About Us – Mr. and Mrs. Just One Carry-On
Our Background
Hi everyone! Thank you for visiting our travel (and lifestyle) blog! I am Mrs. Just One Carry-On (aka Mrs. Jo), and my husband is Mr. Just One Carry-On (aka Mr. Jo). We are both second generation Chinese-Americans from Plano, TX. We are in our mid 30’s and love to travel!
Our Family
We have two toddlers (Jo Jr. age 3.5 and Missy Jo age 1.5), who definitely make traveling interesting to say the least! Sometimes we travel with them and sometimes without. We also enjoy romantic getaways or traveling with family and friends. We are both very close to our extended families, and our parents both live in Plano as well. In fact, my parents just bought the house right behind us. I know you must think we are crazy, but it’s going to be amazing! Free babysitting anytime!!
How we do Travel
We always try to optimize our vacation. In other words, we try to find the best combination of price, location, and luxury for hotels. Also, we look for the best flight prices or rewards redemption and the most ideal travel itinerary. Of course, it’s also our mission to see the best of what the world has to offer while finding the best places and things to eat.
Since we both have full-time jobs, we try to make the most of the limited vacation days we have. Hopefully, you will be able to find at least a few tips here that you can adapt to your own optimized vacation!
How We Met
Mr. Jo and I met during college at the University of Texas at Austin. Hook ’em! Mr. Jo graduated with an electrical engineering degree and worked in that field for a few years. Later, he went back to school and got an MBA from Southern Methodist University. During his MBA, he interned at American Airlines, and this is where our love for optimized travel began!
Inspiration for Just One Carry-On
After graduation, he accepted a full-time position with American Airlines and we have been globetrotters ever since. One great benefit of working for an airline is low-cost standby flights, which we try to utilize as often as we can in our air travels. Non-revenue flying does present its own challenges, however.
Packing light (i.e. just one carry-on) allows us to quickly change flights or make short connections (and it’s just easier when you’ve got two toddlers in-tow).
Mr. Jo’s Travel Roles
Mr. Jo is the itinerary planner and vacation researcher for our family. He is absolutely meticulous and is obsessed with planning the best vacation. Getting the best bang for our buck is his specialty.
After travelling to a few amazing destinations, our friends and family started asking us for our recommendations and travel itineraries and some even asked Mr. Jo to plan entire vacations. We thought other people might find his tips useful, so that became our inspiration for starting this blog!
Mr. Jo’s other interests include: being a dad, travel hacking, college and pro sports of any kind, movies, doing laundry and washing dishes (maybe if I write it down it will be true?).
Mrs. Jo’s Travel Roles
As far as my background, after college, I completed medical school, residency, and fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center. I studied the fields of anesthesiology and critical care and practice full-time.
Not what you were expecting, right? Well, the often long hours that I work make the vacation days all the more precious. Seeing incredible sites, immersing myself in different cultures, trying new foods, and kicking my feet up on a nice sandy beach rejuvenates me every time!
My vacation titles include: luggage packer, food-seeker, shopper, photographer, and child tamer. I’ll be blogging about our latest travel itineraries and best tips as well as how we life hack in between trips!
My other interests include: being a mom, teaching Kindergarten Sunday School, volunteering at my church, making healthy/tasty/easy meals that my kids will eat, crocheting, crafting with my silhouette cameo, making jewelry, doing yoga, and pursuing financial independence.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about our travels, please don’t hesitate to contact us or post on our website!