervised.”

While I love to travel, I have many pet peeves regarding air travel, including wasted time at airports and security lines, the stress of flying, and the ever-shrinking space in planes. To me, it’s all about the destination, and I mentally prepare myself for what awaits as I travel. But there is no denying that the journey – time spent at airports and during flights – can be just as memorable. And, I’ve learned to never let airport and flight delays ruin any trip. I guess I have managed that by setting the bar low and have come to expect airports and airlines to disappoint. Sigh.

lastly…

Every city, hotel, and restaurant reviewed on this site I’ve personally visited. The same applies to photos in my portfolio, which I took using my iPhone or my Nikon DSLR. Admittedly, I am neither a writer nor a professional photographer, but this website is an attempt to share my passion for travel while collecting and spending miles and points

countries I’ve visited:

So far I have been to four continents, and visited or lived in the countries highlighted on this world map.