About / The traveler behind the guide

Hi, I’m Jacob.

Long before GoWild! or HowToGoWild.com, there was a high school kid who figured out he could afford a plane ticket to Orlando all by himself—a few flights to Orlando, if done right!

That trip changed the way I thought about travel. It made me realize that seeing the world didn't necessarily require a huge budget; you just had to know how to make the system work for you, not against you!

I've been figuring out how to do exactly that ever since.

Get to know me Travel by the Numbers

Jacob, the traveler behind HowToGoWild.com — Portrait coming soon. Adventure ongoing.

01 / The story

A little about me

Today, I'm an avid budget traveler, self-proclaimed cheapskate, points-and-miles enthusiast, aviation nerd, and elementary school music teacher based in Denver. I've taken more than 700 flights, traveled over 820,000 miles through the air, visited more than 116 airports, flown 45 airlines to almost 40 countries, spent countless hours in airport lounges enjoying free bourbon, and redeemed hundreds of thousands of miles and points for free travel.

And somewhere along the way, Frontier Airlines became a pretty big part of the story.

02 / The story

Then came GoWild!

In November 2022, I opened an email from Frontier Airlines promising essentially unlimited flights for a penny plus an annual membership fee.

My immediate reaction was something along the lines of: Surely this can't be real.

And if it was real, there had to be a lot of strings attached.

As a budget traveler living in Denver, Frontier's most-connected city, I needed to figure out exactly what this thing was. Frontier wanted $599 for the original GoWild! Pass, and I wanted to know whether it could actually be worth it.

It turned out to be very real.

It was also very confusing.

Thousands of people were trying to figure out the same product in real time. Some were seasoned Frontier travelers, while others had never stepped foot on an ultra-low-cost carrier before. Questions piled up about booking windows, blackout dates, bags, seats, connections, availability, fees, and all the little details that can make the difference between an incredible trip and an incredibly frustrating one.

I saw a gap between the way Frontier explained the pass and the information people actually needed to successfully use it.

So I started trying to fill it.

03 / The story

From a PDF to a community

I became one of the early members of an online GoWild! community and started sharing what I was learning from my own travels. People started commenting, sharing my explanations, and pointing other travelers toward them. Before long, I was asked to take over managing the group.

And it just kept growing.

What easily could have become another airline complaint group instead became a genuine community of people who shared a sense of adventure and, in many cases, the same champagne taste on a beer budget.

I've made friends because of it. I've been recognized in airport lounges and on airplanes. I've even had Frontier flight attendants greet me by name when I board—something that a twenty-something penny pincher from Missouri never expected.

Today, that community has grown to nearly 90,000 members.

Along the way, I created something else: the GoWild Guide.

It started as a plain-text PDF containing what I thought of as the “missing pieces”—the things Frontier didn't communicate, or didn't communicate particularly well.

People started saving it, sharing it, and referring new passholders to it when they ran into the same problems we had already figured out.

A few pages became more pages.

Eventually, that little document became a roughly 30-page guide covering not only GoWild!, but plenty of the tricks I'd learned about flying Frontier in general.

Recently, though, I decided a PDF wasn't enough anymore.

04 / The story

HowToGoWild.com

HowToGoWild.com is the next evolution of that original guide.

I wanted to take the information I've spent years collecting and combine it with the information and tools I actually use when planning my own travels, without losing the authenticity that made the original guide useful in the first place.

The result is part reference guide, part travel planner, part toolbox, part blog, and probably a few things that don't fit neatly into any of those categories.

You'll find tools designed to make confusing Frontier rules easier to understand, resources for planning GoWild! trips, information about the Frontier fleet and seats, booking guidance, FrontierMiles information, airport and flight information, FAQs based on the questions I've seen people ask again and again, and plenty of little features hidden throughout the site.

This isn't Frontier's guide to using GoWild!.

It's a GoWild! traveler's guide to using GoWild!.

Everything here comes from years of actually doing this: trying things, making mistakes, finding better ways to do them, watching policies change, and learning something new with practically every flight.

And I've taken quite a few of those flights.

A few flights. A lot of lessons.

Travel by the Numbers

700+: Lifetime flights
820,000+: Miles flown
116+: Airports
45: Airlines
Almost 40: Countries
395+: Frontier flights
Hundreds of thousands: Miles and points redeemed for free travel
Countless: Airport lounge visits

A Few Frontier Favorites

Favorite Frontier Destination

Sint Maarten (SXM)

Favorite Frontier Plane Tail

Ed, Edwin & Eddie

Most-Flown Frontier Aircraft

Cali the Mountain Lion

10 flights and counting

As Seen In

From the Community to the News

As GoWild! grew, reporters started reaching out, too.

I've had the opportunity to talk about GoWild!, Frontier Airlines, airline loyalty programs, budget travel, and the economics of low-cost flying with journalists from national and local media.

I've been interviewed or featured by The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, SFGATE, and 5280 Magazine, and appeared on Good Morning America/ABC News discussing changes to Frontier's loyalty program.

The Wall Street JournalGoWild! & flexible travelRead the story ReutersThe economics of budget airlinesRead syndicated coverage Los Angeles TimesMaking the GoWild! Pass workRead the story

NBC NewsGoWild! & the passholder experience

SFGATEIs the all-you-can-fly pass worth it?Read the story 5280 MagazineA Colorado perspective on GoWild!Read the story Good Morning America / ABC NewsChanges to Frontier’s loyalty programRead the story

Selected coverage. Reuters links to a syndicated article; some publications may require a subscription.

Those opportunities have been pretty surreal for someone whose involvement in all of this began with opening a $599 promotional email and thinking, there's no way this is actually real.

But the reason I continue doing this isn't to be on television or quoted in a newspaper.

It's because I still believe what I discovered when I bought that plane ticket to Orlando in high school:

Travel can be affordable.

It may require flexibility. It may require learning a few tricks. And sometimes it may require reading way too much fine print.

But there are extraordinary adventures available to people who might otherwise assume travel simply isn't in their budget.

That's what I want HowToGoWild.com to help you find.

I'm still traveling, still experimenting, still learning, and still sharing what I learn along the way.

So welcome aboard.

I truly hope you're able to have a better adventure because of something you find here.

— Jacob

Find your next adventure