There's No Backing Out Now

The plane tickets have been purchased!

Oh, what a headache that was. I recently heard a report on NPR that people will search for flights an average of 3 hours to save a measly $8 or so. 3 hours would have been easy! I don't even want to discuss how much time I spent searching. I did, however, save something more like $150 for my efforts. Maybe if I just stuck with it, I could have found tickets for free. But I guess the law of diminishing returns would have kicked in at some point.

I wanted to visit my grandparents in New York and Florida before leaving because travel from the islands isn't going to be as easy as travel from Washington (despite being geographically closer). Logically, it would make the most sense to go to New York first, then Florida and fly from Miami to the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI). Miami is a large airport and the closest one in the US to TCI - so one would think it would be the most direct and cheapest. Wrong!

The only flight I could get from Miami routed me through Philadelphia, then Nassua in the Bahamas where I would have a 20 hour layover (!!!), and finally to Providenciales (Provo) in TCI. Also the lower demand in air travel these days has, evidently, caused airlines to cut out some routes - I could not fly from Seattle to Albany with fewer than two connections (three planes). Some options had me on four different planes just to travel that leg of the journey!

Seeing that I would be routed through Philadelphia anyway, I decided to search for flights to Provo from Philadelphia. Turns out they're quite cheap - $262! So now I had a new plan: I'd visit my Leitner grandfather in Florida first, then my Matulis grandmother in New York, then I'd travel to Philadelphia (getting to see Jessee's parents as an extra bonus) before finally making my way down to the TCI. I still couldn't avoid the 3-plane flight from Florida to Albany, but it was cheaper all around this way. Another added bonus, my visit to Florida will overlap with my mom and step-father's visit there, so I'll get to see them too. My itinerary is as follows:

26 June 2009: Seattle -> Florida
1 July 2009: Florida -> Albany
4 July 2009: Albany -> Philadelphia 0n a Greyhound bus (would you believe the bus and plane both take 5 1/2 hours, but the bus is 25% the cost, less stressful, and doesn't require getting there hours early?)
5 July 2009: Philadelphia -> Provo

I still haven't purchased a ticket for the last leg of my journey - a 20 minute "island hopper" plane from Provo to South Caicos - but that's just because the website of airline that provides the service wasn't working. Hopefully, they keep their planes in better condition than they do their website!

Just to emphasize the absurdity of the route I'm taking, I've added a map (including layovers). In all, it's 8 different flights and a bus ride!


View Confused Wanderings on the Eastern Seaboard in a larger map (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&source=embed&msa=0&msid=104781959957579632954.00046a539c1a26e98cfa1&ll=36.809285,-95.800781&spn=67.568977,158.027344&z=3).