Planning the Holiday

In the blog yesterday I mentioned sharing the thought processes of the planning for this holiday to the last two states (both the last two to become states in the USA, and the last two for us to visit). So here is how we came to the decision to take the holiday we are taking this year.

First Thoughts 

Having completed visits to the 48 contiguous states in 2013 (me) and 2015 (Drew) I thought we had completed our US targets, as this was always my expectation and dream and we had succeeded. 

Indeed I remember the lovely meal we had in the Pirogue Grille, Bismark, North Dakota to celebrate my 48th state. However since then quite a number of people have said why not go for the 50, but I had no great incentive to do so. For me the 48 contiguous states seem like a unit, while the other two seemed like an add on. 

When we came to early discussions about 2019 holidays back in 2016 we didn’t have any bright ideas. The 2017 trip to Florida and 2018 to Canada had been planned (in general terms) and scheduled for four or five years, but we had no ideas for 2019. In case Paula Keys asks, yes I do keep a holiday planning spreadsheet!  It was at this point that Drew has the bright idea to make it to the 49th and 50th states, and suggested we should look at how hard it would be to pick up these final two states, so we began to look at options. 

Of course the internet was our first location to look for potential trips. At the time Trailfinders, the travel agents, had a tour called The Tour of Ice and Fire, as I mentioned yesterday this is a reference to the Game of Thrones original novel series which is called A Song of Ice and Fire. The title Game of Thrones being the name of the first book of the series. However by the time we got down to serious planning the Trailfinders trip was no longer on their site, but at least it showed that doing the trip was possible.

Getting down to the planning

We came to September last year, the week after getting back from our last holiday. This was when we began to move our general idea to specific plans. The fact that the particular tour was no longer available was, it seems to me, a bonus, I think that the holiday feels much more personal when planned ourselves. So we began to look at a range of options to get from the UK to the two States, and it became clear that the travel process was complex if we tried to go direct. So I suggested to Drew we use San Francisco, an old favourite of ours, as a base from which to fly from and back to the UK before moving on to our main destinations meaning we could use Virgin Atlantic, our favourite airline, for the UK to/from US leg of the journey. 

Trailfinders

At this time, having mapped a possible route and looked at possible dates I looked for help. Given the complexity of travel, I decided to make use of Trailfinders to help book the flights for the holiday.

Trailfinders Cardiff - a great help in the planning process

Though I’ve been doing self-booked holidays since the 1990s these have mainly been flydrive, rather than multiple flights. I was really glad I did choose to do it this way as the core ideas of the holidays became part of the discussion with Paul Jardine at Trailfinders who clarified both where to go in Hawaii and where was worth visiting in Alaska.

Paul Jardine, provided insightful and clear advice - Photo courtesy of Trailfinders website

Paul advised doing two centres in Hawaii, a sightseeing place and a city break, combining the options the islands have to offer. Drew's only guidance/instruction, given the propensity we have had to encounter disasters (earthquakes, floods, fires) on previous holidays, was to stay away from Big Island, which has some active volcanoes. Paul recommend the oldest, and therefore the least prone to live volcanoes, island - Kauai. 

Overview Plan

So after 45 minutes of discussion I left Trailfinders in September with the basic plan of the holiday booked as follows:

Friday 2nd of August - London Heathrow to San Francisco

Tuesday 6th of August - Oakland to Lihue 

Friday 9th of August - Lihue to Honolulu

Monday 12th of August - Honolulu to Anchorage

Tuesday 20th of August - Anchorage to San Francisco

Friday 23rd of August - San Francisco to London Heathrow

or as the Trailfinders App called Viewtrail would have it now we have also added in Car Hire:

The Trip on Viewtrail app
NB - Just remembered to doctor the picture so that the booking references were illegible.
I wouldn't want someone booking in as us!!

So we are about to have five flights with four different airlines and Car Hire in two locations. A great difference from our usual three weeks of driving, but a combination that, I hope will provide a great opportunity to engage with the places we are visiting.

Pop back tomorrow for further reflections on the holiday, especially the more detailed planning that followed the outline above.