Here’s some info on military discouts and recreation places courtesy of Melissa who just came out of an IA deployment this past summer:
Please contact us if you have some travel tips/websites to share! We’ll post them here.
Melissa’s Tip: When you contact these people, if you mention you’re a military spouse and your husband’s deployed that usually helps!
1. Army One Source (http://www.myarmyonesource.com) – Recreation, Travel, and BOSS tab has info on the Armed Forces Recreation Centers which are family oriented resort hotels; Leisure travel for info about attraction tickets, commercial hotels, travel deals; military lodging options (we’ve used this quite a bit when we travel instead of staying in a commercial hotel. You can often get a family suite with separate bedrooms and a kitchenette for significantly less than a regular hotel – more info about this below); and info about the recreation centers and opportunities available.
2. MWR Site – http://www.armymwr.com. They appear to have similiar info to Army One Source.
3. Military Lodging – As I said above, this has worked really well for us, escpecially travelling with kids. http://dodlodging.net/ is the site for Air Force and Navy lodging. They tend to live a lot better than the Army! The Army lodging site is http://www.armymwr.com/travel/lodging/default.aspx.
4. Armed Forces Vacation Club (http://www.afvclub.com)- They offer condos and vacation properties for rent. You can search by location and date.
5. Military One Source (http://www.militaryonesource.com) - They are their to help you with anything you might need. You can always email them with what you are looking for and they might be able to do some leg work for you. Also on their site, you can click on the Find Information tab, then Family and Recreation, then Recreation and Shopping which has some travel links that might help.
6. Sato Travel – (https://www.satovacations.com/) – They are a travel agency for the military and their families. To be honest, we have not had the best luck with them. A regular travel agent who knows you’re militray and can get you the discounts for that might be easier.