I do wish there was such a thing as science of trip planning, but as long as I have enough time, I am content to do things the way I always have. This means I stumble through options and scenarios until a logical plan shows itself. I am now in the middle of travel details for a few
upcoming journeys. This year is turning out to be the.year.of.many.trips, and I am juggling quite a few options.
In mid July I have two guided hiking trips scheduled in Alaska; back-to-back in the Kenai Peninsula and the Arctic North Slope. This
involves a lot of flight connections through Seattle, Anchorage,
Fairbanks, Homer, and my favorite, Deadhorse. Many of the flights are via Alaska Airlines, and they have been making
the process more challenging by changing flight times after I made my reservations, but I think all my plane and hotel reservations are done, at least until I hear from Alaska again.
At the end of October I am traveling to Indochina
and this week I started looking at travel connections. It seems the further
away the destination, the more options show up – but no matter what flight connections I look at, they
all seem to get me into Bangkok around 11:00pm. Probably right when Bangkok
is waking up, but not the best for me. We meet our guides in
Luang Prabang, Laos, but I
have decided to add to the complications by looking up an old school chum
who now lives in Chiang Mai,
Thailand. The
overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai looks like a good option, and reservations seem pretty straightforward so I'll work on that. For a short while I thought about meeting up with our tour by taking the ‘slow boat’ down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, but a bit of research made me realize
that the two days on the river would be hot, crowded, uncomfortable, and very likely dangerous. So I think that experience is going to
be nixed and replaced with a one hour direct flight. Once I meet up with the guided tour we cover a lot of ground so I am especially glad that air connections to Hanoi, DaNang, Ho Chi Minh City and Siem Reap, Cambodia are handled by Country Walkers.
If anyone has narrowed trip-planning down to a science, that would be you, John. Wow! What great trips you're planning. If you're on your own for any time in Thailand, Alex, Philip, Anja, and Julian all know it well and would be happy to pass long the names of restaurants, beaches, whatever. Anja and Julian have also been to Viet Nam and might have some good hints there. Let me know if you want to contact them, and I'll pass along some e-mail addresses. As for Laos, the Dr. Siri books should get you in the mood.
ReplyDeleteYour jealous friend, mmm
Hey John,
ReplyDeleteGuess you must like it, you keep doing it. Our youngest daughter spent three months in the Alaskan wilderness, hiking, summiting numerous peaks, rafting down rivers , fishing for dinner, and finally month sea kayaking when she was 19 or 20. She loved Alaska and came back very strong. She is a dancer and she choreographed the movements of the wildlife into a ballet. I was surprised how rugged she turned out to be-she is pretty girly girly, but they were three months out being only re-rationed a few times by sea plane. I have no travel bug myself, but she is headed to Russia and China this fall on tour with her band. I can't imagine all this travel, but I do enjoy the pictures from my kitchen.