Getting to the fun of the details of the trip

As I finished Monday's post I mentioned that I would go into a bit more detail of the plans for the excitement of the trip ahead when I had a chance.

Piecing Together Ideas for each destination

My initial discussion in Trailfinders was completed with everything booked and the deposit paid by the 7th of October. I then spent the next few months reading blogs and other online sources about each of our destinations, booking most of the accommodation in those quiet days between Christmas and New Year.

San Francisco

This was the easiest part of the planning. Once the flights were confirmed I simply went to the Hotel Triton website to look at rooms.

My first visit to San Francisco was in 1994, which was also my first visit to the USA. My sister, brother-in-law and brother and I travelled around California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, flying in to Los Angeles and out of San Francisco. Like New York three years later, my first visit to San Francisco gave me a sense of déjà vu. The iconic sites brought back so many of the films and TV series of my younger years.

Hotel Triton - a home from home

Two years later (1997) I stopped at San Francisco for six days on my way home from Australia. The travel agent though whom I had booked this holiday had stayed in the Hotel Triton herself some years before and recommended it to me when I asked for a hotel in the centre of the town. Since then I have stayed at the Triton in 2000 (in January and September), 2002, 2009 and 2013. On my last visit I wrote a few words about the hotel on the blog.

So we are staying at the Hotel Triton from Friday the 2nd of August to Tuesday the 6th and then from Tuesday the 20th to Friday the 23rd. There are lots of plans of places to visit when we are back in the City by the Bay - I can't wait.

Kauai

I suspect Kauai will be the surprise of the holiday. Looking at what the island has to offer I decided it would be worth booking a car for our short stay here as the various sights are spread around the island. 

Kauai, Hawaii - Google Maps

The little red flags <<Co-Pilot's Note: He means, dear readers, Green Flags, you have to forgive him as he is colour blind!! Poor Dab.>> on the Google Maps image above are some of the key sights. As you see they are spread wide across the island, which is why we think we need a car. The sights include: Waimea Canyon State Park; Nā Pali Coast State Wilderness Park; Poipu Beach; Spouting Horn; Nawiliwili Harbour and Hanalei Bay. 

I spent a long time looking at places to stay, as I'd never heard of Kauai (pronounced Coweee) before planning the holiday, let alone been there. After evaluating the options we decided to stay near Poipu, with its wide range of restaurants, at the Poipu Bed and Breakfast Inn. We will be there from Tuesday the 6th of August until Friday the 9th.

Honolulu

Unlike Kauai I suspect Honolulu will seem familiar when we get there. Having grown up with Hawaii Five O, Magnum and Tora, Tora, Tora there should be some familiar scenes. Granted Tora, Tora, Tora was made in the 70s and depicted the 40s. Hawaii Five O was made in the 70s too, and Magnum in the 80s, so I suspect things will have changed. However the obsession with Waikiki in Five O and Magnum did lead me to look in that area for a place to stay. Finding the Holiday Inn Express as a base from which to see the sights of the city. So we are there from Friday the 9th to Monday the 12th of August. Most of the city is within half an hour walk of Waikiki, so there seems to be a lot to do. But we may need a bit of rest and relaxation by this point in the holiday?

Alaska

Of all the parts of the holiday it is the Alaska bit that felt easiest to plan. Why? Well because we are using the 8 days we have in what will be the 50th State of the USA that we have visited to have the kind of holiday with which we are familiar. i.e. a driving tour.

With the help of Trailfinders we discovered we could fly overnight from Honolulu to Anchorage, and this seems a good use of our time. We opted to upgrade this flight to ensure we could rest on the journey. So we will leave Honolulu at 9:40pm on Monday the 12th and arrive in Anchorage at 6:00am on Tuesday the 13th.

We pick up another hire car at Anchorage Airport and take the route outlined in the map below:

Alaska Route - 1,258 miles over 8 days, we did that over three days last year

The route takes us to:

Homer - Tuesday 13th 
Homer - Wednesday 14th
Anchorage - Thursday 15th
Denali - Friday 16th
Fairbanks - Saturday 17th
Fairbanks - Sunday 18th
Copper Center - Monday 19th
Return to Anchorage Airport for flight to San Francisco - Tuesday 20th

The key things that informed our (my) decision making with the rest of the route included (a) visiting the Kenai Peninsula (b) being in the right place on a Sunday for Mass (not as easy in Alaska as in other parts of the US) (c) visiting Mount McKinley, as it was called when I studied geography, its name having been restored to the native name of Denali since 2015. 

As you see the route picks up on all of these criteria. While the route to Homer from Anchorage and back sees us retracing our steps, something I try to avoid on holiday, but the shortage of roads in the area means a round trip isn't possible. On the other hand I have no reason to go to Copper Center, other than it was choice between going from Fairbanks to Anchorage this slightly lengthy way or going south the way we went North. At least on this occasion we didn't have to retrace our route.

Many people who visit Alaska travel by cruise boat up the 'Inside Passage' which begins in Astoria, Oregon travels up the British Columbia coastline and into Alaskan waters including Juneau, the State Capital. That part of Alaska is on a South-Eastern peninsula that is further south than most of the state. The map below shows our route in the context of the wider view of Alaska.

Alaska is a big place

So we may be traveling a thousand odd miles, but we will still be only touching on the immensity of Alaska. At Copper Center, we will only be 2,000 miles by road from Vancouver (1,200 as the crow flies), the nearest point between this year's trip and last year's.

Starting the journey home

After completing our circuit in Alaska we will leave Anchorage and return to San Francisco for a few days of chilling before flying home. It feels like a busy holiday when I write it out in this much detail, but I think it will be worth it to get to our last two states and achieve a complete set.

Time

There is one item I think I may struggle with on the holiday, time changes. Normally when in Canada or the USA we gain an hour of daylight a day when we cross a time-zone boundary. So any jet-lag is overcome once the Atlantic is crossed, not during the holiday.

This time however time shifts might be even more dramatic. Once the 8 hours time difference between London and San Francisco is overcome, we have three hours to Hawaii and then two hours the other way between Alaska and Hawaii. I may get confused, let's hope my body is more resilient!

Seeing it on my phone makes it a little clearer: 

What time is it??

So it's 1.04pm here, 5:04am in San Francisco, 4:04 in Anchorage and 2:04am in Honolulu. So for much of the holiday most of my readers will be asleep when I am writing!

Please note Tamworth, at the bottom of the image, is in New South Wales, Australia, where my brother and his family live. We are normally 9 hours different, in Honolulu we'll be 20 hours different. i.e. we'll not often be in the same day!! Weird.

I'm sure we'll cope however, indeed the time variation may turn out to be part of the fun - we'll see. 

Tomorrow

So folks - tomorrow the journey/adventure begins, I look forward to you joining us, virtually, during the time away.