I am not what you’d call a spontaneous traveler these days. With 2 kids, 5 pets, 1 career, 1 house, and 1 spouse, I don’t exactly go into paroxysms of joy when airfares and hotel rooms go on sale.

That ship? Has pretty much sailed.

So when Travelzoo asked me to take trip from their weekly Travelzoo Top 20 list of deals and write about it (their treat), I wondered if I was really the right person for the job.

I mean, a 7-night Caribbean cruise for $349 sounds just delightful, but who’s going to feed the cats? Will the kids have to take unexcused absences at school? And—perhaps most chilling—will we face social ostracism if we skip the annual neighborhood Oktoberfest block party?

Then I took a closer look.

In and among the cruises, New York theater tickets, and flights to Europe, I saw a deeply discounted Saturday night stay at a historic 4-star hotel not 30 miles from my house. Hmmmm.

Here’s how the list comes together: every week more than 40 Travelzoo experts in 20 offices across 3 continents dervishly network with 900 travel companies to ferret out great deals. Only the 20 best deals make the list, which is published every Wednesday.

I wrote back and accepted, and that’s when they dropped the bombshell.

They wanted to send me a Flip Video so I could film the trip and post the videos on Travel Savvy Mom.

God help me, I accepted that too.

September 28th, 2008 | by Jamie Pearson 8 comments