Washington, DC

This trip was the first of my solo traveling journey (excluding the times of visiting back home and mandatory military travels) and honing my credit card benefits. I used the welcome bonus of the Chase Sapphire Reserve to book a 5 day stay at the Red Roof Inn, which was not good and only because of how cheap it was. I explore many of the D.C attractions to include the National Mall, White House, and Capital. It was only for one day but I did pretty much everything I wanted to see in that area.

I attended both the Air & Space Forces (AFA) National Convention and Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The convention was on Saturday and Sunday, which was about all the leaders of AFA in each state (including me!) voting together on new policies and national leaders. While the Conference was from Monday to Wednesday and was about all hearing the Air and Space Force leaders speaking and having big civilian military related companies showcase their products. Both opened my eyes on how big and universal military life can be and I got to meet many of the leaders directly!

After the Air Force event, I visited family in Virginia. My uncle picked me up but we couldn’t go to Andrews Air Force Base because his driver’s license wasn’t a real ID (next time). I hanged out with my cousins that I haven’t seen in years, and it was cool to catch up with them. They live in an apartment and have an IT and cyber job, which are what I am aiming for if I do leave the military. I took them to this fancy expensive restautrant as I have the OpenTable credit from Chase. We visited the Air Force Memorial and went around the Pentagon Mall as well. Afterwards, I got dropped off at the IAD airport and off I went home. I did pretty well for my first big solo travel, and this sparked a spree of traveling I never expected to do!